I agree with some here, in the long term, a responsive site is the best bang for the buck.
However, before our responsive site, we used Library Anywhere for our mobile app. By LibraryThing, it has customizations, both iOS and Android, and real time interaction with the catalog.
http://www.libanywhere.com/
We felt the price to be very reasonable.
Just my experience, not that one is better than another!
Lisa Haitz
UC Libraries
University of Cincinnati
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Will Martin
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 2:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Library app basics
My boss has directed me to start looking into producing a phone app for the library, or better yet finding a way to integrate with the existing campus-wide app. Could I pick the list's brains?
1) Is there some tolerably decent cross-platform app language, or am I going to be learning 3 different languages for iOS, Android, and Windows phone? I've dabbled in all kinds of things, but my bread-and-butter work has been PHP on a LAMP stack. Apps aren't written in that, so new language time.
2) The library's selection of mobile devices consists of 2 iPads and a Galaxy tablet. We don't have phones for testing. My personal phone is a 12-year-old flip phone which doesn't run apps. Can I get by with emulators? What are some good ones? The budget for the project is zero, so I don't think dedicated testing devices are in the cards unless I upgrade my own phone, which I probably ought to anyway.
3) What are some best practices for library app design? We were thinking the key functionality would be personal account management (what have I got checked out, renew my stuff, etc), hours, lab availability, search the catalog, and ask a librarian. Anything missing? Too much stuff?
Will Martin
Web Services Librarian
Chester Fritz Library
P.S. I sent this a couple days ago and wondered why it hadn't shown up
-- only to realize I accidently sent it to [log in to unmask] rather than the actual list serv address. Whoops, embarrassing!
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