iPads booting up at Barrhaven library, Text messages for overdue books to be added to library's tech suite this year

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Laura Mueller

EMC news - The Ottawa Public Library is becoming more and more mobile - and now that mobility is even showing up within branches.

Library users at Hintonburg's Rosemount and Barrhaven's Ruth E. Dickinson branches will have a chance to test drive iPad tablet computers this spring as part of a technology evolution.

Ten iPads are set to arrive at each of those branches before the end of April. A few will be physically tethered to stations and available for people to use to access the library's digital services or wireless Internet, while others will be used for programming.

The idea is to complement stationary desktop computers at the branches by allowing more flexibility, said Jennifer Stirling, the library's technology czar, or, more accurately, the division manger of service innovation.

For instance, providing the iPads to a homework club that runs at the Rosemount library could provide a tool to get teens more engaged.

"We could allow the iPads to be used in conjunction with that homework club so that students could use those iPads to help research the answers to the questions in their homework," Stirling said.

That's especially important at Rosemount, where the desktop computers are consistently over 92 per cent booked and there is no room to add more.

"We can allow them to use them those (iPads) as a research tool to access those services we already provide and then extend the reach of the wireless and other (services) to be used in programming," Stirling said.

A detailed analysis of the pilot program will be completed by the end of 2012 and will come to the library board for review in early 2013, Stirling said.

A LIBRARY ON THE GO

IPads are just the latest addition to the Ottawa Public Library's increasing suite of mobile technologies.

The goal, Stirling said, is to provide a "library on the go" for users, wherever they are.

"It's just the continued need to be able to provide our services in a mobile fashion. So that evolution is really changing the way that we do things and it's changing the way people interact with the library."

It's technology that Ottawa Public Library users are really embracing.

The bilingual social-interactive library catalogue powered by BiblioCommons has the highest usage of all BiblioCommons libraries, which include libraries in New York, Edmonton and other international libraries.

In 2011, library users added 119,787 ratings, created 4,690 subject lists and provided 11,028 comments on what they read.

The library has seen a 170 per cent jump in e-book downloads between 2010 and 2011, and since it was launched last July, the mobile website has already been used 158,758 times.

But the digital offerings aren't meant to replace books and traditional materials entirely, Stirling said.

"We're really seeing that the digital offering really complements our historical, paper-based model. It provides an alternative for people who have a different access pattern," she said.

The library already rolled out email notifications of holds and overdue materials last year, and in 2012 it is set to launch SMS text-message notification.

Although the decrease in late returns has led the library to anticipate $169,000 less in fine revenue in 2012, the library hopes to make up some of that difference by providing an online payment option for fines - another technology project on the books for this year.

THE LIBRARY AND MOBILE DEVICES

- iPhone app, launched February of 2011: 7,925 downloads

- Android app, launched July of 2011: 706 downloads

- Multi-platform mobile site, launched July of 2011: 158,758 mobile device visits