Robert E. Kennedy Library’s hours, contact information, staff chat, catalogs, search engines and computer availability maps are just a finger tap away.
The library ‘s”Kennedy Library” mobile website was added to the Cal Poly app more than a month ago and has been available since Summer 2011, although many students don’t know about it.
Analyst and programmer Carl Hunt played a key role in designing and implementing the mobile-enabled library website.
“We looked at certain parts of our site and identified what parts we could fairly easily make mobile-enabled,” Hunt said.
As a Web programmer student assistant and computer science sophomore, Glen Beebe worked most closely with creating the computer availability maps.
“I think it is a very useful app now that it’s out there, and people can use it on their phones or computers wherever they’re at,” Beebe said.
The computer availability feature works by connecting to software that keeps track of when people are logged into a computer and where that computer is located, Beebe said. The feature updates every minute and the computers’ locations are shown in a floor plan layout.
Library Information Technology director Dale Kohler said he has seen the desire for more mobile services. Students want to be able to access services from laptops, iPads and smartphones, Kohler said. The staff decided what services were appropriate to be delivered in a mobile format and started to implement them.
The Cal Poly app can be downloaded from the app store and the “Kennedy Library” app is accessed through it. The library mobile website can also be found by visiting the library website on a mobile device, Kohler said. If someone wants to use the original version of the website on their phone, there is an option to use the original website.
These mobile options are in response to students’ requests from students to have more services in a mobile format, Kohler said.
“Part of the feedback that the campus has gotten is that it doesn’t have to be perfect,” Kohler said. “Don’t wait until it’s perfect to roll it out, just roll something out and you can work on refining it over time.”
Now that the mobile website has been implemented and connected to the Cal Poly app, the university’s public affairs department will make sure that the two have a cohesive look and feel, Kohler said.
The library staff is turning its efforts to the design and will continue to do so to achieve a visually consistent app, library staff said.
“There’s a campus-wide effort to get a unified design going so it all looks seamless to students, and so no matter where you go in that app, it feels like Cal Poly,” Kohler said.
Marya Figueroa, the information technology consultant in the library, works to make the library’s website look like the Cal Poly app.
“We want to make sure that our app looks like it really belongs within the Cal Poly brand,” Figueroa said. “So we want to make sure that our look and feel is completely in sync with the Cal Poly mobile website.”
Kohler agreed with Figueroa’s sentiment about making the library portion of the app more cohesive.
“The other thing that the campus is really focusing on now that they have an app is trying to make everything uniform, so if you branch off to campus dining or you go to the library, it looks like you’re in the same place,” Kohler said.
The library mobile friendly website was added as an icon on the Cal Poly smart phone application in January 2012.
Kohler and a team of library staff are working on fine tuning the overall look of the mobile website, he said.
“We want to go back and look at the interface again and make it nicer,” Kohler said. “So we want to improve on how it looks.”
This article was written by Lacey O’Connor.