Below, a few findings from a new 100+ page, fee-based report titled, Survey of Policies to Assure Mobile Device Access to the Library Website, published by the Primary Research Group.
More than 60 libraries contributed comprehensive data and insights to the report, and data is broken out by size and type of library and other useful criteria.
The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: What kind of apps are libraries developing for mobile technologies? How are libraries testing their sites for mobile device access? How many libraries and what kinds of libraries are using for-fee services to enhance mobile device access? What is the impact on use of library resources? What has been the experience of libraries with various open source products to enable mobile access? What are libraries planning for the future in this mission critical area?
A Few Findings From the Report
- 11.86% of libraries sampled have developed apps specifically for any kind of smartphone user. These apps were mostly devised by libraries outside of the United States, of which 36.36% of libraries have developed such apps.
- 20.34% said that they used both paid and free services to measure mobile device access metrics.
- Academic libraries were much more likely than others to use Google Analytics.
- Public libraries had the highest percentage of total web traffic accounted for by mobile devices, at 17.66%.
Excerpt: “Survey of Policies to Assure Mobile Device Access to the Library Website”