A JISC-funded m-library project at the University of Bristol
Mike Jones recently gave a very good presentation on the MBiblio Project at a Mobile Technologies in Libraries event held in Birmingham. You can see Mike’s presentation on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/MrJ1971/2012-0508mibibliomlibs
There were lots of other interesting presentations given at the event. A list of these with links to presentations and content can be found on Lanyard.com at http://lanyrd.com/2012/mlibs-may/schedule/
By virtue of a discussion taking place on the LIS-MMIT JISCMAIL list I recently found the M-Library Project (http://mlib.blog.com/) which (to paraphrase) is a collaborative project between the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI) and Edinburgh Napier University. Funded by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) it examines user attitudes towards the creation of mobile support services in UK academic libraries, and looks at technologies currently in use in UK academic libraries.
They’ve recently published a report of their findings (http://mlib.blog.com/files/2011/09/The-M-Library-Project-UK-Academic-Libraries-Going-Mobile.pdf) and it draws out some interesting statistics. Firstly, and most interesting to me, was the question of whether or not the students knew what a QR code was: 82% replied saying that they didn’t. Only 8% were found to have actually downloaded a QR code reader to their phone and this certainly suggests that for a project like M-biblio (which will utilise QR codes but also other technology), that some effort will need to be put into raising awareness of both the project and the technologies involved.
“82% of students questioned didn’t know what a QR code was”
The second interesting set of statistics drawn out in the report were that nearly 70% of students taking part in the survey (1061 in total) said they owned a smart phone and 50% of those said that they regularly use their mobile phone to browse the web.
More pertinent to this project however were the stats on those utilising their mobile phone for investigating library resources, with only 15% having used it to access the web pages or services of the universities’ libraries in question. The most common service found to be used was for renewing books online. However, and perhaps critically, 90% responded saying that they would like access to at least one library service directly on their mobile phone. It seems from this that the market for an app which can facilitate the collection of bibliographic references may well be there waiting for us.
“90% of students said they would like access to at least one library service on their mobile phone“
Both Mike and I feel slightly disappointed that the technology on current smart phones is not really existent to enable us to pursue the idea of looking into near field communications (NFC). This would have enabled a smart phone app to capture data from RFID tags on books and journals passively. However, in the near future, this should be feasible and we need to keep our eye on the mobile phone market in order to track what technologies are included on the latest models, such as the upcoming iPhone 5 if and when it finally appears.
“NFC technology isn’t sufficiently developed on current mobile phones to enable passive capture of data via RFID tags”
It certainly won’t be long before these kinds of technologies are widely available and with this in mind it’s interesting to note another statistic that the M-Library report pulled out which was that within the UK there was a 70% rise in smart phone numbers between 2009 and 2010. It’s also interesting to note that students seem to change their mobile phones on a very regular basis. 81% of those surveyed had owned their current mobile for less than 18 months and 61% had owned their current mobile phone for less than a year. This shows that new technologies emerging within the mobile phone field very quickly saturate the market.
The report is a very interesting one for anybody considering employing mobile technology within a library context and it also has a good reference section which points towards a lot of other reports and articles around the centre – highly recommended.
The general shape and form of the budget for this project is available in the budget sheet below. All data is anonymous. But for those more keen on graphics than numbers here’s a pie chart showing a simplified version of where the money is allocated.
