mobile websites and apps in academic libraries: harmony on a small scale

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This article was downloaded by: [University Of Pittsburgh] On: 29 April 2013, At: 00:52 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Serials Librarian Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wser20 Mobile Websites and Apps in Academic Libraries: Harmony on a Small Scale Kathryn Johns-Masten & Sanjeet Mann Version of record first published: 08 Apr 2013. To cite this article: Kathryn Johns-Masten & Sanjeet Mann (2013): Mobile Websites and Apps in Academic Libraries: Harmony on a Small Scale, The Serials Librarian, 64:1-4, 206-210 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2013.760422 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

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This article was downloaded by: [University Of Pittsburgh]On: 29 April 2013, At: 00:52Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Serials LibrarianPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wser20

Mobile Websites and Apps in AcademicLibraries: Harmony on a Small ScaleKathryn Johns-Masten & Sanjeet MannVersion of record first published: 08 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Kathryn Johns-Masten & Sanjeet Mann (2013): Mobile Websites and Apps inAcademic Libraries: Harmony on a Small Scale, The Serials Librarian, 64:1-4, 206-210

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2013.760422

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

The Serials Librarian, 64:206–210, 2013Copyright © Kathryn Johns-Masten and Sanjeet MannISSN: 0361-526X print/1541-1095 onlineDOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2013.760422

Mobile Websites and Apps in AcademicLibraries: Harmony on a Small Scale

KATHRYN JOHNS-MASTENPresenter

SANJEET MANNRecorder

Kathryn Johns-Masten of Penfield Library at the State Universityof New York–Oswego presented on her library’s experience imple-menting a mobile website using the iWebKit framework. Penfieldlibrarians identified user needs, learned from other libraries’ sites,chose a framework compatible with desired devices that fit avail-able resources, and evaluated their site through focus groups andanalysis of usage statistics. Johns-Masten proposed best practices forlibraries considering a mobile site and led a discussion of factorsinvolved in choosing a framework and issues related to technicalsupport of mobile websites.

KEYWORDS mobile devices, smartphones, mobile websites,website design, apps, frameworks

Hands went up around the room when Kathryn Johns-Masten asked atten-dees of her North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) conferencesession whether their libraries already had or were considering implementinga mobile site. According to Johns-Masten, findings from the Pew ResearchCenter’s Internet and American Life Project demonstrate that smartphonesare a part of everyday life, and especially well-suited to information-seekingactivities. Smartphone owners are more likely than other cell phone own-ers to use their devices to interact with media, conduct social networking,and browse the Web for information. Awareness is growing among librar-ians that mobile device users expect libraries to provide a Web presencetailored to tactile interfaces and small screens. However, limited resourcesand a plethora of options can make it difficult for a library to deploy anattractive and functional mobile site. In her session, Johns-Masten describedhow Penfield Library at SUNY–Oswego went about developing a mobileplatform, and then facilitated discussion of best principles that all libraries

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Mobile Websites and Apps in Libraries 207

can incorporate into the design and evaluation processes of their mobileinterfaces.

Like any technology implementation, developing a mobile library web-site requires careful planning. Johns-Masten advised attendees to considerwho the target audience of their mobile website will be, and try to identifythe types of smartphones that the site will need to support. Clearly defin-ing a user population at the outset will save time later when making designchoices that might impact different mobile devices in different ways. Johns-Masten also encouraged attendees to start small and add features to the siteas it proves itself reliable and gains a following. Initially, Penfield librariansonly created mobile pages for library hours, contact information, and mobileaccess to the catalog, databases, and research guides, and then later addedlinks to social networking on Facebook and Twitter. They plan in the futureto add access to digital image collections and materials related to libraryinstruction.

Johns-Masten encouraged librarians to conduct a literature review earlyin the design process and to draw inspiration from the mobile sites ofother libraries (see Recommended Mobile Websites). She particularly recom-mended two issues of Library Technology Reports, “Libraries and the MobileWeb” and “Bridging the Digital Divide with Mobile Services.”1

Audience members were especially interested in the technical require-ments for creating and testing a mobile website. Johns-Masten noted thatboth Penfield Library and SUNY–Oswego as a whole investigated mobilewebsites. The librarians decided to move ahead with an implementationin 2011, while campus Information Technology (IT) took a more deliber-ative course, setting some ground rules (such as the decision not to useCascading Style Sheets [CSS] to render existing pages for mobile browsers)but not establishing a site until later in the year. Tests with utilities, suchas Skweezer, MobiReady, and W3C Mobile OK Checker demonstrated thatmobile browsers could not display the existing library website correctly (seeRecommended Compatibility Testing Tools). A dedicated mobile interfacewas required. With limited staff time and technical expertise, Penfield choseto create their pages in the iWebKit framework. iWebKit was free and opensource, was compatible with their desired smartphone platforms, came witha simple user guide and required only basic Hyper Text Markup Language(HTML) knowledge. Johns-Masten noted that attendees have other options(see Recommended Frameworks), including Boopsie, Springshare MobileSite Builder, Google Mobile Site Builder, or simply building a mobile sitefrom scratch using HTML5 and CSS. Penfield rejected these options due tocost or limited ability to customize, although they might work for librarieswith a different set of requirements.

