End of project survey – methods to support current and future m-library initiatives
This is part of a series of blog posts on the end of project fact finding survey.
Respondents were asked to indicate from a pre-determined list the methods that they would use to support current and future m-library initiatives in their library/information service. Most respondents plan to use a selection of sources, including (in order of popularity):
- Keeping up-to-date with mobile technology
- Case studies
- Attending and following events
- Reading/following existing research
- Sharing and reading information via social media
- Library/librarian blogs
- Social media discussions
- How-to guides
- Mailing lists
- Conducting own research
- Project blogs
Other responses included collaborative projects (with other organisations or others within the organisation who may be more knowledgeable), dicsussion with/learning from colleagues, in house training/awareness sessions, creating your own m-library initiative, video demonstrations, and support from suppliers.
Some comments gave a little more detail:
Practical demos and sessions are always the most fulfilling so you can see the technology in action. This is what people remember.
Good case studies in relevant types of libraries (in our case engineering and industrial) might help.
Hopefully this blog will be one place to help signpost to these sources of information.
End of project survey – confidence in implementing mobile technologies
This is part of a series of blog posts on the end of project fact finding survey.
We were interested to find out the confidence level in implementing mobile technologies. The figure below shows the results:
Bar chart to show level of confidence in implementing mobile technologies
Fortunately, the majority of respondents (72%) felt confident or very confident about implementing mobile technologies in the libraries. However, 26% did not feel confident, and 2% did not feel at all confident.
The comments explaining the reasons for these responses tended to relate to:
- infrastructure
- knowledge and skills
- support from management
- resources (e.g. time and money) to work on development
Lack of support at senior manager level as well as IT refusing to support mobile technologies (not confident response)
We have the knowledge & skills available, it’s just a case of implementation when we have time (confident response)
We are confident in our ability to offer these services once we have the technology and time to do so, but we’re not so confident that we will be able to find the time to implement these initiatives (confident response)
Flexible strategy in place with full senior management backing and growing expertise among Library staff (very confident response)
The responses emphasise the importance of having these elements in place in order for the staff to feel confident to implement mobile technologies.
End of project survey – barriers/challenges to implementation
This is part of a series of blog posts on the end of project fact finding survey.
We added some additional categories to the question about barriers/challenges based on the open responses to the last survey. We also asked an additional question about the primary barrier to discover which are the biggest barriers at present.
Barriers/challenges to utilising mobile technologies
As can be seen from the graph, resource constraints are experienced by the majority of respondents (79%), with infrastructure/policy constraints being experience from almost half of respondents (47%). Other barriers and challenges were also present to a varying degree, and some added other barriers, including:
- Traditional mindset of library staff/management resulting in risk averse culture and a steep learning curve if staff were to get involved
- Vendors investing in separate apps rather than supporting access via library websites
- Lack of third party support for mobile resources (e.g. catalogue, e-journals and databases)
When asked what the primary barrier was, the following pie chart shows the results:
Primary barrier to utilising mobile technologies
As shown, resource constraints are the primary barrier for a large proportion (46%) of respondents. Infrastructure/policy constraints are the primary barrier for 17% of respondents, whilst licensing concerns, lack of technical support and not an organisation priority are also primary barriers for over 5% of respondents each.
A number of solutions were suggested to overcome barriers and challenges to utilising mobile technologies. These included:
- Quick wins/low cost solutions
- Demonstrating a clear business case
- Staff changes (additional staffing or re-assigning staff duties)
- Partnerships (internal and external)
- Staff training
- Learn from best practice of other libraries
- Outsourcing
Comments and plans recommending ways for the barriers to be overcome included:
initially go for quick wins, using apps/services that are free or low cost, whilst beginning to embed mobile considerations into university processes and projects
We hope that clearly demonstrating the potential benefits for the student experience may result in funding being made available for mobile app development
We recently created a new position for a Digital Branch Manager, which helps shape our vision for all digital services, mobile included, and added 1 FTE to our IT staff
Utilising expertise from other departments (e.g. IT department) and other institutions
We are actively seeking partnerships with other businesses in the form of affiliate partnerships, donations, and advertising revenue
Keep trying to acquire good practice from others to save on development costs
End of project survey – future m-library initiatives
This is part of a series of blog posts on the end of project fact finding survey.
Interestingly, when asked if their library was considering using mobile technologies to support any aspect of the service or resources provision in future, less people responded yes (81.8%) than in the first survey (90.4%). This still shows the majority intend to incorporate mobile technologies in future plans, though may represent a slight decrease in planning (or could be due to a different sample of respondents.
Is your library/information service considering using mobile technologies to support any aspect of the service or resource provision in future?
