userslib.com

Besides actual mobile versions of websites, there are also ways to improve interaction through mobile-friendly features. One way is to allow users to text or email a book’s information from the library catalog to their mobile phone. Not only does this create a better user experience, it also cuts down on unnecessary printing of catalog record pages.

Georgia Tech Library (vufind)

Tri College Libraries

Morris Library at Southern Illinois University

Ryerson University

WorldCat.org

Plymouth State University Library Catalog (Scriblio)

See also – my flickr set of Library OPACs & Mobile-Friendly Features

Ok, so I just got an iPhone (yay me!) and now I’m totally obsessed with mobile interface design. I’ve been looking at a variety of mobile interfaces so I thought I’d share some here.

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!

Some great web site coding advice from the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper)

LOLcats is so 2007… Now it’s all about the LOL manuscripts!

[LOL Manuscripts | via NotCot]

The Future of Books

Here’s an interesting student project by Kyle Bean (illustrator, designer and maker of ‘things’)

[link | via notcot]

Asterick Bookends

By Blank Project

[link | via swissmiss]

Nicholas Jones

[via the Design Files | see also]

I was talking to some folks today about our library website redesign plans and various web design trends…

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?

The Powerhouse Museum in Australia has just joined the Library of Congress to be the second member of the Commons on Flickr.

And BTW – Seb Chan’s Powerhouse blog Fresh + New(er) is one of my favorites and a fantastic source for interesting discussions about digital media, access systems, interface design, tagging and web2.0. I also love their opac/online collections site (really, it’s super cool, go play with it).

More info here:

• Flickr Commons
• Flickr blog post
• Fresh + New(er) blog post

If you could only have one single feature on your library web page… what would it be?

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?

Over at the del.icio.us blog, there’s a post about how they’ve noticed that librarians & educators are using delicious in interesting ways.

Over the past year or two, I’ve been delighted to notice educators and librarians embracing Delicious both as a way to share bookmarks with each other and a way to help their students and patrons learn. This makes perfect sense to me as a college student because I bookmark and tag references for all my projects and I’d love to see similar collections from my professors and classmates.

I don’t know who first realized the potential of Delicious for education, but I’ve seen a huge amount of community documentation created by teachers and librarians to help each other understand what this place is, why it’s valuable, and how to use it.

See full post for list of resources about librarians and delicious!

Harper Collins Publishers just released a free book viewer.

“Try before you buy”

[Link to HC portal | found via Mashable]