23 Mobile Things #12 - Books, Books, & More Books

I chose to try the YALSA Teen Book Finder.  I have a teenage son who is a voracious reader, and I have been keeping lists of these titles on my phone to borrow from the teen section at our public library when they become available.  I like the search by genre and the search by award, but I wish you could do an advanced search like by genre by year.  I also like the option for favorites, which would allow me to keep track of which books I've already offered to him.  The nicest thing about this app is that as long as I can connect to wifi, I no longer have to type in the titles in Evernote.  Very nice.

23 Mobile Things # 11 - Library & Reference

Our library has a mobile version of our catalog at https://cen-mplus-mnpals-net.cenproxy.mnpals.net/vufind/.  It's not an app, but for a library catalog, in some ways, I think that's better.  Gale has an app, but EBSCO has a mobile version that detects the type of device you are on and switches to the mobile version if necessary.  We've had some problems with off-campus access through the Gale app, but no problems with EBSCO mobile because access goes through our proxy server.  Apps and proxy servers do not necessarily play nicely.

We have a guide to mobile access for our library that includes mobile versions and apps at http://libguides.century.edu/mobile.   My favorite app there is the Bluefire Reader, not so much because it's a great reader app but because it facilitates the download of our ebooks onto Nook and iPad without having to go through the hassle of downloading through Adobe Digital Editions first.

For this Thing, I downloaded the St. Paul Public Library app.  It has a number of options:

• My Account: It's nice that it can save the login info.  I may use this to renew books.
• Library Locator: A good thing if you're out and about and want to find the closest branch of the library. Oddly, it wanted to know my location, but then listed every branch, with no regard to where I was located.
• Ask A Librarian: It's nice that Email Us and Call Us are just a click away.  I'm surprised that there is no chat option though.
• E-books and Audiobooks Available Now: Nice!  OverDrive, 3M Cloud Library, and OneClickdigital, all ready for use.  I'd better put this app on my iPad, though, because I really don't want to be reading books on my phone.  Downloading audiobooks might be an option, though.
• New Books for Adults, Teens, Kids: Useful, but I'd rather browse in person.
• BookLook @ ISBN search: If I'm doing selection using Choice or Library Journal, I can grab the barcode and find out whether or not the library has it. Cool!
• Research: Ugh.  This wants me to install more apps.  Can't they just pass me to the EBSCO mobile site with my saved login credentials already in place.  Bummer.

There's more, but not as interesting as these.  

23 Mobile Things # 10 - Sharing Photos

I downloaded Instagram and logged in using Facebook.  I was instantly able to follow several Facebook friends.  I'm pretty sure one of my sons uses Instagram, but I couldn't find him using the search, which is pretty primitive.  This is kind of like Twitter for photos.  I see that most people I know are using it for photos of pretty flowers.  With the ability to edit photos these days, it's pretty easy to take lovely photos of flowers, and while they brighten my day, I'm not sure how many I need to see.

I do like the ease of taking photos with my phone, editing them, and uploading them to other places, like Facebook.  One of the major pains with using the old style camera at work to take shots of the library is getting the photos off the camera, onto the computer, and then uploaded to our blog or Facebook.  This could make it really easy to use my phone to take photos, edit them in Instagram, and post them, at least on the library's Facebook account.  I didn't see an easy way to post to Blogger, but maybe there is one.  I think this app will be useful in the long run.

23 Mobile Things #9 -. Taking & Editing Photos

I downloaded Photo Editor by Aviary on my iPad.  It's great.  We don't use the iPad much as a camera, but this editor might cause us to use it more.  Here's a photo of my mom that was on the iPad that I enhanced. It was an absolutely horrible shot that we used to show off the things the iPad could do the last time we visited my parents.  Photo Editor turned it into something almost usable.

 Here's a photo from a robotics meet of the team mascot. 

I can think of several uses for this app at our library, particularly editing photos for our blog.  We're also considering adding iPads to circulate and this might be an app that we would add to the available apps on those iPads.

