Are Academic Libraries’ Websites Ready for the Smart Phone Generation?

Lately at my college I’ve noticed students who need quick access to college information quickly dig into their pockets and pull out their smart phones and read their course information from their Blackboard page (utilizing a web browser or Blackboard’s own mobile app). They no longer plant themselves in front of a computer in the library or their laptops; a process that had them jumping through hoops of several log-ins and dancing around a web page until they find the information they need.

Many in the library field have felt the tremors of a mobile earthquake coming. The rumblings have come with the dispersal of e-readers, lap tops and iPads. In April of last year, Lori Barile wrote an article in College and Research Libraries News about the options that libraries have to develop the myriad of mobile services useful to library users. In October 2010, Lisa Carlucci Thomas in Library Journal surveyed over 400 librarians in public and academic libraries that confirmed that librarians were gearing up or expecting changes to library services that took mobile computing seriously with mobile library websites, SMS services, QR codes, etc. But, Carlucci also noted librarian cynicism for developing mobile-ready services. Some want to see proof before developing.

Proof is here. This past December, NielsonWire reported that while the U.S. mobile customers of smart phones was at 43 percent (and rising), of that number, the age group between 18-24 made up 54% of that market. Recently a researcher in Ireland observed that many students are starting to “replace their laptops with smart phones for many functions”.[1]

To compound the importance of these devices many secondary schools are seriously considering changing years-old rules of cell phones in schools. The New York Times SchoolBook section even claimed that “Across the globe, schools are moving from banning and fighting to empowering students in taking their texting talents to a whole new level by using them for learning, as well as using the devices to strengthen relationships with students and their parents or guardians”. A majority of students in a Jersey City, New Jersey English Honors classes are using their smart phones to access Engrade for their grades and to communicate with their teachers. Thus by the time many of these youth get to college, they will be expecting to use their mobile smart phones for educational purposes.

Manufacturers have answered the call too. Samsung is marketing a first generation Galaxy smart phone for a younger audience and is more affordable called the Galaxy Y. With the release of the iPhone 4S and now on multiple carriers like Verizon and Sprint, Apple now sells cheaper versions of the iPhone for as low as $99 dollars for a two year plan. The UK’s Daily Telegraph in January 2012 reported that in Q1, Apple sold, 37 million iPhones!

So have Academic libraries’ websites adjusted for these smart phone agile students and researchers? Change is coming but very slowly. Surely libraries have welcomed hardware platforms (iPads and netboooks for mobility) or even mobile applications for search ability. Where Academic libraries have been slow to change is developing a web site that can be viewed and easily read on a smart phone. Architecture constructed for a mobile device.

I recently researched 122 academic library websites using an iPhone to see if these institutions had developed mobile library websites. I compiled my list of colleges and universities mostly from U.S. News and World Reports listing of the Best Colleges in the country. From the 122, 50 were public four-year universities or colleges, 11 were public two-year community colleges and 61 were private. From all of these, only 32 (26%) academic libraries had developed mobile-ready websites. Several schools like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania while have an option of a mobile-ready sites but were not automatically visible by the smart phone. Libraries that did not have mobile-ready websites were taken to the regular library websites that are designed for bigger screens.[4]

Why is a mobile-interface important? Without having to pinch and zoom-in and out, swipe across, up and down on a regular website viewed on a smartphone, I was able to click instantly on links to get in touch with the library, find out hours and location times, search the catalog, etc. If our students are primarily using their smart phones as information seeking machines, as research and practice show, we should develop mobile website sites that are about 2 clicks away.

A Quick Review of Some Mobile-Ready Library Home Pages

Out of the 32 mobile interfaces, 20 were a basic text-based buttons for easy navigation [FIG 1]. The 12 other library mobile home pages combined text and images [FIG 2]. Three of these actually make the image predominate over the text like the North Carolina State Universities Libraries [FIG. 3]. Of all the websites, only 8 integrated a mobile OPAC to its home page like Boston College who incorporates a federated search for items [FIG 4]. All are quite easy to use and most gave basic information about hours and location, how to contact a librarian, a link to catalog search and news and events at the library.

The best of the best? Duke and Drexel University’s combined all attributes of the above mobile ready websites into a compete user interface that mirrored in many ways a regular website adding functions like the OPAC that can differentiate a search for books, articles or databases. Both of these sites include in the interface a link to chat directly with a librarian and well as other features.[FIG 5].

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Is your library be ready?

These academic libraries have taken the lead in creating mobile experiences as opposed to creating an alternate experience from the desktop websites that we have come familiar with. There is a lot to consider in changing to a mobile ready website (cost, in house development versus outsourcing, etc.) but the audience for these mobile websites is ready and coming in full steam in the coming years especially when we’ll see the smartphone users blow by the 50% usage in the United States in the next year and the majority (quite possible more than 70%) of these users being between the ages of 18-25. The time has, quite literally, come.

[1] Research and markets adds report: The use of smart phones among students in their Education/Social life. edition no. 1. (2011). Wireless News, , n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/896496253?accountid=38129

[2] From November 2011 to February of 2012, seven schools had developed a mobile ready sites during that time. My data can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/8x6koqc.