EDITOR'S NOTES
Smartphones, Tablets, and Who Knows?
by
Dick Kaser
If there’s any wisdom to the crowd, the consensus at various professional meetings I attended this past winter has been that content consumption is moving rapidly to mobile devices, specifically smartphones and tablets.
The trite but increasingly true saying that there’s a mobile app for everything should by no means imply that libraries and their patrons are through with the process of determining how best to either deliver library services to mobile devices or promote the discovery of resources from traditional websites and on-site user interfaces.
This issue of CIL magazine features several interesting case studies about how inventive library technologists are using open source solutions, APIs, and Microsoft’s SharePoint software to improve information discovery.
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Authors Max Berenstein and Demian Katz describe how they collaborated on an app that integrates Villanova University’s library catalog with Elsevier’s SciVerse platform, permitting users to search the academic library catalog and SciVerse content simultaneously.
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Cassandra Shivers shares lessons she learned from developing a library resource discovery app for her public library patrons in Orange County, Fla., using a gaming metaphor for the interface.
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And following up on an article we published in 2010, Randy Tims and Lisa Ennis describe how they implemented Help Central, a site within the Lister Hill Library Collection on the University of Alabama–Birmingham’s SharePoint server.
As always, our columnists have plenty to add, including Terry Huwe’s take on including rich media in mobile apps and Donna Ekart’s tips for making short animations for your website.
I and many of our columnists look forward to seeing you at the Computers in Libraries conference later this month in Washington, D.C.
Until then, enjoy the read.
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
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