Vendors

How opportune that Thing 22 is eResources and vendor apps, just at a time when we’re reviewing database vendors.

Some electronic resources (eg. databases, eBooks, eMagazines, etc.) are accessible via apps provided by the vendors. This Thing is designed to think about the experience when using vendor apps to access content, knowing that the experience can be variable depending on the device you have, the connectivity in your area and the compatibility of the app. 
It refers to a number of applications, including – Zinio, Mango Languages, EBSCO Host, Axis 360, 3M Cloud Library and OverDrive, just to mention half a dozen.

The Thinking Points are:

• What information do the vendors collect from your clients via the app? – That varies and is dependent of things like their authentication protocols, and whether you are merely searching or actually borrowing.

• What use statistics do you get from vendor apps? – That definitely varies from vendor to vendor, some are just brief raw searches or visits, others show trends, turnovers, and allow some level of interaction to generate particular statistical queries.

• Are clients who use the app easily able to move to other library resources? – Another variable, often the vendor’s app and site are separate, but products like eResource Central aim to bring them all together under one discovery layer, just hurry on the day it all happens.

• How do you evaluate vendor apps before offering them to your clients? – By playing, but also trying to think of all the ways people want to access and look/listen to the resources.

• Which vendor apps could your staff use (e.g. library management system)? – that would be BookMyne

• In what ways does offering core services via apps change the way that the library reaches people? - it is the whole self-service 24/7, and it also changes the way in which people interact with staff.

Sky writing

Now that mobile devices allow you to work almost anywhere, how do you access the files you need? Thing 29 File sharing may be the answer.

Dropbox is a file-hosting service that provides cloud storage and file synchronisation, while also being very mobile friendly.
Skydrive (now OneDrive) is the Microsoft cloud storage service and a range of mobile apps. 
Google Drive  is a personal cloud storage service from Google that works with a suite of web and mobile apps
While Hojoki offers a single access point for a range of file sharing and cloud storage apps including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, Skydrive, Box and Cloudapp.
I've used both Dropbox and Google Drive to send and share files, especially large PowerPoint files with colleagues across the state.
I've even got a company to send me a whole heap of photographs via Dropbox after the USB file was corrupted.
Whatever you choose to use or not use, everyone has to balance the ease and efficiencies against the security and costs.

Time for Thing 18

Have I got time for Thing 18 Productivity apps?
It is about being efficient and effective and some tools on mobile devices can help organise tasks and schedule activities, provide reminders and help with motivation and time management. 

And while I utilise the phone's calendar and alarm, I still carry the old-fashioned paper diary for appointments, notes and various slips of paper, and not just for its Pooh cover.
The Discover task was to check out- Remember the Milk  is a task and time management app. It integrates with Evernote, Gmail, Google Calendar, Siri, and Twitter. You can even email tasks to your Remember the Milk account. You enter your task's properties (due date, priorities, tags, alerts), sync it with all your devices, and get reminded by email, text or Instant Message.
Doodle  is a scheduling tool, for coordinating times for meetings and appointments. It's 'MeetMe' coordinates your meetings with colleagues or friends, it shows them when you are available and how you want to be contacted.
Pomodoro technique is a productivity system that breaks work down into 25 minute chunks to improve concentration. To get the tomato timer you need to buy 8 for 60Euros.
Lift  (now called Coach.me) is a goal setting app, helping you to set goals, monitor progress and tap into support groups.
For me, I prefer my productivity less interferring, is that an oxymoron
unstructured organisation?
 

Quick reads

Mobile Thing 9: QR codes.
I posted about QR codes a few weeks ago (Technology gone wild) and how great they were in the airline business, but I hadn't conceived the range of uses that other people have already adopted.
The smart pjs are...well astonishing.

I've come across QR codes in a variety of situations - on books as in my post "An island in time"; with Munzee scavenger hunts (similar to Geocaching but utilising QR code technology); in shops like Macca's to pre-order your coffee, etc.

I had already loaded some barcode & QR code reading apps to my phone, as well as the Bookwire app (from the Books In Print people) that scans ISBNs AND then adds the bib info to a list for ordering later.
I remember reading that QR codes are being used by the British Museum instead of/in addition to the little exhibit cards. While not as revolutionary as the pj idea, I can see a real role in such an application when you are constrained by how much writing you can fit on a card and how small the font can be; adding audio and/or video to the explanation.

