[February 05, 2013]

iPhone, Android, or Kindle [Computers in Libraries]

(Computers in Libraries Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The Emma S. Clark Memorial Library Has an App for That and So Can You WORKING OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY WALLS, COUPLED WITH OUR DETERMINATION TO BREAK THE LIBRARY MOLD, WE WERE ASSURED THAT NOTHING WAS GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF OUR CREATIVITY.

If you are like the millions of people buying the latest smartphone, iPhone 5, or Samsung Galaxy S III, your local library should have something to offer you. The Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, for one, has an app for that! And so can you. Dubbed "Emma Mobile," the library's application works with iOS (Apple), Android (Google), and Amazon Kindle Fire devices.

With Emma Mobile, you can 1) scan an ISBN and automatically search the library's catalog to see if we own it, 2) place a hold on the item, 3) auto-log in to search ordine databases and check your account, 4) request notifications about items on hold, fines, and card renewal, 5) search the library catalog by category, 6) view the library calendar of events, 7) get turn-by-turn directions to the library, 8) complete one-touch phone calls, and 9) send email to the library.

The app has been successfully deployed and installed for the past year to fantastic reviews and experiences by patrons. It recently saw an upgrade that will allow for OverDrive ebook integration and a digital library card in early 2013.

The Seed of an Idea Most libraries would consider the concept, development, and implementation of their own mobile apps as a huge undertaking, requiring large quantities of staff and development time to be devoted to this single project. At the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, where we are employed, we took the attitude instead that this type of project was just "business as usual," and as such, we would make the time for it. We decided we would work it into our routine and take it one step at a time. It did, however, wind up being somewhat extracurricular.

The first step was to Set our heads around the concept. Stated as a set of objectives, we wanted to develop an application that truly placed the library and its available services right in the pockets of our patrons; bridge the gap between the physical and the digital library by offering the "library as a service," all in one place; and make that service universally available on the market's most popular mobile devices.

The second step was to get our feet on the ground. Our minds were racing. We knew we wanted to call it Emma Mobile, but we also knew we didn't want it to be just a typical cookie-cutter mobile app. We knew it would include the basics - heck, we could even buy that package - but what would make this app different If it was actually going to thrust our library into the next generation of mobility, it would need to offer the "patron experience" in a new way. When we stumbled upon the tagline "a library in your pocket," we knew we had found our end game. We knew it was something we could wrap our heads around. We thought it was something everyone could get excited about.

But what was a library in your pocket exactly Was it something that patrons would even want And how were we going to implement it Finding a programmer who shared our vision and passion was going to be key to the success of the project. Michael Berse from Dynalib Consulting, LLC proved to be our guy.

Take Your Thinking Outside and Your Development On-the-Fly Why is it that the best ideas seem to emerge from the most unlikely places or in the spots that are totally removed from our routine existence We quickly found that in order to think outside the box, we needed to get outside our library's physical box and do our brainstorming off-site. By congregating at local diners - outside the day-to-day pressures and timelines of our regular jobs - the three of us were able to see things anew and develop with an open mind. Working outside the library walls, coupled with our determination to break the library mold, we were assured that nothing was going to get in the way of our creativity.

Our development meetings typically took place in the evening, apart from the grind of our daily routines. Once we had a general idea as to what the app would look like in its first release, we decided to develop quickly and add incrementally. We would produce iterations rather than end products. We would develop, test, and discard or refine.

We offered staff members the opportunity to volunteer to be beta testers for our iterations of the application, but just as importantly, we asked them and their colleagues to join us in tliinking outside the box and to serve as advisors for the project. The ideas came flooding in from all directions: scan an ISBN and check for local library availability; provide emergency and opt-in notifications and program reminders; automatically sign in to library services. With all these new ideas flowing, you would have thought we needed to form a committee to get anything done. But quite the opposite was true. With our -team formally established, we just needed to focus the ideas in the right direction and start building.

As development moved on, the Ateam spent more time in diners over an exhaustive amount of coffee. In fact, in preparation for a presentation at a session on mobile applications at the 2012 Computers in Libraries conference, our developer spent nearly 14 hours on the floor of a hotel room coding new features that we wanted to demonstrate to the audience.

We ended up with a group of about 10 testers, each of whom was at least fairly tech-sawy, a condition that helped us avoid doing any primary training for the group. Dynalib set up an online trouble ticket system that all testers could access to report incidents or bugs. Each submission and response was viewable to all testers, so we all knew where we stood on reported issues. Overall, the testing process went quite well. Dynalib was very responsive to all of our reported issues, and most problems were fixed within a day or so.

Rolling It Out Right When the time came to go public, we wanted to promote our app as something completely new and exciting for the library, and we decided to market it aggressively. We engaged a graphics consultant to help us come up with logos, icons, and other marketing materials such as bookmarks and banners. We also tried to excite some interest beforehand by including a brief "coming soon" article in our newsletter and on our website.

Once the app was officially released, our patrons took to it right away. For easier access to the app, we included a QR code on the bookmarks that, when scanned with a supported mobile device, would take patrons directly to the appropriate app store for their devices. Within the first 2 weeks, the app was downloaded more than 400 times. The breakdown was about 84% installed on Apple devices and 16% on Android devices.

