March 2010

Readers' Advisor News

An e-newsletter published quarterly by Libraries Unlimited

The Mobile, Social Web: A Strategic Opportunity for Libraries
By Laura Calderone

The Mobile Web has arrived and it's here to stay. Libraries need to — and are beginning to — make services and information, such as making the OPAC and hours, available in a mobile web friendly format. But it's not just about resizing our web pages; the mobile web is the social web. One of the most interesting things happening now is the convergence effect of social media and mobile devices. Libraries should be paying attention—all kinds of new opportunities and venues for engaging with our users are emerging.

The New York Times (February 19, 2010) "The Revolution Has Gone Mobile" reports that there are expected to be 5 billion cell phones in use by mid-2010 — for a global population of 6.8 billion (according to a UN study). Morgan-Stanley's Mobile Internet report, released December 2009, states "The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years." The report also concludes that the introduction of the iPhone in Jan. 2007 will do for the Mobile web what the launch of Netscape browser did for the desktop Internet in 1995.

Increasingly, the social spaces on the web are mobile spaces. The Pew Internet Trust's Mobile Difference report (2009) concludes that "mobile internet use is drawing people further into the digital world." For example, mobile web users are more likely (25%) to be Twitter users than are users accessing the web via desktop (8%) (Pew Report, Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009). And it's not just millennials who are avid users of mobile devices — although a majority of the mobile users in the Pew Mobile Difference Report are under 30, 23% of respondents over 50 are too.

What are libraries doing?

A development principle for the mobile web is that you should design your mobile website or application for the needs of your mobile users; not convert your entire website (although it should be mobile-friendly). Your users' needs depend on your library type, the services you offer, and your community. Common and obvious elements that Mobile Library sites usually include are:

  • Hours & Locations
  • Search (OPAC only usually, a few allow searching of digital collections. Usually, the full functions of the OPAC are available, including access to account features; some libraries have mobile interfaces for the OPAC; others drop the user at the full-web interface, and the user has to resize the display)
  • News or Event Calendars
  • Ask-A-Librarian type services (often list contact info rather than using services built into the phone; not yet standardized)

"M-Libraries - Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki" is a good resource that includes a list of libraries offering mobile interfaces or applications (though focused a bit more on academic libraries as of this writing). Gary McKiernan's blog "Mobile Libraries" is another resource for keeping up with the news and watching the trends emerge (and it's available by blog, Twitter and Facebook). Publishers and vendors are starting to provide mobile interfaces for their products, too. There are few published studies on what users expect and want from mobile library web sites. A study at Kent State University finds that students do want to do beginning library research on mobile devices (Seeholzer & Salem, 2010, preprint). What might leisure readers want?

How can we use the new convergence space of Mobile and social media for reader's advisory and to support our readers?

Have you used Facebook or Twitter on your phone or handheld? Try it! Facebook (MySpace, and You Tube) quickly adapted for mobile, but Twitter was actually created for handhelds. Wonder where Twitter's 140 character limit came from? In 2006, Twitter was developed as a service to use SMS (text) messaging; messages longer than 160 characters were split into two by the cell carriers at the time. Twitter was launched for the web, but really took off after the introduction of the iPhone in Jan 2007. If you don't "get" Twitter, try using it on your mobile device. Follow some interesting people - and libraries - and see how they use it.

Listed here are some interesting examples of what libraries are doing — obviously building on existing practices. We are in the early stages, and are still figuring out how to use the new social tools for RA. Note that the initiatives are not just mobile or social, but reside in the convergence space. And the convergence space is often used to push our users to the main website.

Mobile Web Development

A mobile web presence doesn't have to be hideously expensive or only for the techno-gods. You can actually do a decent, basic mobile site with basic HTML and reach out to your users with Twitter and/or Facebook. If your library is active on the social sites, you are reaching out to your mobile users. To interact with users on your site, or develop an iPhone app, you'll need programming resources. There are some good open source toolkits available for mobile web development (see resources). The HTML 5 draft standard includes many new features that support the mobile web, so it should get easier over time. Start with your community in mind, and remember that you don't need to present your entire web site, org chart and all, on your mobile site. Keep in mind Brian Fling's (2009a) New Rules for Mobile Web Development:

  1. Don't Put Constraints First
  2. Focus on Context, Goals, Needs and Users
  3. Don't Convert, Create

Providing a mobile interface for the OPAC is probably the biggest challenge for most libraries. Your ILS vendor likely has a module for this. You can use a service; the startup Boopsie has a good, easy to use platform that includes a mobile interface for your OPAC; see WorldCat Mobile (http://www.worldcat.org/mobile/) and Los Gatos Public Library (http://www.town.los-gatos.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=1620) (As of Mar. 2010, I am unaware of competitors to Boopsie.) LibraryThing has announced Library Anywhere (http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2010/01/library-anywhere-mobile-catalog-for.php)

David Woodbury and Jason Casden presented a highly-recommended webinar "Library in Your Pocket: Strategies and Techniques for Developing Successful Mobile Services". (Archive available at http://www.educause.edu/Resources/LibraryinYourPocketStrategiesa/195003.) It's appropriate for both average librarians and techno-gods. It has enough detail for both audiences.

Conclusion

Our users are in the new convergence space and we need to be there too. Increasingly, libraries are there, whether we're part of large publics like New York Public Library (http://m.nypl.org/) or initiatives like the smaller scale outreach-based services described above. Is your library taking advantage of the opportunities of these new developments? We'd love to hear from you. What is your library doing? Or, if you pretend you have no constraints, what could you do? How do you think we can use the new convergence space?

Resources for the Mobile Web & Libraries

Works Cited

Laura Calderone is Managing Editor, Libraries Unlimited and Manager, e-Resource Management Systems at the University of New Mexico. She has an MS in LIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2007). The staff of RA News would like to hear what your library is doing. Contact us at ranews {at} lu.com.