I think the take up of QR codes is still to come.

Time and calendars

The 8th Thing is Calendars - electronic calendars and their uses.

'Explore your phone's calendar app and its alert function'. Yes I do that have even been known to set the second alert for some appointments. 

The calendar on the library's website utilises Google Calendars and has the ability to copy its events to your calendar. 
My emails are via Outlook and Yahoo's Mail app, both with calendar functions.
We use Envisionware's PCRes to book library public computers, great that it also counts down their session time and alerts them when approaching the end of the session (has stopped lots of arguments). In some branches it is coupled with LPTOne print management which  governs printing from the pcs (which has stopped even more arguments resulting from 'accidentally' generated copies). 
Have had experience with ticketing sites like Eventbrite for event registrations that prompt your calendar. 

Then there's a whole array of online calendars you encounter when registering events booking, training, conferences, etc.

The electronic reminder/alert is a great assistance to ring a bell/send a message when something may have slipped by the human calendar.

Yet I think there's still a role for the humble print calendar in conjunction with the electronic - even if it is just for it's art.

Mobile Thing 6 - Videoing things

This Thing covers the use of YouTube and other applications for videoing in libraries, and things generally. 
Having played with some of the other tools Vimeo, and Animoto previously (it was amazing to realise that it was 6 years ago though), I decided to Explore 'YouTube' - Record a video on your mobile device and upload a YouTube video, (I had created a YouTube Account, just hadn't uploaded anything, so now is the chance to do so) and combine it with some of the Thinking Points - local history and library programs and promotion. The result being an information video on the 'Wimmera in Photographs' project.
The video can then be utilised by both staff and the public to familarise them with the scope of the project, it could be on the Digital Photo Frame prior to Collection Days.
So here is the 'Wimmera in Photographs' video from YouTube, via the library's channel.

 

Technology gone wild

Got to embrace some new uses of technology today - well new to me.

The first was the mobile checkin for flights ( I had thought that the email boarding pass was a great leap forward, now this is even better). Just click on the link in your ticketing info confirm a few details and the airline sends you a message with a QR code for your boarding pass no queues no waiting just hold your screen over their scanner at the gate.

For me it was even easier on a 2 person ticket it sent each code to different phones I didn't even need to make the a connection.

The next new tech I encountered was wi-fi on the plane. I can still remember when a mobile phone was likely to bring down a plane by interfering with its electronics, now the planes come equipped with public wi-fi.

And yes, the flight crew couldn't get it to make a connection on the way up, and then on the flight back they needed extra hamsters to spin the speed up (I endeavoured to download an ebook from Bolinda's BorrowBox but it just kept whirling), but hey gotta love the concept each passenger in their own electronic cocoon.

I think anything that can ease the steps involved in passage through the airport is a plus plus.

5. A Thing for Local History

Mobile Thing 5 = Photos + Maps + Apps 
  
 I first tried out HistoryPin when it was in Beta mode a few years ago. It has come on since then with more functionality, but you still don't want to give it too many commands in close succession.

The first task - use the app to take a photo of an old/local building and pin it. I chose the now defunct Nhill Library, and worked through the steps - easy, the effort was the time it spent uploading it from the phone to HistoryPin, ended up clicking on the Stop button and trying via WiFi. It uploaded quickly but only the photo not the information or location, so had to enter that on the pc. 

Playing with the What Was There, loved the image of the Terminus Hotel in Ararat (it is the building at the end of the small street between the YMCA and KFC), fiddling with the fade in street view.

Decided to be a little ambitious and undertake one of the Explore tasks: Create a Tour on HistoryPin. As someone had said earlier, I should do a photo slideshow about Ebenezer, I decided to use it as my theme, if I'd had permission for some of the other historic images it would have been better, so had to settle for ones I'd taken...so here it is - Ebenezer Aboriginal Mission tour just click on the blue 'Take the tour' box.

