Monday, April 13, 2009

WorldCat Mobile (Beta)

WorldCat Mobile
Search for library materials—Enter search terms such as keywords, author or title

Find a WorldCat library near you—Enter your ZIP, postal code or location in the Libraries Locator

Call a library—Highlight and click the phone number in a library listing to place a call

Map a route—Find the fastest way to a WorldCat library using the mapping software already on your device

Now you can use your mobile phone to find materials in libraries near you—and help us test this new pilot service. Available to people in the United States and Canada, the six-month pilot lets you try out mobile search of WorldCat libraries and suggest improvements or additional features.

WorldCat has partnered with mobile-technology leader Boopsie and joined its growing array of search "channels" that let you quickly access popular Web applications including Google, Wikipedia and Facebook; look up retail locations such as Starbucks and FedEx; and check news, weather, traffic reports and much more!

When you download the Boopsie application to your phone, you get library search plus these additional channels, as well as its "smart prefix" feature that allows you to type only the first few letters of search keywords and view results instantly as you type.

Get started

Using the Web browser on your mobile phone, navigate to

to access the WorldCat mobile application. The application is compatible with these phones and mobile operating systems:

Windows Mobile 5.0 / Blackberry / Palm OS 5.4 or later / Apple iPhone / Nokia / MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1 Java /

A Complete List Of Supported Phones Is Available

Source

[http://www.worldcat.org/mobile/]

News Release

[http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/20095.htm]

Video Demos

[http://www.boopsie.com/home/worldcat.wmv] (iPhone)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMdpHaZm-kA] (Blackberry Bold)

Mobile Applications For Libraries And The WorldCat Mobile Pilot (42:36)

Alice Sneary, OCLC, Creative Services Analyst (Moderator)

Mark Allcock, OCLC, Senior Global Manager, Market Solutions (Presenter)

Archive Of OCLC Webinar / April 29, 2009 / 10 AM - 11 AM Eastern /

Available At

[http://tinyurl.com/d4ghav]

[Dead Link / 07-26-09]

See Also

[http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/07/osu-library-labs-worldcat-mobile.html]

[http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/07/internet-librarian-2009-net-initiatives.html]

C203 / Putting Your Library on a Mobile Phone

See Also Also

WorldCat Mobile Pilot Extended To Europe (07-06-09)

[http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/07/worldcat-mobile-pilot-extended-to.html]

 at 9:19 PM

3 comments:

  1. Looking forward to trying this - just downloaded it! Thanks :-)
    ReplyDelete
  2. There is a WorldCat Mobile pilot Webinar planned for April 29 at 10 am EDT (2 pm GMT). Sponsored by OCLC, the Webinar is free and geared for librarians. Register at https://www3.oclc.org/app/request/bin/request.asp?specialCode=worldcatmobilewebinar
    ReplyDelete
  3. I forwarded the link to a reader and a traveler and here are his first experiences:
    Well, it's a bit strange. I searched for "Team of Rivals" and it returned nothing, but if i type in "Goodwin, Doris k" the book does show up in the list. I chock this up to the frustrating database that every library seems to use. I've never been impressed with any library's searching of their catalog (Chicago/Boston, Universities, so far). I'm sure they pay a lot of money for them, and they're easily beaten by Google for the book I want to find!

    I also searched for "Dress your Family in..." and it found that book, however it said that there were no libraries near me that had the book. The Boston libraries are in their list of libraries, but apparently, the search function doesn't search them.

    I'll keep playing around with it to see if I can figure out any more tricks. The price was right, however, free for the ipod touch that I'm using.
    ...also, it doesn't seem to know where the Boston Public Library really is...Interestingly enough, my local branch does show up when I search for a Library near me.
    ReplyDelete

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