A few months after its initial release, we added our next major upgrade to the app - support for Amazon Kindle Fire devices. Our third major upgrade, which is due out soon, will also include support for Barnes & Noble NOOK tablets.

So far, our patrons have indicated that a couple of their favorite features are the Scan ISBN function and the notifications capabilities. The Scan ISBN function allows users to use their cameraequipped mobile devices to scan ISBNs, and the app will automatically search our library catalog to see if we own it. If so, the patron can place a hold on the item immediately.

Our mobile app includes several types of notifications that users can choose to receive. For example, the app will automatically notify users when an item they have on hold becomes ready for pickup. It will also let them know in advance when their library cards are due to expire, and it allows the library to broadcast important messages to all users.

The latter feature came in especially useful recently during Superstorm Sandy. The library itself was without power and data connection for about a week, and there was scant opportunity to keep our patrons informed about the status of the library. However, the broadcast notification system built into our app uses a cloud-based back end. This enabled the library director to use his iPad remotely to log on to the console and broadcast messages to all of the mobile app users at one time, keeping them informed as to what was happening.

Managing on a Dime From a management perspective, an important prerequisite was the ability to get the project done with limited resources. Our New York state government had recently passed a tax cap law that placed a legal limit of 2% or the rate of inflation (whichever is less) on increases in property taxes. Our library gets the overwhelming majority of its funding through local property taxes. All the while, costs for funding pension plans, employee health insurance, and other products and services were going up at a rate much greater than 2%.

Although it would have been nice to have had a full-time software developer on staff, we simply did not have all of the resources in-house that would have allowed us to fully develop the app. In the end, we did manage to accomplish our task on a limited budget. Aside from the library director, the other two primary players in the development of the app were a part-time network administrator and an outside developer. The fact that the library director came from an IT background meant that we all spoke the same language, and we all had a thorough understanding of the technical aspects involved. The partnership worked because we were all on the same page, and we could communicate freely and easily among ourselves.

Friendly Words of Advice A question we often get asked is, "How did you find the time to develop such an involved project " The answer is that we didn't. Our philosophy for the development of the product was to move quickly and in small increments. We started with the basics and kept adding features as we went along. We would definitely recommend that any library considering taking on such a project do the same. Don't worry if you don't have all of your ideas worked out just yet. Go with something that is basic but stable and get it out there. From that point forward, it's relatively easy to add new features as you go along. Plus, it gives users something to look forward to and keeps the application fresh. We have ideas that will make our app look very different from what it looks like today. Those are our goals. Goals are a good thing to have, but don't get caught up in the details.

The other bit of advice we would offer is to look to your existing organization and network of contacts. There may be some hidden gems in there that you didn't even know about. For example, once we got going with the advertising of our project, we discovered that we had an in-house librarian with a talent for graphic design. We intend to take advantage of this down the road. If the talent doesn't exist in your organization, it's worth seeking talent among your network of colleagues outside your organization. For example, the developer we used had previously worked in a library in our area, and we knew of him from our involvement with professional library associations in our local area.

Bottom Lines Clearly, mobile technology is more than just a fad; it is very much the future. Furthermore, the advances being made in mobile technology are happening at a frighteningly rapid pace. Witness the stumbles of some of the mainstays of the technology world such as Facebook, HP, and Intel, just to name a few, that have found themselves caught out by the advance of mobile technology. We realized that in order to remain relevant, our library needed a mobile presence.

Mobile devices are more personal than desktop computers, i.e., mobile devices allow us to address our patrons at a much more personal level. We can communicate with them one-on-one on devices that they carry with them all day long, no matter where they are. We look at our mobile app not as a stopgap but as the foundation of what we believe will be the future of library technology services. We are at a very early stage right now (similar to where websites were in the late '90s), but we know that, as we continue to build and add to our mobile applications, we will remain an important asset to our community.

"Emma Mobile" has been successfully deployed to fantastic reviews by patrons.

The motto says it all; havinq the app is like having a library in your pocket.

The authors show off an array of mobile devices that are compatible with the library's mobile app.

When we stumbled upon the tagline 'a library in your pocket,' we knew we had found our end game. We knew it was something we could wrap our heads around. We thought it was something everyone could get excited about.

How Emma Mobile Puts the Library in Your Pocket At the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library in Setauket, N.Y., library director Ted Gutmann and IT manager Bob Johnson joined forces with outside consultant Michael Berse to create Emma Mobile, an app that would literally place the library in the pockets of library patrons.

App uses can turn notifications off or on, a feature that has proved quite popular among users.

The app's top screens focus on searching and finding. Users can also simply scan a book's bar code to find out if a copy is available from the library.

Coming soon: digital library cards Don't worry if you don't have all of your ideas worked out just yet. Go with something that is basic but stable and get it out there. From that point forward, it's relatively easy to add new features as you go along.

Bob Johnson lbobraemmaclark.org) is the manager of information and technology services at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library. Bob is also chairperson of the Computer and Technical Services committee of the Suffolk County Library Association. His goal is to make use of technology to bring library services to a new and ever-increasing level.

Ted Gutmann (tedraemmaclark.org) is currently director of the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library in Setauket, N.Y. Ted has worked for several libraries of different types over the past 23 years, primarily in IT capacities.

(c) 2013 Information Today, Inc.

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