To get feedback on the newly designed pages, Penfield Library turnedto its student advisory group and other users on campus. Johns-Masten rec-ommended testing changes on all desired smartphone platforms at once,

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208 Program Sessions

before and after making the change. Attendees brought up the issue oflibrarians not having access to smartphones to conduct testing themselves.One librarian noted that her campus technology coordinator bought aused iPad and iPod explicitly for staff testing purposes; other attendeesreported having to pester colleagues to lend them their personal phones.Johns-Masten said that in addition to the focus groups conducted by herlibrary, she felt comfortable asking faculty or students she was working withto check out a new feature and tell her what they thought. The ques-tion of whether to expose users to untested tools such as a brand-newmobile interface from a database vendor triggered further discussion: Wasthe risk of leaving students with a perception that the library site “doesn’twork” worth the risk of not engaging students with innovative technology?Johns-Masten concluded that the issue is multifaceted, depending on one’sperspective: reference librarians want everything to work for the user all thetime; technical services librarians often want to offer as much functional-ity as possible; while vendors and librarians in a technical support capacityare aware they will be responsible for providing help if something goeswrong.

Penfield Library did a soft launch of its mobile website during thesummer of 2011. Marketing was minimal, but the rest of the campus waswatching eagerly, considering the library’s experience as a beta test forthe campus-wide mobile site to come. Usage was low at first, but pickedup considerably once the university mobile site went live (with a differentframework). Since then, Penfield librarians have monitored usage, rankedpages based on the frequency of visits, and continued to make incrementalimprovements to the interface and consistency of vocabulary on the mobilesite. Recent discussions included the possibility of using quick response (QR)codes in library displays to direct viewers to book reviews of displayeditems, or adding links to faculty instructional podcasts—something that couldparticularly benefit distance learners at Oswego’s Metro Center.

While Penfield librarians were able to provide mobile access to theirlibrary website on their own, they needed to work collaboratively to com-plete their library’s Web presence with access to the catalog, databases, andresearch guides. Ex Libris provided a mobile interface to their Aleph cata-log that required additional customization. Technical support was unable toresolve the problem, but another librarian belonging to the Ex Libris usergroup supplied code that worked. Johns-Masten noted that most databasevendors now provide a mobile interface, and some even provide dedicatedmobile usage statistics or allow libraries to customize functionality from theiradministrative website. She highlighted Boston College Libraries and RutgersUniversity Libraries as examples of sites that effectively presented access tomobile-capable databases through an A–Z list.2 Of course, the positive ofeasy access for users comes with a negative of increased complexity for staffwhen database Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) change. “Here’s another

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Mobile Websites and Apps in Libraries 209

A–Z list we have to maintain, potentially,” Johns-Masten observed with asigh. Nevertheless, she and other attendees who had implemented mobilewebsites at their libraries agreed that the goal of “small-scale harmony”among desktop and mobile devices was worth the extra effort.

RECOMMENDED READING

Travis, Tiffani and Aaron Tay. 2011. “Designing Low-Cost Mobile Websites forLibraries.” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science andTechnology 38, no. 1 (2011): 24–29, doi: 10.1002/bult.2011.1720380109

RECOMMENDED MOBILE WEBSITES

State University of New York–Oswego: http://m.oswego.edu/SUNY Oswego Penfield Library: http://www.oswego.edu/library/mobile/index.htmlRochester Institute of Technology Libraries: http://library.rit.edu/m/University of North Carolina Libraries: http://www.lib.unc.edu/m/North Carolina State University Libraries: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/m/University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Library: http://m.library.illinois.edu/Nashville Public Library: http://m.library.nashville.org/Tularosa Public Library Map: http://www.tularosapubliclibrary.org/map.htmlKansas State University Hale Stacks Guide: http://www.lib.k-state.edu/help/

stacksguide/

RECOMMENDED COMPATIBILITY TESTING TOOLS

Skweezer: http://www.skweezer.comMobiReady: http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_ENW3C Mobile OK Checker: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/

RECOMMENDED FRAMEWORKS

Boopsie: http://www.boopsie.com/library/iWebKit: http://snippetspace.com/Google Site Builder: http://www.google.com/sites/help/mobile-landing-pages/

mlpb.htmlSpringshare Mobile Site Builder: http://www.springshare.com/mobile/

NOTES

1. Cody Hanson, Libraries and the Mobile Web (Chicago: American Library Association, 2011);and Andromeda Yelton, Bridging the Digital Divide with Mobile Services (Chicago: American LibraryAssociation, 2012).

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210 Program Sessions

2. “Mobile-Friendly Databases,” Boston College Libraries, http://www.bc.edu/sites/libraries/m/db.html (accessed June 18, 2012); and “Mobile Databases,” Rutgers University Libraries, http://m.libraries.rutgers.edu/mobile_db.php (accessed June 18, 2012).

CONTRIBUTOR NOTES

Kathryn Johns-Masten is Electronic Resources/Serials Librarian at the StateUniversity of New York–Oswego.

Sanjeet Mann is Arts & Electronic Resources Librarian at the University ofRedlands.

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