So, who isn’t? Open Source? Sun would control the world if it could, trust me.

In a market driven, competitive environment, the goal to win and retain marketshare is based on a deep-seeded drive to be blatantly proprietary.

The thing I appreciate about Apple, is they are innovative, not stale, constantly trying to wow the market with a drive to new technology. Of course, they are trying to tie up all the ‘Tune’ business. And they are trying to break up this insane corporate love affair with Microsoft Exchange. MS is a decayed monopoly that needs a clear business alternative. In becoming this, MS defined thievery and proprietarianism.

Cest la vie. More power to Apple and ANYONE who can break that dynasty.

OK, back to work on my XP machine, When I get home I can play on my iMac and Macbook.

@Woeful:
Agreed. Mobile interfaces wouldn’t be used to replace anything (except IM when it goes the way of the dinosaur)- but simply to supplement or improve upon the library’s virtual presence and digital reference services.

@Brad:
I disagree that creating an app for social networks must have social features to thrive. I think you can look at many of the OPAC apps created for Facebook and see some value in them even though they aren’t social at all. I think what we have to remember when creating these apps is that they will never go mainstream. Apps are for niches that find them useful. Does that make them a waste of time? No. For the most part they are free to create and implement (like IM) and if even a small group of users adopts them in their digital life then your ROI is excellent.

Thanks everyone for the comments!

I happen not to be an Apple fan - they’re blatently proprietary in an increasingly open technological community — with only innovation and aesthetic appeal to save them. One innovation was notably the iPhone’s web browser.

The web is too massive for every page to adapt to mobile devices. Apple took the realistic approach and made real web pages viewable on their phone. The technology for that will only get better. As such, and as always — Libraries will do best to put 99% focus on their full-size web site. There is no substitute for good coding.

I will have to disagree with the contention that libraries should be making pages and/or apps for all kinds of different platforms. Mobile standards happen not to be very standard at all. The iPhone SDK merely provides API hooks for the functionality provided by the phone (This is true for Android and tons of other mobile options). If an app doesn’t provide something directly beneficial on the merits of it being a mobile communication device, then it is merely a superfluous interface and icon. This is also true for social networks — if an app does not provide social features, it will not thrive.

Individual libraries have a number of options open to them in terms of Usability and Accessibility that I would be happy to elaborate on to anyone who will listen. However, a killer mobile app for the library community is going to be 1) Intuitive 2) Powerful 3) Universal 4) Local (in the same breath). That’s not something an individual library would provide single-handedly, unless providing a universal service for others for the heck of it.

I wholeheartedly agree that SMS reference should be an avenue. I’m shady on the numbers, but more recent data I’ve seen is staggering when it comes to texting. Once again, using the web site and other outreach to broadcast library services is equally important to this process.

Very thought-provoking article!

I don’t think IM is dying any more than email is dying, or voice transmissions are dying. I think it’s important to note that each of these tools satisfies a specific communications need. Phones (voice) are great when something is urgent, IM is great for real-time collaboration, and email is a great method of communication for all parties involved when prioritization is key. I really love the ability to rank emails as to their importance and respond accordingly… Information triage if you will.

Mobile reference, working in tandem with the Ref Desk, is definitely the future. What form it will take is anyone’s guess… Excellent Post!

Seriously though, I don’t see this as an either/or question, and I wouldn’t go as far as to discourage libraries from adopting and exploring IM. It’s not the shiny new toy it was ten years ago, but virtual reference on the web and over IM is still growing steadily.

IM-based virtual reference services, in particular, are very easy to get started, and unless we’re going to block our ears and shut our eyes and sing ‘la-la-la’, we’ve all got to start learning how to communicate online sometime. Why not now?

In terms of mobile trends, it might be better to say that library services need to go where the web goes, and that means mobile devices and phones. Not tomorrow or next year, but right now, libraries need simple and quick-to-load interfaces that work on those devices.

For virtual reference, we need to rethink requiring the user have Flash (ie for MeeboMe widgets), and maybe also those interfaces built on frames, like QuestionPoint’s main chat interface (caveat - OCLC is changing some things up really soon and I’m excited to try them on the phone).

I also don’t see mobile devices replacing desktop computers as research tools, and insofar as reference services support research (and other uses of the library), screens on phones and mobile devices are still too small. At least, they are this year. Maybe next year we’ll get that paper-thin multi-touch roll-out display in a tube.