I've been pretty happy with the results we were able to get with a home-grown mobile catalog. It's not a "product" that one could install (though I'd be happy to share our code, much of which would likely work out well.)

Basically, my approach was to write mobile stylesheets that kill a lot of the extraneous content (excess nav buttons, bulky content, etc.) We also use a bit of jQuery to apply CSS more selectively than a plain CSS declaration will allow. 

You can see our results at: http://ezra.wittenberg.edu

The biggest downside to this approach is that it's a rendering of our "main" catalog -- we dictate that mobile browsers get the mobile stylesheet, and there's no opportunity for a user to say "no, gimme the real thing". 

One of the biggest upsides (besides that it's "free") is that it retains the capacity for marking/saving books, which AirPac does not. Most of the development took just a few days, though tweaking went on for longer. 

I'm not aware of the MobileCat, though, and I'll be interested in checking it out. If you (or anyone else) is interested in our code or hearing more about our approach, I'll be happy to share it.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Amy
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 2:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] III Mobile Catalog

We are researching possibilities for a mobile version of our III catalog and
are wondering what success people have had.

Right now our list of possible solutions include:
 - AirPac from III - does anyone have any feedback on this product?
 - MobileCat from the Tri-College Libraries
(http://code.google.com/p/mobilecat/)
 - Other options?

MobileCat is more attractive than AirPac because it's free, but I can't find
much information of others out there who have implemented it successfully.  

Does anyone have feedback on either of these solutions or does anyone know
of another mobile catalog option for III?  Any thoughts would be most
appreciated.

Thanks
Amy
--
Amy Deschenes
Library Assistant, Library Technology
Simmons College Library
Boston, MA
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