Mobile options for online public access catalogs

Abstract

As mobile devices continue to proliferate and become more tightly integrated with our daily activities, a number of libraries have begun deploying customized mobile Web portals and applications to promote accessibility for patrons. Despite rapid growth of these mobile solutions, their novelty has meant relatively little is known about the alternatives and tradeoffs in designing for mobile access to libraries. To investigate these issues, we describe three complementary approaches. First, we report on a content analysis comparing mobile solutions offered by 22 institutions. Next, we present a user survey of university students, staff, and faculty regarding their uses and needs for mobile catalog access. Based on these findings, we describe a prototype mobile application we built to provide mobile access to our own university's library catalog. Overall, we find that libraries have several tiered options that make it simple to provide basic functionality with relatively little effort and deliver a significantly improved user experience in comparison to relying on traditional browser-based solutions.