This rather lengthy screed is about our recent experiences working on a mobile app for the OPLIN Find-A-Library service (http://oplin.org/fal). In it we share some lessons learned, some information for folks with mobile devices, and some observations for all libraries.
Lessons learned
We wanted to build a version of the Find-A-Library service that would take advantage of the capabilities of smartphones, such as the ability to place a call by clicking on a phone number, or mapping a route to a library location from the current location of the phone. We started by grabbing the recommended integrated development environments (IDEs) for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android. We installed Xcode and the iOS SDK on Mac OS X, following the instructions at http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action; and we installed Eclipse and the Android SDK on Linux, following the instructions at http://developer.android.com/guide.
Both of these IDEs require at least a basic understanding of the concepts of object-oriented and java programming, but they're really not too difficult to use, and Xcode in particular can be fun. Whenever you get stuck, there's a ton of help available on the Internet.
As we worked on our apps, however, we gradually came to realize that we were trying to write code that had already been well-written by other folks, particularly the developers that built the mobile web browsers and Google maps. It would have taken a lot of time to create web views, navigation buttons, activity indicators, map views, and other such things that were already available through existing apps that almost everybody already has on their mobile device. (Plus we learned that it would cost us $99 to become "official" Apple developers before we could build code that we could test on a real iPhone, and we're kinda cheap!)
For folks with mobile devices
Our solution was to modify the existing Find-A-Library code so it performed well in a mobile web browser. If you have a mobile device—ANY mobile device—that has a web browser, go to http://oplin.org/labs/mobilefal—and then set a bookmark so you won't even have to type this in again. This mobile version of Find-A-Library has been tweaked to look good on an iPhone screen (it didn't need any tweaking for Android) and you'll see that library phone numbers can be called (if your device is a phone) just by touching the number. You can also touch the library's address to launch Google maps, which can then provide you with a lot of other information, such as driving directions. Enjoy!
For all libraries
The library information in Find-A-Library comes from the OPLIN Data Center, so if your library's information is incorrect, it means you need to login to http://oplin.org/datacenter and correct it. Find-A-Library includes branches, so if you open/close/move a branch be sure to change that information in the Data Center. If you need Data Center help, contact http://support.oplin.org.
One important note about phone numbers: some libraries have taken pains to get a phone number that spells something, like "555-LIB-RARY." Smartphones cannot automatically call these numbers, they just ignore them. (The actual HTML code that enables calling a number expects ten digits after a "tel:" label, like this: <a href="tel:5555427279">555-542-7279</a>; "tel:555LIBRARY" fails.) For that matter, such numbers are impossible to dial manually on the QWERTY keyboard of many smartphones. Please use "real-number" phone numbers in the Data Center.
Questions?
We'll try our best to answer them, just contact http://support.oplin.org.