Tim Spalding

Founder, LibraryThing

“Mobile Choices”and

Library Anywhere

Goals

• Explore the key “mobile decisions”• Show Library Anywhere

( libanywhere.com )

What is LibraryThing?

• Personal cataloging• Social network for book lovers• 1.6 million members

What is LibraryThing for Libraries?

• A way to enhance your existing cataloglibrarything.com/forlibraries

What is Library Anywhere?

• A mobile version of your catalog– Available for most OPACs

• New: Axiell• Talis: Looking for a first library

– Available on web and native apps.– Works just like your catalog– Cheap

Quick demo

Tim's Principles of Library Technology

• Don’t go mad– QR codes

• Develop if you can

• Buy as if you could develop

• Favor off-the-shelf solutions

• Favor open source

However…

But… Mobile is Hard

• Apps are hard

• Mobile web isn’t easy

• Multiple devices, fragmentation

• Hoops

• Open Source is limited

Key Mobile Decisions

• Native app or mobile web

• Branded to you or shared/common

• Duplicate back-end system or use existing

Native App or Mobile Web:Upsides of a Native App

• Sexy

• Spot in the app stores

• Take advantage of device features (eg., scanning, offline storage)

• Can be faster

Native App or Mobile Web:Downsides of a Native App

• The ”bad old day" way of doing software

• Multiple devices, fragmented devices

• Approval and re-approval

• Expensive!

Native App or Mobile HTML:Upsides of Mobile Web

• No need to download app.

• Less buggy

• MUCH cheaper to build

• MUCH cheaper to maintain

Which approach did we take?

The Hybrid Approach

• Core is mobile web, with optional app shell

• Works from the web

• Develops like the web, mostly

• Available in app stores

• Native features available in native apps.

Branded to You or Shared/Common?

• Your app vs. a shared solution– Branding– Customization– Extra development effort– Possible network effects

Again, we do both!

Branded to You or Common?

Duplicate Back-end System or Use Existing?

• The duplicate approach– Strengths– Weaknesses

• Use existing– APIs– “Screen scraping”

Enter “The Matrix”

What this means…

• Abstraction avoids the perils of “screen scraping”

• Abstraction is powerful– Two examples…

And

• A quick overview…

Thank you.

Tim Spalding

tim@librarything.com@LibraryThingTim

LibraryThing.comLibraryThing.com/forlibrariesLibanywhere.com

Here all afternoon.

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