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In the Palm of your Hand:

the Future for the Hand-Held

Librarian

Jon Fletcher, Liaison Librarian (Science & Technology)

Nottingham Trent University jon.fletcher@ntu.ac.uk

Outline

• Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets)

• E-book readers

• Games and mobile applications

• QR codes

• Augmented Reality

• Developing library services

• ...and some groupwork!

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Phones 4U (and everyone else)

• An estimated 89% of UK adults own a mobile phone (Ofcom survey in Mintel, 2012a, p.4). Of those who do:

- 48% of owners have smartphones (Mintel, 2012a, p.5)

- 70% of 18-24 year olds (Mintel, 2012b) have smartphones

- 80% have accessed the mobile web in the last 3 months (Mintel, 2012c]

- 46% of owners have pay monthly contracts (Mintel, 2012a, p.4), indicating some type of data plan

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Keep taking the tablets

•Constant evolution since the iPad’s launch – c.10% of households had access to a tablet PC in August 2011 (Mintel, 2011)…

…but the feeling is that tablets will/have killed the netbook surge (with a market for hybrid devices?)

•Tablet heavyweights = IoS vs. Android...but watch out for the Kindle Fire!

•Future share hard to predict – different surveys suggest different consumer purchasing intentions (Mintel, 2011 = 30% interest; Mintel, 2012d = 13% interest)

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Keep taking the tablets: HE/FE trends

•Perhaps most marked in the HE sector = predictions from higher education (cf. Kelly, 2012) are that tablets will drastically increase in higher education usage

•Various institutions are giving away iPads and Kindles, as well as loaning iPhones and e-book readers

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So what does it all mean for libraries?

• A user with a device + a user who likes a particular services = a user who wants to use this device to access the services they use

• Retrograde service assessment – services can fall behind by not keeping up…extra technology brings extra challenges!

(PatriziaSoliani, Flickr)

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Ebooks: A tale of two sectors

Ebooks in public libraries

•Overdrive services in local libraries

•The challenge of Kindles and independent e-book lenders

Ebooks in academic/special libraries

•Dominated by collections

•Limited download availability; divergence between service expectations and what is possible?

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And now…

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Your turn! How are you catering for your portable users?

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Mobile technology hits the mainstream

•Better devices + greater mainstream appeal = greater ownership and usage

•Big developments in mobile/portable functionality…and takeup:

- QR/barcode readers

- GPS-enabled location services (and indoor GPS?)

•Popularity of apps and web-based games

•Predictions for ‘the single device’?

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‘Mature’ technology - QR codes and location-based services

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QR codes – examples

• Quite established now – University of Bath and trials in institutions such as the University of Huddersfield (cf. Walsh, 2009 onwards) have seen them used in many places, for various tasks.

Location-Based Services (e.g. Foursquare)

• Minimal take-up by universities (Fletcher, 2011) and less by libraries – not a trend which has caught on, though possible uses remain

Gamification for the nation

• Gamification = “the infusion of game design techniques, game mechanics, and/or game style into anything” (Gamification, 2012)

• Greater popular impact due to smartphones

• Mintel estimate that 567,000 mobile game apps will be downloaded in the UK during 2012 (Mintel, 2012e)

• The app market in general was worth $3.7 billion worldwide in September 2011, with a worth of $7.7 billion predicted for 2016 – and this does not include free apps (Mintel, 2012e)

• Impact of tablets can only increase popularity

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Augmented Reality – serious fun

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Augmented Reality in the mainstream

• Augmented Reality is now being used in Marketing…

- Asos Magazines (March 2012) – uses BlipAR to view clothes from all angles

- Shreddies: used BlipAR to scan cereal boxes and interact with the ‘Knitting Nanas’ and their pearls of wisdom

- Michel Thomas language courses – logo be scanned with Aurasma to access audio samples of each course

• And Universities (to a more limited extent; cf. University of Exeter, 2011):

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(Miss) Scarlet, in the library, with the smartphone…

• University of Manchester: Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching (SCARLET; see JISC, 2011) – started June 2011, ends May 2012

- Looking to develop AR for rare books and a toolkit for others to use

- Project video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf0KoH0SAcw

• The first of many such developments?

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Time to consider Augmenting our services?

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• Excellent use of AR to showcase interactive displays - Kwantlen Polytechnic Institute (Vancouver, Canada) [Junaio]

• Click on a poster, take a tour of a venue: the JCDecaux Australia: Museum of Contemporary Art Augmented Reality Experience [Aurasma]

• Making paper into a completely interactive portal for Sports Magazine [BlipAR]

• There are many ways to create your own! See sites such as Aurasma for more details.

Developing your service

•My own HE experience (2010/11):

- Serious Games module (final year computing undergraduates)

- Embedded into curriculum with design brief supplied – students had 10 weeks to design prototypes

- Results included a QR code ‘library quest’ app, with rewards for finding and scanning relevant QR codes

- Great idea…but build-in development work afterwards!

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Developing your service

• In-house expertise, funding applications, beyond…

•Anyone for Mashed Libraries?

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Over to you!

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Ideas…

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Conclusion

• The minority is becoming the mainstream – with mobile devices becoming largely commonplace, libraries need to be adapting more to serve users with this technology

• Ever-changing pace and evolution, but will 2012 finally be the year of the ebook reader and tablet?

• What place in the world for AR technology?

• Overall, these technologies are still not at the stage where they can be central tenants of a library’s core service…but there are many value-added benefits to be had from them

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References

• Fletcher, J., 2011. Libraries and location-based software: Where are we now? Multimedia Information and Technology, 37(3), pp.12-14.

• Gamification, 2012. Gamification – definition [online]. Available via: http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification_Definition [Accessed 7 April 2011].

• JISC, 2011. Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching (SCARLET) [online]. Available via: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/ltig/scarlet.aspx [Accessed 7 April 2012].

• Kelly, B., 2011. My predictions for 2012 [online]. Available at: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/my-predictions-for-2012/ [Accessed 7 April 2012].

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References

• Mintel, 2011. Desktop, Laptop and Tablet Computers - UK - August 2011. Mintel [online]. Available at: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/display/id=591378 [Accessed 6 April 2012].

• Mintel, 2012a. Mobile Phones Executive Summary – UK – February 2012. Mintel [online]. Available at: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/display/id=612231 [Accessed 6 April 2012].

• Mintel, 2012b. Mobile Mobile Phones - UK - February 2012; market segment and key performance. Mintel [online]. Available at: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/display/id=612231 [Accessed 6 April 2012].

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References

• Mintel, 2012c. Mobile phones and network providers - UK - March 2012 – executive summary. Mintel [online]. Available at: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/new_reports/&list=latest_items/display/id=606100/list/id=606100&type=RCItem&display=abridged [Accessed 6 April 2012].

• Mintel, 2012d. Researching and Buying Technology Executive Summary – UK – January 2012. Mintel [online]. Available at: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/display/id=609213 [Accessed 6 April 2012].

• Mintel, 2012e. Mobile Application Gaming - UK - February 2012. Mintel [online]. Available at: [Accessed 6 April 2012].

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References

• University of Exeter, 2011. Augmented Reality: A different view of learning [online]. Available at: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/augmentedreality/ [Accessed 7 April].

• Walsh, A., (2009). Quick response codes and libraries. Library Hi Tech News, 26 (5/6). pp.7-9. Available via: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/5209/ [Accessed 7 April].

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