March 2009 Archives

The WorldCat Mobile pilot continues to gain momentum. We've seen a real hockey stick in terms of unique visitors this month. Check out the stats:

• January '09 1,329


• February '09 1,691


• March '09 9,521

Downloads
Downloads (across all phone types to date) hover right at the 11,300 mark, with more than half of the people (7,756) using the Web "lite" version--that is, if your phone doesn't download the mobile app correctly, a mobile-specific Web site pops up. Suprisingly enough, Blackberries are outrunning iPhones, but not by much. (1,316 Blackberry downloads to 1,160 iPhone downloads.) It could be the experimental iPhone Web app is preferred by iPhone users.

Searches
We've broken the 100,000 mark, with 110,362 searches to date into WorldCat from mobile devices. 42,583 searches came in, in the month of March.

Webinars

Thursday, April 2. The WorldCat Mobile pilot is being featured in a "Library Open Solutions" Webinar from WiLS, the Wisconsin Library Services group this Thursday, April 2 at 3-4 pm EDT. Cindy Cunningham, the Director of Partner Programs for OCLC, will present at the session.

If you're a librarian, you can register here to learn more about what we've learned about putting WorldCat on the small screen. Hint: it's a lot more than just screen size.

Wednesday, April 29. In addition, the WorldCat team will sponsor a free WorldCat Mobile Webinar on April 29 at 10-11 am EDT. Register for it now to see how it works, get the latest news and find out more about the plans to expand the pilot into Europe.

Took me long enough to get this posted, sheesh.

Some noteworthy movement within the top 20 for February:

- Spanish language children's book Estrellita en la Ciudad Grande climbed 6 spots to #6
- The Pluto Files dove 12 spots to #20 after debuting at #8 in January.

New to the top 20 for February:

#10 Jim Gill Sings The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes
#11 Si Kabayan Dan Beberapa Dongeng Sunda Lainnya
#12 The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader's Guide
#15 The Midnight Window
#17 A Necessary Evil
#19 The Reading Teacher

Here's the whole list and, as always, a lovely subject tag cloud for those with a visualization fetish:

We are continuing to enhance the WorldCat widget library; let visitors to your subject-specific Web page review top results for related library-owned items in a compact widget. Scrollable results include links to the WorldCat.org detailed record for each item.
It's easy to install this widget - just navigate to the WorldCat Affiliate area, copy the code provided and replace "keyword" at the end of the script URL with your desired keyword(s).

The Library (with a capital L) was the lead Education story on the US News & World Report Web site recently. The Professor's Guide entry this week is titled "Getting the Most Out of the Library." The article is geared to help students make the most of the abundant library resources available to them and yours truly is mentioned and contributed to the content.

As you might expect, the post includes WorldCat.org and highlights some of the great ways to save time and energy doing academic research. If you know someone who is college-bound--or maybe someone who has midterm exams coming up--this could be a good article to send to them.

If you really want to help your favorite student out (after you drop numerous WorldCat.org hints), you could locate the full book Professor's Guide to Getting Good Grades in College and send them the link.

Last week, my husband told me to watch a short film on mobility in 2088 where engineers and designers who work for Honda R&D are asked to describe what transportation will be like in 2088, basically 80 years from now. For some, it seemed they had thought about what life would be like in 80 years, and for others it seemed like the thought had never crossed their mind. I find that surprising in an industry where planning for your next big release of a car starts years and years before the finished product will hit production.

For me, the answer I liked most out of the film was 'transportation by foot'. It's so basic, and people have been traveling by foot since we started walking upright. It's environmentally safe, it requires nothing other than our own two feet and the ability to walk, and doesn't require an expensive infrastructure in order to work.

So that, of course, leads me to my next question...

What will libraries be in 80 years?

80 years ago, visiting the library and getting a print copy was about your only option from what I've been told. Now, patrons are reading books, viewing movies, and listening to audiobooks all online. Online - a concept that didn't exist 80 years ago.

Whatever the future of the library, I am pretty certain about one thing: The concept of a Library has been around for as long as civilization has been around. I don't think it's going anywhere.