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Mobile app shop Boopsie has announced the Boopsie Star Program, which will help library vendors increase the visibility of their own mobile apps by making them available through library-branded Boopsie mobile portals. Boopsie apps already offer one-click access to vendors including Overdrive, Mango Languages, Tutor.com, Credo Reference, EBSCO, Gale/Cengage Learning, Recorded Books, and Library H3lp.
There are now more mobile phone subscriptions than there are people in the United States, and U.S. citizens—particularly young people—have rising expectations for mobile services offered by both commercial businesses and public institutions, according to “The State of Mobile Connectivity,” a keynote address by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, at the 7th Handheld Librarian online conference on Wednesday. Citing data from a Pew study released earlier this year, Rainie noted that 17 percent of U.S. consumers now use a mobile phone or smartphone as their primary or exclusive point of access to the internet. For young people, minority groups, and households earning less than $50,000 per year, the rate is significantly higher.
Using cell phones to explore websites that are not optimized for mobile devices can be a frustrating experience. Libraries should consider this more than an aesthetic issue, since mobile devices are the primary Internet access point for a growing number of their users. Almost 90 percent of U.S. adults now own a cell phone of some kind, and 55 percent of them use their phones to go online, according to a June report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Seventeen percent of respondents said they do “most” of their online browsing on their phone.
What if every ebook available from Project Gutenberg, along with songs and artwork produced within your local community, could be stored on a flash drive and be distributed wirelessly using a pocket-sized router? This technology is already available through the open source, Creative Commons and GPLv2-licensed LibraryBox project led by Jason Griffey, head of Library IT at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Librarians and others are already using these devices to store and distribute ebooks, music, artwork, and other digital files.
Web developers should prioritize mobile websites over desktop websites, librarians need to design more relevant instructional materials for their users, and the field of experience-based transformational development could have a major impact on the future of educational tools. These were just a few of the topics discussed during the “Top Technology Trends and LITA Awards Presentation,” session last Sunday during the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim.
iVerse, a digital comics distributor, is debuting a library version of its ComicsPlus app, the company announced at ALA, during the inaugural reception for the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Prize for Libraries. The app is the brainchild of Josh Elder, president and founder of the non-profit Reading with Pictures, who will serve as service manager. […]
For ebooks, “true collection development is going to have to wait…until we have more access, if not all access to everything that’s being published,” Anne Silvers Lee, chief of the materials management division of the Free Library of Philadelphia, said during a Saturday panel discussion at the American Library Association’s annual conference in Anaheim this weekend.
In response to feedback from librarians and their patrons, digital content distributor OverDrive will soon roll out several “next generation” features that will make ebooks easier to access and catalog, and will make audiobooks easier to sample and download, according to Steve Potash, president and chief executive officer of the Cleveland-based company. “We are going live with…one new partner and one new service to automate and reduce the time and cost for MARC records,” Potash explained during a June 14 meeting with LJ and SLJ staff.
Freegal has made it easier for library patrons to download their weekly allotment of MP3 files with the launch of new apps for Apple and Android devices, available for free at Apple’s iTunes store and at the the Google Play store. Similar to many ebook platforms, the app allows users to search for their library via zip code, and then enter their library card and PIN number to download music.
3M Library Systems will have representatives discussing new partnerships with INscribe Digital, Smashwords, The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group and the National Book Network (NBN) at next week’s Book Expo America conference in New York, the company announced on May 31. Together, these new partnerships will increase the ebook system’s total list of offerings by more than 100,000, effectively doubling its collection to more than 200,000 titles from more than 300 publishers.
