Sunday 22 November 2015

Thing 22 Mobile Things

I certainly agree with the point made about using mobile counterparts because of convenience. When i used to blog news more frequently, i found more time to do it on the blogger app and via twitter. Just the other day i explained to my partner that i didn't bring my camera to the ballet because i wanted to put our picture up on Facebook as a way of saying we were there and damn it with the quality.

As i explained in a previous post about instagram, my phone although smart, is very silly about things such as being able to store messages and other things on the massive memory card instead of saving them to the limited phone storage meaning that sometimes my phone registers as having no space when i delete a ton of things. Therefore mobile app downloads dont really happen for me, but i will have a look at the google store and see whats on offer in the areas that might be useful; meetings, presentations, libraries.

That said, i'll used the app version of  Office suite, or at least the basic package, is rather useless outside of reading documents and pdf - it has no edit or create features that i could find. That said, there are mobile versions of apps that i've used that i've found very useful (email, facebook, blogger) albeit with limitations (no way at seeing junk emails, no way of editing checkins etc once posted, no minimise to move between the internet and blog post).

I'm sure the apps mentioned could be useful in the future, if you had the time to use them frequently. For example, one of the first things i thought of with Gum is that you could scan the barcode of books in the library and users would know you had it if they were looking at it in a bookstore. As i've said on previous occassions, with these things, its a matter of prioritizing what areas you need more modern imput and working continually on that.  Beacons also sound interesting but as with a lot of these types of things, patrons need to have to be tuned into the item in question - in this case bluetooth. Bluetooth is something i myself only turn on if i'm sending or receiving something from a friend or family member. But that's just me, so they definitely could be of use.

One app i already have that would serve some of the functions mentioned in previous posts about images is snapchat. It's popular enough for students to more than likely already have it and as i have it, its a quick and easy way to keep students interested in the going-on at the library. It's temporary nature has both pros and cons though.

The temporary nature of the photos may line up a bit with instagram's disabling of the 'save photo' function which i imagine may help with issues to do with labelling your images with creative commons as for the main part, images show up for a few seconds and cannot be saved. Obviously more sophisticated phones can screencap the snapchat, but on average even if they did it would not be a problem. Its also an app that you don't need to buy and there's no real issues of storage space as the pictures disappear. 

It does mean that your notifications and updates arent available for ever, so that picture you took of a new item or opening hours will dissappear and the information may go too quickly for patrons to read in time. Patrons who do not look at your snapchat every day may miss things. But i myself and many others do look at them every day, as these types of things become a bit addictive. As i said before, a lot of young people do use snapchat already so this might be a good way of updating your patrons about your library and could be beneficial is used correctly. 

If i were to consider this going forward i would use it for the following things; updating students on new titles, any temporary changes to the opening hours, added features to the already available electronic resources,  the library itself and its facilities. The temporary nature of the photos may be a selling point for encouraging patrons to appear in the images. It could also be a way of updating students on the current space available in the library, meaning that part-timers can check before they leave the house how busy the library is that day. Also libraries that have more events may find it a useful way of demonstrating the events that happened. It could be away of connecting the departments within the college by allowing each department to take over the snapchat for the day, talking about the types of things they do each day and introducing students to staff and services available. On that note, it might also be a way for the wider library-interested community to get a feel for what the librarian does.

The downside is that, like most social media, this is something that needs to worked on daily to keep snapchat users interested and its not always possible to find something to post about every day. But it is quick enough to take a picture and write a short amount of text so with a bit of creativity, it could work well.

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