Many of those who planned to use mobile technologies in this way in future did not yet know how they planned to use them (probably a sensible approach with things changing so rapidly!). Those who had started planning for future included the following (in order of popularity):
- Roving support (using tablets for reference enquiries, demonstrations and supporting teaching)
- Mobile catalogue
- Mobile app
- Mobile website
- Mobile access to resources
- SMS
- Loaning mobile devices
- Social media
- QR codes
- Mobile web chat/enquiry service
- Augmented reality
- Strategy development
- Near Field Communication/Radio-Frequency Identification
- Supporting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
- Bibliographic management
Many of these are similar to the existing or current m-library initiatives, though it is interesting to note a few additions to the usual list such as mobile web chat, strategy development, near field communication and radio-frequency identification, supporting bring your own device, and bibliographic management.
End of project survey – current m-library initiatives
This is part of a series of blog posts on the end of project fact finding survey.
In the first fact finding survey, we discovered a number of different areas libraries were working on. Using the broad categories from the results of the first survey, we used the end of project survey as an opportunity to see which were most popular. The results are shown below:
Current m-library services offered
Those who selected ‘other’ included additional explanation on the categories selected as well as the following areas:
- Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare)
- Location of free PCs in library
- Status of printers in library
- Mobile discovery tool
- SMS reference service
- Access to mobile content (e.g. ebooks, audiobooks, music)
- Mobile e-learning website or VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)
- Mobile chat (enquiry service)
- Newswire from news agencies
- Teaching/instruction on mobile devices
- SMS to send bibliographic data from website to phone
- Mobile LibGuides
When asked if they were currently involved in any m-library iniative projects, 61% of survey respondents said yes. In order of popularity, areas which were currently being worked on were as follows:
- Mobile access to resources
- Mobile apps (for library or wider organisation)
- Mobile website
- Mobile catalogue
- Using mobile devices to support roving reference
- QR codes
- SMS
- Loaning mobile devices
- Augmented reality
- Social media
The results from these two section of the survey suggest that perhaps QR codes are already well used in libraries, and are therefore not a main priority for further development in many libraries (though are still being developed in others). Mobile catalogue is also available for a number libraries, but this is still being added for other libraries. Mobile access to resources is a main priority for many libraries in terms of current projects and initiatives, as shown by a sample of comments:
Ensuring all online services are mobile-friendly
Developing a web page which details mobile versions of information resources.
We’re just finishing a project to address the challenges involved in providing mobile access to eresources through a discovery tool
I have asked our systems team to promote the implementation of a mobile version of our discovery service for the coming academic year
The results also suggest that more libraries are looking at utilising mobile devices to support roving reference (i.e. staff using tablet computers to help users at the point of need) and also loaning mobile devices (primarily Kindles or iPads).
End of project survey – overview
Thanks again to those of you who completed the end of project fact finding survey we ran earlier this year. As before (see blog posts from previous fact finding survey), we’ll be publishing summary blog posts over the next couple of weeks sharing the findings from the different parts of the survey.
There were 138 responses to the survey, primarily from the academic library sector (68%).
Respondents by sector
The ‘other’ responses included health or hospital libraries, government libraries and law libraries.
The majority of respondents were from the UK (65%), with other respondents from the USA (28.9%), Canada (2%), Australia, Belgium and Turkey.
The majority of the respondents’ libraries either already have m-library initiatives (92%), or are currently working on m-library projects or services (61%) – unsurprising due to self-selected nature of sample. Common uses at present included (in order of frequency):
- QR codes
- Mobile catalogue
- Mobile website
- Guides to support the use of mobile services/apps
- Mobile app for the institution
- Using mobile devices to support roving reference
- Loaning mobile devices
- Mobile app for the library
- SMS communication about borrower record
82% of respondents plan to implement additional m-library initiatives in future, though many did not have concrete plans in place and would follow developments to see which would be most relevant for their library. For those who did have plans, many included initiatives already mentioned. More innovative ideas included a mobile enquiry service, augmented reality, NFC/RFID, and supporting bring your own device (BYOD).
Barriers to development of m-library initiatives were experienced by a large proportion of respondents (95% gave at least one barrier). When asked to indicate the primary barrier, the main issues were resource constraints (46%) and infrastructure constraints (17%). A number of suggestions were made with regards to overcoming barriers, including quick wins/low costs solutions, a strong business case, staffing changes, and internal or external partnerships.
Though there are still some who do not feel at all confident implementing mobile technologies at their library, 72% felt confident or very confident. Confidence correlated with having infrastructure in place, support from management, and the resources to work on development.
Respondents planned to inform developments in a number of different ways, planning to keep up-to-date with mobile technologies, use case studies, attend or follow events, read or follow existing research, sharing and reading social media, library/librarian blogs, social media discussion, how-to guides, and mailing lists.
More detailed analysis for specific sections of the survey will follow next week using the using the end of project survey tag.
