On January 23, during the 2012 American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, the ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and the Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) announced three public library systems and one high-school library as the winners of its annual contest for projects using “cutting-edge technologies in library services.”
A joint OITP and LITA subcommittee serving under the OITP’s Program on America’s Libraries for the 21st Century called for nominations last November. Rochester Hills Public Library, MI, director Christine Lind Hage chaired the selection subcommittee. OITP will host a program at the ALA Annual Conference in June in Anaheim, CA, showcasing the four projects, according to the announcement.
The winners announced were:
- Contra Costa County Library (CCCL), CA, for Snap & Go, its mobile site that uses QR codes to help patrons access electronic content and other services. The library’s mobile site usage has increased 16 percent since Snap & Go was implemented, according to the announcement. (As LJ has reported, library software developer Quipu Group worked with CCCL on Snap & Go, which received a $60,000 Bay Area Library and Information System [BALIS] grant in 2009. Last March, CCCL announced that it had received a $45,000 BALIS grant to co-develop Discover & Go, a consortia-based virtual museum-pass system, with Quipu Group.)
- New Canaan High School Library, CT, for its Participatory Platforms for Learning Project, which uses Google applications and social media such as Twitter and Facebook to “encourage experimentation with new tools for content creation, publication and participation.” (See more from School Library Journal.)
- The New York Public Library for its Map Warper project, which lets users align historical maps with online maps, “transforming old atlases into interactive spatial environments.” (As LJ has reported, NYPL showcased this technology, then called Map Rectifier, at the ITHAKA Sustainable Scholarship conference in September.)
- Scottsdale Public Library, AZ, for its Gimme Engine, a mobile site that uses the library catalog’s MARC record data and Goodreads reviews by library staffers, among other data, to provide book recommendations. The project was funded in part by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant.
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