King Township Public Library’s venture into the mobile app world.

Mark CornellElectronic Services Librarian

King Township is located just north of Toronto along Highway 400.

The King Township Public Library has four branches located in King City, Nobleton, Schomberg and Ansnorveldt.

40% of the population is between the ages of 25-54 and 33% of the population is under 25 years old.

In 2010 our website and catalogue recorded over 74,000 visits.

King Township Public Library was one of the first adopters of wireless access for public users.

Our Tech Plan lays out a vision for where we are and where the Library wants to be technology-wise.

An App is an application that is accessible using mobile devices.

Use of mobile devices to access web content is steadily on the rise.

In 2009 web usage through mobile devices grew 110%.

The percentage of all web traffic generated by apps is steadily growing.

Apps are used for a myriad of purposes.

There are apps for gift wrapping, beer pouring, imitating lighters at concerts and other more ‘worthwhile endeavours’.

Some cost money, some are free.

Prior to deciding which direction to take we conducted a survey through our website.

The survey results demonstrated to us that there was interest in an app and what our mobile app should do.

The top results were:

1 – Renew Materials

2 – Check Library Catalogue

3 – Check Hours of Operation

4 – Find nearest library branch

5 – Place Holds on materials

Based on the Survey results we examined our options.

There were two main choices:

1 – Create our own app with an outside company

2 – Join with the Sirsi BookMyne app.

Source: - metrics.admob.com

In the end we decided to be part of the SirsiDynix BookMyne App for iPhones and iPads.

This was based on the results of the survey and the capabilities offered by BookMyne.

Also it was FREE, for us to join.

Assistance was provided by our SirsiDynix Liaison through our membership with the Ontario Library Consortium.

We worked with SirsiDynix to enable us to add our Libraries to the BookMyne system and allow for our catalogue to be searchable.

From our end we had to input:

Our Library’s Branch locations so they would appear on the Map function

Our website address

Hours of operation

Contact information

We went live with the app early summer 2010.

Small problem though.

No one at the Library has a device to view our app!

Solution! – Buy an iPad!

King Township Public Library used local media, library postings and our website in an effort to spread the word about our new app.

Below is the banner we posted on our website.

Our local newspapers were both very helpful in announcing our new service. They both ran news stories on the App.

After the story appeared, we saw a marked increase in interest and use of the service.

The demographics of iPhone users skews young.

Over half of all iPhone users are under the age of 35.

Over 80% of all iPhone users are under the age of 50.

Source: http://metrics.admob.com – January 2010 Report

Our target demographics are heavy users of mobile devices

Mobile phone users are increasingly likely to use an app as opposed to a browsers.

Why?

Many sites are not designed for the small screens of handheld devices.

Use of the King Township iPhone app is difficult to track.

We can track patrons who click on our advertising banners but we don’t know how many people from King Township have downloaded the application. Statistics that are limited to geographical area are hard to come by.

Implementation saw some minor issues.

We had some trouble getting our catalogue to display properly.

Staff users were unable to login to their accounts. This was a glitch in the system that only affected staff profile users. All other users were unaffected.

SirsiDynix was helpful and prompt in addressing these issues.

Some fixes required a system reset which occurs nightly so it sometimes took a day to determine if the problem was corrected.

SirsiDynix has introduced version 2.0 for BookMyne.

Updates to promotional items were required.

User response has been uniformly positive

"I really like being able to search for a book and put a hold on it anytime I want, so that if someone recommends a book I can put it on my list and not have to worry about forgetting it the next day. It's also great to be able to renew my books so easily because I'm constantly on the go.” – King Township Public Library BookMyne User

King Township’s venture into the world of Library apps has been interesting and rewarding.

It is a great new way to reach library users.

The SirsiDynix BookMyne app fit our goals and needs for an app and has been a welcome addition to our Electronic Services at King Township Public Library

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