Comments on: Using mobile devices to answer enquiries

By: Joeyanne Libraryanne » Library day in the life round 4 - Wednesday

Joeyanne Libraryanne » Library day in the life round 4 - Wednesday — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:47:17 +0000

[...] price (a lot less than I had expected), and can certainly see that it would be useful for roaming (something I mentioned in an earlier post). I can also imagine that it will be a pretty affordable option for students, and particularly [...]

By: Jo Alcock

Jo Alcock — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:02:22 +0000

Great stuff Katharine, I hope you’re able to get the smartphones soon, looking forward to hearing about your experiences.

Interesting point you make about iPhones being unsupported, I know a number of companies who have changed their business phones from Blackberries to iPhones. Guess Windows Mobile is probably the easiest for an IT department to support if they support PCs.

By: Katharine

Katharine — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:52:50 +0000

Hi Jo,
Happy New Year!
Interesting post, and I will be checking out the links later today.
When I started my new post at Warwick as Enquiry Support Officer, top of my list of things to investigate was smartphones for enquiry provision. I have recently put in a request to LMG to purchase a smartphone for the Library Advisors to trial whilst roving. Hopefully we will get it soon and I will be able to share some real stats and feedback on how it’s working.
Unfortunately we are limited in which handsets we are available to us for order as we have to adhere to the regulations of our IT Services dept, and they can obviously only provide tech support for a limited number of models and we have to go with what is available on the network the university uses for it’s phone contracts. So it looks like the best we could order is the E72 (see http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/nokia-e72?WT.Srch=1 ) which isn’t bad, but isn’t an Iphone.
I hope to have more news about the progress of the purchase recommendation at the start of next week, so I’ll stick a post on the blog when I know more.
Katharine

By: Jo Alcock

Jo Alcock — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:23:06 +0000

Yes, I’ve seen the wands in action, very impressive. I just think it would be good if you could click on a barcode on the OPAC to find out whereabouts the item is now (and even better if you could use virtual reality type app to help you find it!). We were discussing these sort of ideas at MiddleMash in the group who were adding library plans to Google Maps.

By: thewikiman

thewikiman — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:01:35 +0000

Well you can deffo use RFID to locate stuff – you just wave the wand at a group of books and it tells you what’s missing as opposed to what should be there, and similarly you can tell what is there which shouldn’t be… (when I say wave the wand, I am of course using all the technical jargon and not just making it up as I go along… not a wand but a sort of infrared scanner thing)

The question is, would it be logistically possible / practical to harness that for an app?

By: Tweets that mention Joeyanne Libraryanne » Using mobile devices to answer enquiries -- Topsy.com

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:28:20 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jo Alcock, pcsweeney. pcsweeney said: rt @joeyanne blogged Using mobile devices to answer enquiries http://bit.ly/8bkYF3 [...]

By: Jo Alcock

Jo Alcock — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:15:57 +0000

Glad I’m not the only one with drafts sitting in WordPress – I’ve had two posts I was intending to complete for that series which have been sitting in my drafts since early Feb last year!

I thought the same about RFID as I was typing – sadly we don’t yet have RFID but I’m sure in the future it should be a lot easier to locate lost books – we’ll no doubt be saying in 20 years time, “Blimey, do you remember when we used to have to actually go to the shelves to look for lost books?”.

By: thewikiman

thewikiman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:06:57 +0000

Oooh, I actually have a post in a draft state in wordpress, called ‘what are the best apps for information professionals?’… It’s a list of stuff I’ve discovered to be useful but also a request for suggestions; I’ll read your series of posts now.

I’ll probably publish my own post anyway but something I’ve wondered for a while – could an app make use of RFID to locate a misplaced book? I’m sure it must be possible somehow…

By: Jo Alcock

Jo Alcock — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:24:25 +0000

Bright Idea suggestion to get you an Android phone (and iPhone for checking cross-mobile compatibility)?!

By: Ben Elwell

Ben Elwell — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:22:09 +0000

Our OPAC has great retro styling, making great use of tables for it’s layout! Give it another couple of years and it will be back in fashion

If anyone would like to buy me a shiny new Android phone I will happily work on improving our facilities for mobile devices.