M-biblio Budget
| m-biblio | |||
| Directly Incurred |
Aug 11 – Jul 12 |
TOTAL £ |
Actual grant |
| Project Management | £5,741.00 | £5,741.00 | £5,741.00 |
| Technical Development | £19,727.00 | £19,727.00 | £19,727.00 |
| Total Directly Incurred Staff (A) | £25,468.00 | £25,468.00 | £25,468.00 |
| Non-Staff |
Aug 11 – Jul 12 |
TOTAL £ |
|
| RFID tag readers | £600.00 | £600.00 | £600.00 |
| User incentives | £250.00 | £250.00 | £0.00 |
| Travel to JISC meetings | £300.00 | £300.00 | £300.00 |
| User Engagement | £1,500.00 | £1,500.00 | £1,500.00 |
| Website design | £1,400.00 | £1,400.00 | £1,400.00 |
| Total Directly Incurred Non-Staff (B) | £4,050.00 | £4,050.00 | £3,800.00 |
| Directly Incurred Total (A+B=C) (C) | £29,518.00 | £29,518.00 | £29,268.00 |
| Directly Allocated |
Aug 11 – Jul 12 |
TOTAL £ |
|
| Advisory Group Member | £1,519.00 | £1,519.00 | |
| Advisory Group Member | £1,264.00 | £1,264.00 | |
| Advisory Group Member | £1,264.00 | £1,264.00 | |
| Central staff salary costs | £1,761.57 | £1,761.57 | |
| Estates – Bristol | £3,517.03 | £3,517.03 | |
| Directly Allocated Total (D) | £9,325.60 | £9,325.60 | |
| Indirect |
Aug 11 – Jul 12 |
TOTAL £ |
|
| Bristol | £26,024.36 | £26,024.36 | £732.00 |
| Indirect Costs (E) | £26,024.36 | £26,024.36 | £732.00 |
| Total Project Cost (C+D+E) | £64,867.96 | £64,867.96 | £30,000.00 |
| Amount Requested from JISC | £30,000.02 | £30,000.02 | |
| Institutional Contributions | £34,867.94 | £34,867.94 | |
| Total cost of project | £64,867.96 | £64,867.96 | |
| Percentage Contributions over the life of the project | JISC | Partner | Total |
| 0.46 | 0.54 | 1 |
As with any project there are various risks associated with this one. Perhaps first and foremost is that we have just one developer working on this project. If he is unable to complete the project for any reason we will need to hand the work on to someone else within the University’s pool of developers. Most of the developers work on a multitude of different projects simultaneously with different start and end dates and there is often capacity for someone else to pick up work in other projects as and when necessary. Much the same applies to the Project Management post.
As previously mentioned there are certain limits to the technology currently available in smart phones. This is not necessarily a threat to the project but a limitation which needs to be understood in terms of directing effort in the project. One of the elements of the project we were keen to investigate is whether Near Field Communication (RFID) can be used to facilitate the generation of bibliographic references within a library context. However, the technology for detecting this form of code is not widely available currently. There are several devices which can facilitate working with RFID codes on certain mobile phone platforms and we will investigate those but it is likely that the core element of the project will need to focus on other forms of object identification such as bar codes and QR codes.
Advisory Group – a small risk associated with the Advisory Group is the amount of time people have available for supporting the work of the project. This is something the project manager is currently looking into and efforts are being made to ensure that sufficient time is allocated by advisory group members throughout the duration of the project.
We have also taken action to recruit several other advisory group members partly due to the above but also due to certain gaps that we identified in terms of knowledge and/or expertise. The “time” risk stated above largely relates to the ability of people to attend physical meetings. However, we have also established a wiki and an e-mail list which means that any information required can be garnered as and when required without impinging on staff time to any substantial level.
The project started at the beginning of November and is now due to finish at the end of July 2012. The following Gantt chart gives a brief overview of the project in terms of its work packages and projected timelines for their completion.
In terms of an overall methodology for the management of the project, although the project manager is Prince 2 qualified it is more likely that we will adopt a more lightweight methodology such as Agile given the nature, short duration and size of the project.
Dave Kilbey, Project Manager (D.Kilbey@bristol.ac.uk)
Mike Jones, Technical Lead (mike.a.jones@bristol.ac.uk)
Stuart Church (Pure Usability Ltd), User Experience specialist
Ben Hayes, User Interface Designer
Mike Wall, Head of Information Management
Julian Hill, Subject Librarian for Chemistry
Debra Avent-Gibson, Faculty Librarian, Science and Engineering
Ruth Dawson, Library Specialist IT Support Officer
Mike Jones, Lead Technical Developer
Mike is a Senior Web Developer / Researcher based in IT Services / R&D with over ten years experience of software development.
Mike was technical lead on the Mobile Campus Assistant and MyMobileBristol projects and has experience in developing for mobile platforms, including native and mobile web solutions.
He holds an MSc in Computing with Distinction (Cardiff University, 2003) and has skills in software development, including Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, HTML and CSS.
Dave Kilbey, Project Manager
Dave is currently working as an IT trainer for the University of Bristol. He is an experienced project manager and registered PRINCE2 practitioner and is currently managing the JISC-funded Nature Locator project.
Stuart Church (Pure Usability Ltd), User Experience specialist
Stuart Church has been employed in usability, web development, accessibility and information architecture roles for the last eight years.
He has worked on a wide variety of web-based projects for the University as well as for other clients, including The Millennium Mathematics Project, Microsoft, Defra, and Process Management International.
Stuart will work closely with Ben Hayes, the project’s Web Designer, to fulfil the essential requirements of Usability and Stakeholder components.
Ben Hayes, User Interface Designer
Ben has been designing websites and web applications for commercial and HE clients for a number of years.