Project article – Supporting the experimental and innovative m-library community
CILIP Multimedia Information and Technology Group (MMIT) have recently released a special edition of their journal on mobile technologies. The journal is available to MMIT members, and an open access version of our article is available by clicking the image below.
Click the image to download the PDF of our article
M-libraries Conference – From margin to mainstream
On 24th-26th September 2012, The Open University hosted a group of 163 delegates from 19 different countries for the Fourth International M-libraries Conference. It was the first of the m-libraries conferences I have been able to attend in person, though I have followed others from afar. The theme of the conference, From margin to mainstream: mobile technologies transforming lives and libraries, demonstrates the progress made in the area of m-libraries, and this was evident from many of the keynotes and parallel sessions.
M-libraries conference
The keynote sessions were all recorded and are now available online, and I created an Eventifier archive which has some of the presentations from both the keynotes and parallel sessions, as well as photos, videos and tweets. Rather than recreate notes from each session, I wanted to highlight some of the key themes emerging from the conference.
Mobile technologies are global – supporting developing world as well as developed
Some of the most interesting presentations highlighted some of the innovative ways mobile technologies are being used in different countries. Steve Vosloo talked about projects UNESCO have been working on including Worldreader: books for all (which brings reading material to the developing world via Kindles or through their mobile phones via biNu), and literacy promotion via mobile phones (including educational information). We also heard about projects in India involving m-learning applications on the cheapest tablets in the world – less than $2 each! It was also interesting to note different challenges and benefits in different countries. For example, SMS messaging services aren’t widely used in UK due to cost, but in India this is not an issue. Kindles are robust enough for use in most countries and climates, but don’t deal well with the dust in Africa. Just a couple of examples of many things I previously hadn’t considered which were raised by delegates and speakers from across the world.
M-library initiatives don’t have to cost a lot – some just need staff time
There were some really innovative projects discussed at the conference, and many of these were from libraries that didn’t have funding for equipment or development. I attended some fantastic parallel sessions on innovations that utilised existing services to support delivery of library services. Georgina Parsons (Brunel University) spoke about their use of freely available services like Facebook, Twitter, QR Codes, and services they already subscribed to which offer mobile support like Summon, BookMyne and Library Elf. Neil Ford (Bournemouth University) shared their project on using QR codes to highlight electronic resources to students when they are browsing the physical library. The process incorporates checking reading lists to understand more about the courses, preparing relevant searches on electronic resources, and delivering those via QR codes and custom URLs on bookmarks near the key books for that area. The majority of this exercise is staff time and will also be useful even if the QR code uptake is low (i.e. better understanding of content of courses).
M-library developments are reliant on key technology companies
One of the presentations was from a representative at Microsoft, and other key players in the technology field were also mentioned throughout presentations. Martin White’s keynote focused entirely on developments of commercial companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon. The clear message coming through these presentations and the general discussions during the event was the reliance on developments from these companies. For example, some technologies which could enable additional functionality of mobile devices (e.g. contactless payments) will only become more popular if they are incorporated to the majority of devices.
Users are expecting delivery of content and service via mobile devices
There were a number of presentations which started with statistics based on user surveys/interviews or other anecdotal observations from discussions with users. Many of these demonstrated a shift in user expectations – more now seem to be expecting libraries to be delivering content and services via mobile devices. Mobile as a major trend and a key concern for libraries and other related organisations – see for example the UCISA 2012 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education in the UK, the ACRL 2012 top ten trends in academic librarianship, and LITA’s Top Tech Trends at ALA Annual Conference. It seems, as with the theme of the conference, that mobile is becoming mainstream and is now expected, rather than being an additional bonus.
M-LIBRARIES-GROUP discussion list
As mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve been working on getting an email list set up to facilitate discussion around mobile technologies in libraries. The list is now live – please feel free to subscribe and start using the list for sharing resources, asking questions, and generating discussions on topics of relevance to the m-libraries area.
