Show me the numbers

One of the offshoots of the Arcadia Project was the joint UL/CARET CULWidgets product, which wangled some JISC funding to "provide users with services appropriate to a networked world" in a widgetty/web services way.

Our two main production interfaces are the Cambridge Library Widget and the CamLib mobile web app, both soft-launched at the start of this term. This, the last day of term, seems a good time to look back and see how they've done.

Overall unique visitor numbers for the Widget are:



And, slightly more erratically, for CamLib:


A combined 4,489 unique visitors across the two. The services are mainly targeted at Undergraduates, of which Cambridge has c.12,000. Even assuming some crossover between the interfaces, and the likelihood that not all of them are undergrads, we're still looking at a significant proportion of our UG population (25-33%?)

Of course, these are just our unique visitors (i.e. distinct people who have visited the site) - total visits for the period are 12,284 and 2,559 respectively. Which shows that students are coming back to the interfaces again and again, not just taking a crafty peek. Monthly figures across both interfaces average around 3,000 unique users.

Our initial target was for 2,000 unique users in the first term, so we're running at well over double. Well done Widgets! And there are more to come.

Mobile University

Last Thursday I attended the Eduserv 2010 Symposium on the Mobile University, an excellent event, well organised, with a good mix of interesting speakers, delicious lunch and sensational cheeseboard. There was an impressive array of cameras, leads, mics in evidence (the event was streamed live) and I see that slides and videos are now available. If you watch nothing else, please try to see Paul Golding's opening keynote for some staggering stats (59 countries have more active mobile accounts than people) and scary/exciting predictions on augmented reality.

Just before I left to catch a train to Mashed Libraries Liverpool (completely different, equally excellent - no cheeseboard, lovely bacon butties) there were a series of short talks from universities who had already made some progress on the mobile front. Among them Edinburgh, who presented a short survey covering what gadgets and gizmos their students own, and also what they expect to be able to do with them (thanks to Laura James for the reminder!)

Looking at the list of expectations, one thing which struck me (again) is that users don't see boundaries between different parts of their academic life - they just want to go to one place (in this case their phone) and do everything. This kind of developing across institutional boundaries is something we're working towards, particularly with projects such as the JISC funded UL/CARET project CULwidgets.

Last spring, Arcadia's own Keren Mills produced a Cambridge-based study of mobile use and student expectations, in which she says "people are currently more positive about accessing information via SMS than via the mobile internet, although iPhones and iPhone like smart phones may change that". And looking at Edinburgh's survey, it seems that a year is a long time in mobile phone-land. It would be interesting to repeat Keren's survey now and compare figures.

Paul Golding points to a number of drivers which are pushing the smartphone, touch-based, mobile internet world (chief among them being more data-friendly tariffs), and to a dramatic shift in the use of mobile technologies - essentially, a smartphone isn't just a new kind of mobile phone - it's a completely different beast. We are not talking about replacing like with nearly-like.

The consensus seems to be that in c. 3 years the majority of students will have smartphones and expect to be able to come to university and use them. And, for universities, the trick seems to be to get started now. Even if you get it wrong, you'll be engaging and learning in an area where you might soon have to be an expert.

Which is what we're doing at the UL with CamLib the Cambridge Libraries Mobile Interface. It's been out in Beta for a few weeks now and use is starting to pick up. Meanwhile, we're analysing Google Analytics stats and user feedback to see where we're going right and where we're going wrong. But in a sense just being involved is getting it right - staking a claim in what's likely to be a very important new territory.

Mobile interface for Cambridge Libraries

Today sees the Beta launch of Camlib, a mobile interface for Cambridge libraries. It has been tested with iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices (revision: apparently it's also working on Opera Mini browser on Blackberry).

Link to interface: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/mob/camlib.cgi
Link to info: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/toolbox/camlib.html

Much of the new functionality is linked to log-in - those without a Cambridge Library account can log in with our test user (using library barcode login):

Barcode:VABCD
Surname: BLOGGS

[NB please use Mr Bloggs to explore CamLib, but refrain, if possible, from making any requests under his name ...]

CamLib is developed from the Cambridge Libraries Widget, with extra functionality and lots of bells and whistles thrown in. It's written in jQTouch, a JQuery library which gives the look and feel of a native app in a web interface.

We thought long and hard about what people were likely to want out of a mobile library interface, and came up with Bookbag, a new piece of functionality which allows you to build a list of items from your searches then email it to yourself (or anyone else for that matter). Viewing content on a smartphone can be difficult, and nobody wants to be copying classmarks from phone to paper - BookBag allows you to discover now, and consume at your leisure.

CamLib also links out to full text and Google Books (where available), though we can do nothing about the mobile-friendliness (or otherwise) of external sites. It will link out to Google Maps (or a floorplan in the case of the University Library) to help you locate items. On iPhone/iPod Touch there is a neat tie-in with the inbuilt mapping functionality which allows you to use the Directions button to find out how long it will take to walk to your book! (untested on Android)

Otherwise, it does everything the widget does - view and renew loans - place, view and cancel requests - view library profile etc.

CamLib builds on the ideas, work and concepts that have emerged from the Arcadia Project - indeed, a mobile interface was one of Arcadia Fellow Tony Hirst's direct recommendations. In this sense it still counts as an "Arcadia Product", even though the project is now being funded by JISC!