He is responsible for creating easy-to-use interfaces, HTML and CSS coding, branding, accessibility and usability.
Ben has an MSc in Computer Science from Oxford Brookes University (passed with Distinction, 2001) and an MPhil in Computer Speech and Language Processing, awarded by the University of Cambridge in 2001.
Julian Hill
Julian is Subject Librarian for Chemistry, based in the Chemistry Library, and a Web Developer for the University Library.
B.Sc. Physics (Leicester University, 1981)
Post-graduate Diploma in Librarianship and Information Studies (Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic, 1983)
Assistant Librarian and then Information Officer for Redland Technology Ltd (the R&D arm of Redland Group PLC, manufacturers of building materials), 1983 – 1987.
Joined the University in Feb 1987 as Senior Library Assistant in charge of the Chemistry Library, and has since become Subject Librarian for Chemistry, based in the Chemistry Library, and a Web Developer for the the University Library (from 1997 onwards).
Since 2007 he has been involved with a trial of RFID taking place in the Chemistry Library, using a system from 2CQR for circulation of stock (in conjunction with the Aleph library computer system), self-issue, and security.
Ruth Dawson, Library Specialist IT Support Officer
Ruth Dawson is a Library Specialist IT Support Officer in IT Services at the University of Bristol. She is a member of the IT Services Special Interest Group on Mobile Devices and has over a decade of experience supporting innovative research and development in the IT Services R&D/ILRT.
As a member of the Service Delivery Group, Ruth provides IT support and advice to both academics and members of the other support services, including the Library and Educational Support Unit.
Debra Avent-Gibson
Debra is the Faculty Librarian for the Faculties of Science and Engineering at the University of Bristol and has over 12 years professional experience in University Libraries.
Debra leads the Faculties’ Subject Librarian teams, co-ordinating academic liaison, collection management activities, information literacy programmes and promotion of the collections and services, in support of teaching, learning and research.
Mike Wall
Mike is currently Head of Information Management at the University of Bristol.
He has over 20 years of professional experience in University Libraries, including five as a senior manager. Mike currently has responsibility for managing all aspects of providing access to information resources in print and electronic media. His current interests include achieving value for money in the procurement of information resources.
The final outputs of this project will include a mobile phone application which, in the first instance, will be coded natively for the iphone platform. This application will enable students to record and organise references to any books and journals they utilise. It is anticipated that the application will also be able to generate references specific to relevant articles within each Journal (those that include Digital Object Indentifiers anyway). The application may utilise an active form of recording (which might include scanning a barcode or utilising a QR code) but we will also be looking into the possibility of embracing Near Field Communication technologies such as RFID tags (the Uni’s Chemistry Faculty has implemented the use of these throughout its library).
The mobile phone application itself will have two functional elements to it. The first will be the “surface layer” which will provide the facility for students to organise their bibliographical references. The second will be the provision of usage data to the library. The latter will be of considerable benefit to the library since unless an item is physically removed (booked out) then gathering information on usage patterns for resources is extremely difficult. They will therefore be able to start filling this information gap.
Benefits to Institution and wider HE community
If such a methodology were to be made widely available to, and adopted by, students it is feasible that the data collected by libraries could be used to inform future purchasing patterns and stock levels for books and journals. Libraries could then begin to more closely match requirements to the items they stock with potential for saving money on unrequired items by reducing purchasing, shelving, admin and preservation costs.
The product will be made available freely within the HE community and other institutions interested in looking into or developing this technology may therefore make a start using our application and research as a platform.
The m-biblio project is funded by JISC under the m-library innovation programme and runs from November 2011 until the end of May 2012. We have fairly ambitious aims for a relatively short project:
“We propose to enhance the learning and research activities of the University of Bristol’s academic community by developing a mobile application that can record and organise references to books, journals and other resources. These references can be added actively by scanning barcodes and QR codes, or passively by automatically recording RFID tags in items being used for study and research. With permission of the user, the application will submit anonymous usage data to their library. This innovation will provide library staff with a valuable set of user-derived usage statistics. It will be able to track which resources were used, and where. The library will therefore be given a rich seam of usage patterns, including data about library items that are often confined to branches such as periodicals, journals and reference books. The application will be made available to the wider FE/HE community for use in other institutions.”
The project will be managed by the IT Services R&D / ILRT group at the University of Bristol, in collaboration with the University Library.
I’ll expand on the aims of the project in future posts and this blog will be a useful forum to report and discuss issues (technical or otherwise). The amount of work at this point is a little daunting, but I see this as a “fun” project that will provide very useful outputs.
I really need to find a better theme for this blog. 🙂