University of Maryland University College Library Goes Mobile
Here's another new mobile library web site that just went live to take a look at. It comes from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Library located in Adelphi, MD (borders College Park), not from Archives II and one of ResourceShelf's HQ's. (-:
In most cases, the mobile sites we've looked at in the past several months have the top-level headings and icons, stacked vertically and flush left, from top to bottom. This site places the icons across the page into two horizontal lines (as rendered on an iPhone 4.)
It has all of the features you would expect including an "Ask a Librarian" button; access to the catalog (you'll need to enlarge the type to see where to search, options, and results); subject guides (again enlarging the type is needed); a couple of mobile databases with the promise of more coming soon; and a section named "How Do I" (very cool) with direct links to video tutorials. We've seen a few mobile sites offer video but not as many as you would think. Here it works well and looks great.
So, well done UMUC. Just a bit of tweaking (or explanation to the user) of the catalog interface and research guide pages are needed.* We're looking forward to your next release.
* Of course, this is one of the major challenges of mobile page development since different mobile browsers and different screen sizes render pages differently.
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