23 Mobile Things #8 - Social Media Management Tools

I've been on Facebook and LinkedIn for many years, and I have a Google+ account because you pretty much can't avoid having one.  However, my Google+ profile and account were pretty barebones, and since I often receive requests for friends on that account, I thought I would take this opportunity to set it up. 

I started by uploading a profile photo and adding friends.  I like that Google+ automatically groups people.  I'm not as fond of the magazine type layout, but at least it's not overrun with ads the way Facebook is these days.  and I like the way it handles photos.  Although I had a bunch of friend requests to process, when I added all the people, what I discovered was that not many of them are actually posting to Google+.  In fact, one post read, "Just posting so I can find again."  Most amusing.  I'm glad to have an improved profile, but I don't know how often I will check this.

Our library currently has a Facebook and Twitter account.  Our blog automatically posts to Twitter, but not to Facebook.  I set it all up so long ago that I have no idea offhand how it works or what it uses.  I might take a look at Hootsuite or something else to automatically make our posts go to all our sites, although I most likely will use a PC and not an app to do so.  I can't quite imagine why one would use an app for this purpose, but maybe it will all become clear to me when I get my neural implant.  :-)

23 Mobile Things #7 - Content Saving & Sharing

I chose to take a look at Bitly, which I have used for years to shorten URLS.  This time I downloaded it to my iPhone and created an account using Facebook.  I copied a link, pasted it in, and the app went off into lala land for many minutes, probably because I use wireless and don't have a data plan.  I stopped it, copied a different link, went over to the Bitly app, where it said, "Link Detected - want to save this link you copied?"  I clicked "Save it", and it seemed to work.  But then when I went to "Your Links", nothing I copied was there.  The app must have changed since the 23 Things "Getting Started with Bitly" was created, because there was no "Next" option and the screens looked nothing like the directions on 23 Things.  Guess I should have tried this back in January.

The menu icon gave me options for Your Links, Bundles, Your Friends' Links, and Trending Links.  Your Links brought up the same search screen as the initial screen that again went off into lala land endlessly.  Bundles was empty.  Your Friends' Links, which I thought might load something from Facebook, also searched endlessly.  Trending Links gave me a "Realtime error".

My phone generally works fine without a data plan, but this particular app is pretty useless.  It's too bad, because I was thinking it would be like the old Delicious, which was great for keeping a set of bookmarks in the cloud.  I'm bummed.  I may try it on the iPad, but my phone is where I really could have used it.

23 Mobile Things - #6 - Creating & Editing Docs

I chose to try QuickOffice, although when I saw the two star rating, I almost chose CloudOn instead.  I though QuickOffice would be useful because I use Google Drive.

I downloaded and opened the app, signed into my Google account, and looked through the directions for Powerpoint, which could be useful when presenting at a conference.  I also looked through the Word directions, then turned to my Google Drive, which had my name on it.  I looked at the recent documents and then things got weird. 

Did I mention that I share the iPad with my 16 year old son?  Did I mention that he also uses Google Drive?  IPads want to belong to someone, and despite the fact that I signed into MY Google account, somehow QuickOffice belongs to him.  Finally, I saw an option to add another Google account, which allowed me into my documents.  (When I'm signed in, does that mean he can access my documents?  Since they are mostly work related, it doesn't really matter, but it's weird.)  I opened a spreadsheet, which did not allow me to edit, but offered me the opportunity to buy an app.  I could view it, though.  Then I tried to open a Word document, which also offered me the opportunity to buy an app.  Hmmm. 

Creating a document did work.  I also created a Powerpoint slide and a spreadsheet.  I have to say that it's not nearly as easy as using a PC, but I could see that if the only device I had on hand at a conference or a meeting were an iPad or iPhone, this could come in handy.  Would I remember the gestures if I used this app infrequently?  Hmmm.

I think for notetaking, I will still use Evernote, but I think I will keep this app on the iPad.