Sarah asks about how to direct users to mobile versions of databases where 
appropriate. 

The way I'm doing it is: 
1. All database links are served up from a database table, so the link on our 
website is http://$OUR_LIBRARY/redirect?$db_id
2. The db-of-dbs knows if there is a mobile specific url (because we put it 
there...) 
3. Detect mobile-or-not as a binary value
4. Serve up the right one as an HTTP header redirect

One big exception: EBSCO (which provides a really large number of our 
databases) handles their mobile access by using the same URL with a different 
profile name in the url. The redirect script has a special case that says if 
($mobile = true and $ebsco = true) { do string replace on the url to change 
from the desktop url to the mobile url } -- so I don't have to list both 
versions of the URL in the database.

It seems to work out pretty well.

Ken 

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sarah 
Dooley
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2013 3:25 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Responsive Web Site Live

Very cool--congratulations!

In addition to Dave's questions, I'd be curious to know (can't see it since I 
don't have a login) how you handled directing people to databases that have 
mobile versions. This is something I've been wondering about for our site down 
the road and library sites in general--from a responsive site, how to 
effectively link people out to vendor-provided resources that are either mobile 
or non-mobile.

-Sarah Dooley

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