It offers standard features like catalog search, locations & hours, etc., but also allows you to view a map of where available computers are and webcams of the libraries including the line at the coffee shop. Love it.

Read about the interface: www.lib.ncsu.edu/m/about.html
View a demo of the site: www.lib.ncsu.edu/m/home/?browse=iphone

They also made a fun video to promote it:

Congrats to NYPL for the beta release of a fantastic NYPL mobile website!

They call it a “very rough beta” but I didn’t see anything rough about it. Not only does it do a great job in providing key information (browse events, contact information, library locations, hours, & directions) in an easily navigable way but it also has a mobile-friendly way to begin a search of the collections (they’re still working on making all of their catalogs mobile-friendly). I particularly like that they managed to include branding and style that is consistent with the rest of their web presence… just because something is scaled down doesn’t mean it can’t have style.

See the NYPL Labs blog post by Michael Lascarides for more information about the interface and some of the work that went into it.

DCPL iPhone app

I’m also late in congratulating the DCPL on their cool Catalog iPhone application. You can read more about it at Aaron Schmidt’s walking paper blog and the DCPL Labs iphone page.

See also my flickr collection of mobile library interfaces.

I started with libraries that offer mobile versions of their library website. I’m also collecting Mobile OPACs, databases and non-library interfaces – so I’ll share those another time. Thanks to Superpatron for gathering a list of mobile versions of library web sites that I used as my starting point.

I’ve noticed that many of the mobile versions of library websites are basically lists of links (a few allow searching) that have no applied style. This seems to work most of the time. However, on the iPhone at least, some were a little difficult to use. Most of the interfaces required that I zoom in to read, click links, enter a search, etc. Ideally a mobile interface should actually be designed specifically for mobile devices… and when possible, designed specifically for various types of mobile devices. Now, as a quick disclaimer, I’ve only looked at these on the iPhone so they may function and look completely different on other devices.

My favorite interface I found was from the Yale Medical Library because it has obviously been designed with the specific needs of the mobile user in mind. I didn’t have to zoom, the search box and each link is styled to be easily clickable and it fit my screen perfectly.

Here are screen shots of more or less all the ones I’ve found so far (I found a few more but they were fairly identical to another one I already had). Let me know if there are others I missed!

One of the topics of conversation was the big footer trend. Our web designer described it as kind of a “mullet” (you know, business in front, party in back) because it lets you devote all the main screen real estate to serious content and then put all the fun stuff (like news & events, flickr images, featured/spotlight content, etc.) hanging out at the bottom.

The University of Louisville has a nice example of a big footer:
http://louisville.edu/

The group had mixed feelings about this web trend. What do ya’ll think?

Search, right? Except library searches don’t usually work like Google (yet)… That doesn’t mean library websites should hide their search boxes, all tucked away in the corner.

Here are a few lovelies I thought I’d highlight. I tried to stick mostly to search boxes that let the user choose which “silo” to search (so, more than just a web page search or catalog search) but a few single searches were worth including.

University of Virginia Library
Now that’s a dedication to giving up some screen real estate! It won’t even fit in my blog template. I bet this one doesn’t get missed. It also has a fresh “2.0″ feeling (as does the rest of the site). Oh, and one of the tabs is for Google Scholar… interesting!

British Library
The search box is in a very prominent location, and it’s very clear about what is being searched. The little descriptions of what each search option includes is a fantastic idea and I bet does a lot to solve those pesky terminology problems.

Free Library of Philadelphia
I’m not actually sure I like how you have to select the box to do a site search only… (I’d prefer it not have the message above about what’s being searched and instead have select boxes below that say “catalog,” “databases,” and “site search” and all are selected by default). However, I find their overall design irresistible and I appreciate that the “FIND” area is a good 1/3 of the main body content!

University of North Carolina Libraries
When you select a different tab – the options under the text box change. Nicely designed and seems easy enough to use.

Vancouver Public Library
Catalog search only, but I really like how well it’s integrated into the overall site design. Very simple, yet still stands out.

Yale University Library
This is the most simple example but simple is sometimes hard to do. It has a good amount of white space around it that helps set it out from the rest of the site.

I found a few more nice onces – All are in my Search Box flickr set.

Any suggestions for other sites that have a nice, big search box?

How cool is that?

More about MTagger

[Library Web Survey Fall 2007 Results & Preliminary Analysis]

update: link updated

We’re not including any judgments in this report because we don’t have any data about how successful these libraries are – it’s merely a comparison. I’m sure there are many other libraries that have enticing graphics or wordings that we missed so suggestions are welcome.

Link to pdf of comparison chart (courtesy of the Usability Working Group).

To help with this, I’ve started a flickr account to collect Library Designs. I started with about 20 of my favorite library websites and took screen shots of the home page and a second level page.

For my first themed set, I picked out the sites that prominently link to their library’s email or chat reference services. I’ll formally report on this later.

I’ll add to this as topics come up. If anyone has suggestions for nice library websites, opacs, or digital library interfaces – I’m open to suggestions!

User’s Lib Flickr Design Library

The survey is geared to UM affiliates and we’re giving away 3 $50 gift certificates to encourage folks to fill out the whole (24 question) survey. Sorry – only UM folks are allowed to submit for the prizes.

So if you’re at UM (or use any of the UM libraries) – please take our survey!

I plan to post the results when I have them.