#CILDC : There's an App for that!

Krista Schmidt & Joel Marchesoni

Reference on call

The issues: 

- Understaffed

- Over committed

- Productivity

- Workload

- Service culture and mission 

Use the tablet as a large button on the reference  desk - people press the button for help.  A message goes out to the librarians, who can then respond.

Provides messages to the user, saying that someone is one the way.

Tablet app  development 

Chat service backend and client

Kiosk/Mount/Stand

Stumbling blocks

Gave it zero publicity. Working well.  Will be ramping up.

Allowed them to have flexibility with staffing.

Some librarians have not yet bought into its use.

Could we used by the desk librarian to get help during a hectic period.

Not yet capturing  enough statistics.

Daniel Mack 

Documenting and assessing liaison librarian activities with free web tools and mobile apps

Assessment is increasingly important in higher education

- we need to document the positive impact of our work. For example:

--- reference  and research

--- bibliographic instruction

Types of activities

- Communicate what you do

- Feedback from users 

- Track data 

- Productivity activities 

Take a programmatic approach

Create a personal assessment program to document the impact of your work

Integrate it into the assessment program of your institution

Assess what? Four general rubrics and the types of activities to be tracked.

- Reference

- Instruction

- Collection

- Outreach 

Tons of free apps.

Ask what others uses.

Suggestions 

- communicate - Hootsuite, announce hours, programs, events

- feedback - FluidSurveys - works on a mobile device

--- use a survey  as a form that people can use to make suggestions

- track - Count Thing - 

- productivity - 

--- Evernote

--- Dropbox

Look for blog posts on apps for librarians

Robyn Andrews

Both Sides of the Desk: iPads in an academic library

Boss bought iPads for the staff without knowing what they could be used for

They decided to loan them. Put some apps on them.

People did borrow them.  Faculty were most anxious to borrow them. They traveled with them.

Now they are loaned out blank.

Loan period is two weeks with one renewal.

When they are returned, they are wiped clean.

$750 fine if harmed.

Then got more iPads and the continue to loan them.

Then the boss bought everyone an iPad.  Even though they were loaning them, staff were not using them.  Now need to look at them from a work productivity point of view.  

Ah...MOBILE devices!

But some people didn't see the usefulness.  Could learning about them be fun?

First app she recommended was Splashtop Connect, which mirrors the desktop. Remote access to the desktop.

Online Desktop - makes th iPad screen look like a pc desktop

Then email and Safari.

DestructionFest 2012 - weeding and recycling.  Documented the project using her iPad, including photos.  Also used the iPad as a phone.  

"Consumers don't buy products.  They hire them to get  jobs done." - Clay Christensen

Are now doing I'LL and document delivery with the iPads.

Dropbox

Box.net

SkyDrive

PDFwriter

Documenting problems for facilities 

If its not with you all them time, then doesn't get used at all.