Idaho Commission for Libraries

You may have heard that Washington DC public library has an iPhone app. But if you aren't familiar with iPhones, you may not know what this means for them and their users.

Smart phones can access websites, so anyone with one can access any library website without a special tool for it. But they get the full browser experience on a tiny screen. Accessing websites this way means scroll and zoom and scroll. Doable for the highly motivated, but often frustrating.

One solution that more and more websites are focusing on is mobile versions of their sites. By some magic, websites recognize when a mobile device requests access and divert the request to their mobile site, which is stripped down and formatted to fit better on little devices. This is a good option, mostly because it can be accessed by any mobile device. It has drawbacks though- - a major one for me is that the text is often small enough to be unreadable for my old eyes.

DC's iPhone app at this point let's you access their catalog, place a hold, and easily find hours and locations. All with highly readable text. The very best thing of all is that they've given the app a creative commons license. Any library can download the code and alter it to be their own, which should bring the cost of entry down to manageable for libraries. Just think- your library - only one touch removed from your users, no matter where they are!

Last year my director and I presented on outreach using voice on cell phones. This year, we held a gadget lab. Next year, I'll bet there will be conference sessions on mobile library websites and iPhone apps. In Idaho! (hopefully with my LIBRI consortium app featured.)

If libraries really want to reach users where they are, we will need to start looking in their pockets at their smart mobile devices. Why wait for the clamor of huge demand? Why not see the future now and be ready to serve our users where they will be?