Subscribe at M-LIBRARIES-GROUP@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
End of project report
1. Major Outputs
The major outputs of the project have been:
- Project blog – currently 341 subscribers, total of 52 blog posts during course of project
- Collated resources tagged with mlibs on social bookmarking websites (303 on Delicious, 379 on Pinboard)
- Collected case studies:
- QR codes at Senate House Library: a case study – submitted by Andrew Preater
- University of Glasgow Library mobile strategy: a case study – submitted by Kay Munro and Rosemary Stenson
- Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching: a case study – submitted by the SCARLET project
- LibraryAnywhere at Keele University: a case study – submitted by Ian Haydock
- Cambridge Judge Business School mobile app – submitted by Meg Westbury
- Using SMS to reach students at Birmingham City University Library – submitted by Chris Langham
- Mobile Leeds Met Library – developing and promoting our mobile provision – submitted by Debbie Morris
- Copac Mobile case study – submitted by Janine Rigby
- Pathways to best practice guides – including information, examples, and recommendations on the following topics:
- 1 – Introducing users to the library
- 2 – Helping users within the library (roving support)
- 3 – Helping users within the library (guides and signage)
- 4 – Providing access to resources via mobile devices
- 5 – Developing a mobile strategy
- 6 – Managing borrower accounts
- 7 – Bibliographic management on mobile devices
- 8 – Loaning mobile devices
- 9 – Supporting learning, teaching and research
- 10 – Collection management using mobile devices
- Community website – 202 members
- Information sharing event held on May 8th – 57 attendees (including 18 speakers/facilitators and 6 project team members/organisers). Included keynote presentation, lightning presentations, and workshops on topics covering all sectors. See blog posts at http://mlibraries.jiscinvolve.org/tag/mlibs-event/
- Project presentations:
- NoWAL Mobile Technologies event (Edge Hill University, 2nd Dec 2011)
- ARLIS Mobile Technologies event (London, 12th Dec 2011)
- ALA LITA Mobile Computing Interest Group webinar (11th Jan 2012)
- M-library workshop for University of Bath (12th July 2012)
- CILIP Executive Briefing on Mobile Technologies (London, 19th July 2012)
- Mailing list – m-libraries-group (to be launched soon)
2. Background
The remit of the mobile library community support project was slightly different to the other projects within the programme. The aim was to support the community both within and outside the programme, in two main ways:
- Evidence gathering
- Community building
The objectives of the project were:
- to build a body of evidence and practice around the notion of libraries and the provision of services and content to mobile devices
- to seed and develop a sustainable community of practice around the development of m-libraries
- to provide resources and evidence in usable formats, for example web-based resources, that will enable libraries to make informed choices and effectively develop their m-library provision
3. The challenge
The main challenge the project aimed to address was to begin to bring together different sources of information about mobile library initiatives and projects, and create a sustainable method for sharing new information within the community.
4. Lessons Learnt
Community building
Although we were aware of this at the outset, the project reinforced the fact that community building can be a challenging and time intensive process. Consistently throughout the project there was evidence of a reported demand for a community to share good practice and surface case studies as well as provide a focus for discussion. Although the project was able to seed discussion through blog posts and references to resources the challenge is for the community to take on a life of its own. While we had good feedback about the community there were a significant number of members who did not actively respond to posts or contribute to the discussion. This does not mean that they were not involved in the community but demonstrates there are many ways in which a community can be engaged and the benefits that an individual member might derive from involvement varies (for example, #mlibs tweets about resources frequently get favourited, presumably for people to check out at a later date). Sustainable communities are likely to be the ones that evolve organically over time. It is questionable to what extent a project over a relatively short time period can result in a self sustaining community. While the project has developed a community it is likely that some further shaping and pump priming activity would be valuable over the short to medium term to ensure that it develops further.
Community website
A community website was in this case not the right option. Fortunately, we kept the approach flexible and did not dedicate a lot of project time to this as we wanted to see how the community responded before investing time. After gathering feedback it was decided a simpler approach of using a mailing list and a blog would better suit the needs of the community at present. The main lesson here was to remain flexible and open to adapting to suit the needs of the community (which makes it more difficult to plan but should hopefully ensure the delivered output is of greater use).
Case study collection
We had imagined that people would prefer for us to write up case studies following discussions with those who had been involved in projects. This was not the case in practice; people were offered this option but chose instead to write it themselves. Although initially this released some project time, it actually meant quite a lot of time spent co-ordinating and chasing case studies and difficulty in planning timing and quantity of case studies. There are still some outstanding case studies which we would like to share but are waiting for information about. In future it may be better to arrange visits or interviews and take a lead role on producing case studies rather than relying on staff external to the project who have competing priorities.
5. Conclusions
The objectives of the project have largely been met, though whether the community is sustainable remains to be seen. The community of practice has been supported by the information sharing event, the blog, the community site, and the mailing list as well as conversations on existing communication tools such as Twitter. Feedback from the m-libraries community (and research from LIS RiLIES project) suggests that events are a key dissemination tool for practitioners and we hope that the event organised by the project as well as presentations given at other events has helped support wider dissemination of our project findings and resources. Future events on m-libraries or mobile technologies session in wider LIS events will be one route to continue sharing of best practice.
The case studies and pathways to best practice guides have been key in providing resources and evidence to enable libraries to make informed choices. These project documents in addition to the resources collected on social bookmarking sites and those shared via the blog have been a core aspect of building a body of evidence and practice around provision of services and content to mobile devices.
As the project only has a short timescale, it has been difficult to ensure sustainability of the work of the project. It is hoped that the resources will continue to be useful in the short to medium term, and that discussions which take place on the mailing list and at relevant events will support longer term sharing of best practice.
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