ALADIN Mobile

I was browsing through the latest WRLC monthly newsletter -- it's sent out to all librarians in the Consortium and updates us all on what the high mucky-mucks in Upper Marlboro are up to as a result of our collaboration -- and thought I'd take another look at last month's newsletter.

It just happened to mention ALADIN Mobile and how well it's been doing over the past six months.

Hmm, I thought to myself. Have I done a blog post about that? It's the kind of thing people ought to know, especially with the increasing prevalence of Web-heavy but Flash-light (no groans from the peanut gallery, please) devices like iPhones and iPads, which can't handle the full power of our catalog directly from our home page.

So I did a search from our home page for anything in this blog that might have mentioned it, and came up with this. It's in the Question of the Week, way down at the bottom, and is a little thin on details.

Well, details are what librarians do best, so here goes!

First, ALADIN Mobile is, obviously, a response to the aforementioned increase in portable Web devices. It's a mobile Web site at m.wrlc.org that's been optimized for browsers on Apple and Android devices (as well as those who qualify as "other"). It's been slickly designed to resemble an actual app and has three significant functions:

1. Search the catalog
   
1. Including the holdings of all Consortium universities or just Gallaudet
   
2. Request items through CLS on the go
   
3. Text the record of the item you're looking at (so you can get the number right away when you arrive at the library on your way somewhere else)
   
4. E-mail it to yourself as a reminder later
2. Use myALADIN
   
1. Check what books you have borrowed
2. Check fines incurred
   
3. Unfortunately you cannot renew items through the mobile app -- that's still largely the province of myALADIN on your home computer.
3. Find locations and hours. This sounds simple, but ...
   
1. Finding the location for a specific library will automatically take you to Google Maps, which will display that location
2. Today's hours are automatically displayed in the listing for each library, and for each library, the full hours are displayed. It saves you a lot of time and irritation!

In general, it's a pretty great thing for us to have -- I know it is for me. It's saved me a ton of money when I find myself trapped in a bookstore with no way out except past the cash register; I just look it up on my phone and if we have it, I don't get it. And increasingly, it's available here or at a Consortium library!

It's also useful for doing quick research when you're not at a computer or when it's not convenient to use one -- say, on the Metro on your way in to campus, eating lunch in the cafeteria, or walking out of your book group (because if you're not first to make the CLS request, someone else in your book group will beat you to it, and then where will you be? Not that I've ever been in that position ... ).

It's also great for navigating the stacks downstairs if you need a few books but can only find one on the shelf; often there will be related books in the general vicinity, but different aspects of the same topic (such as psychological assessments of Napoleon versus prevalent medical conditions of the time that might explain his behavior) may be shelved in completely different parts of the Library. ALADIN Mobile can save you the trip upstairs and back. A small improvement but measurable.

I know, all of this sounds kind of commercial -- of course I'm pushing a service that the Consortium provides. But even if I weren't a Library shill, I'd still use ALADIN Mobile pretty heavily. I might be an outlier -- what normal person considers buying a book every time he walks by the Hudson News by the Amtrak gates in Union Station? -- but it has real utility and performs it in a very appealing and accessible manner.

Okay, that's about it for today. You'll get yourselves a vlog before the end of the week -- the first one since the last week of October!