Mobile Thing 4. Check it out

Up to "Thing 4 - Maps and checking in"
This Thing covers the uses for the GPS function in smartphones and mobile devices that locates your position on a map, and the 'real time' tracking apps (I like the Live Traffic cameras).
One of the Discover tasks was indoor maps of cultural institutions - so i visited the Google Street View, and as I'm going through a sci-fi phase at present, I checked out the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library and particularly liked their merchandising display.

Would really like to see this style of technology for confusing places like airport terminals - get familiar with the layout prior to arriving there.

Log:
"It's not just books that can be found here!"

And "Have you considered geocaching as a library program / allowing interaction with the library as a destination (eg. British Library)?"
Yes we had considered it and unfortunately had to abandon the idea as our location was considered too close to another cache by the Site Administrators, so created a Munzee instead (currently muggled & will work on it after the building works finish).

We have our branches marked on Google maps with a widget on each branch's page, just need to do the same for the Mobile Library sites.
I do prefer the layout and options of the Google Maps app to the default iPhone one, it is interesting to see the different quirks.
Getting my head around Foursquare and 'checking in' for libraries rather than coffee shops! (though I could combine both?!)
The disadvantage of all these apps which refer to your current location, is their battery zapping power.

Mobile Things 3 - emails

Emails, are pretty much indispensable now-days, virtually any business requests your email when signing you up.
Like us, even our eAudio/eBook supplier sends email alerts when your loan's about to expire or your reserve becomes available.
Have had Eventbrite and other similar organisations send me email reminders
For me, I have different emails configured for my different devices, and have used the camera function for a whole variety of uses, including photographing book covers and ISBNs to order later. That is when they don't appear via Bowker's 'Bookwire' app - the app that allows you to scan ISBNs, access book records and add titles to selected lists on the go. I've also added apps that will read both barcode and QR codes on the run.

Mobile Things & photos - 2

The second Thing explores Using mobile devices to take photos. Obviously the camera on your device for capturing still photos and video, and also some of the photo apps for sharing photos and messages like 'Instagram' and 'Snapchat'.

I downloaded the Instagram app just on a year ago, and use it to send photos to distant friends, played with the editing and the filtering.
I hadn't checked out Snapchat which seems to again have the immediacy of chatting, very "now".
Have the Flickr app, just haven't used it to actually take a photo, I'm more inclined to use it to check on my Groups, and Recent Activity.

From the Pinterest Board, checked out the link to '9 interesting ways to use Instagram for your library' which has ideas on promoting what you're doing, advertising events, as using a photo is worth 1,000 words.

Homework - take a photo of a library sign with an app then play with the filters & effects. The Flickr upload initially failed, so here's the Instagram shot.

First Mobile Thing

Ok, I've completed the 'Web 2.0' 23 Things back in 2007, then followed that up with 'Web 2.1' Things 24 to 70 in 2009, now comes the 23 Mobile Things a program to learn  about the potential of mobile things - technologies that are changing the way people, society and libraries access and deliver information and communicate with each other.
The first "thing" is Twitter. I was introduced to Twitter as part of Thing 35-Microblogging. Since then I've spasmodically checked my feed, and currently my count of tweets stands at 91, most of them are now the Twitterfeed RSS feeds from this blog.
To explore this Mobile Thing you need to sign up to Twitter, install the app and tweet about you favourite library or museum.

 Library was too easy so I've chosen museum, and one of my favourites, just 'cos it was such a surprise. The Jeparit Museum (the Wimmera-Mallee Pioneer Museum) was so much more than I anticipated, it has a varied collection of buildings, lots of machinery, and collections of the stock and trade (bottles, antique & historic home-wares, farm tools, etc). What is different is the set out - a collection of medical equipment in the old Chemist shop building, Sporting & club memorabilia in the Hall building, the school and homestead both set up as if still in operation.

The sheer volume of items that have been donated is staggering. The showcase piece is the Albacutya Homestead which was dismantled and re-erected at the site, but seeing the fully finished Detpa school virtually as the students would have left it in 1953 was amazing.

Back to Twitter, and its role in libraries? Yes it has immediacy for short messages - 
The Mobile Library has broken down and won't be visiting today,  
or advertising storytime/holiday activities, for people who are checking their accounts regularly. But personally I prefer the look & feel of Facebook to fulfill that role.