My boss has directed me to start looking into producing a phone app for
the library, or better yet finding a way to integrate with the existing
campus-wide app. Could I pick the list's brains?
1) Is there some tolerably decent cross-platform app language, or am I
going to be learning 3 different languages for iOS, Android, and Windows
phone? I've dabbled in all kinds of things, but my bread-and-butter
work has been PHP on a LAMP stack. Apps aren't written in that, so new
language time.
2) The library's selection of mobile devices consists of 2 iPads and a
Galaxy tablet. We don't have phones for testing. My personal phone is
a 12-year-old flip phone which doesn't run apps. Can I get by with
emulators? What are some good ones? The budget for the project is
zero, so I don't think dedicated testing devices are in the cards unless
I upgrade my own phone, which I probably ought to anyway.
3) What are some best practices for library app design? We were
thinking the key functionality would be personal account management
(what have I got checked out, renew my stuff, etc), hours, lab
availability, search the catalog, and ask a librarian. Anything
missing? Too much stuff?
Will Martin
Web Services Librarian
Chester Fritz Library
P.S. I sent this a couple days ago and wondered why it hadn't shown up
-- only to realize I accidently sent it to j...@code4lib.org rather than
the actual list serv address. Whoops, embarrassing!
