Unlocking Your ILS Data : Mobile access via

Unlocking Your ILS Data

Mobile access via handheld devices

Michael Doran, Systems Librarian doran@uta.edu

LITA 2009 National Forum

Salt Lake City, Utah

October 3, 2009

Where do we get our ILS data?

Integrated Library System

Our ILS data sits on a server, but to get at it we need an ILS client...

Woo-hoo!

Got SQL*Plus!

• Acquisitions

• Cataloging

• Circulation

• OPAC

• Reports

• etc.

This will fix things!

SQL> DROP DATABASE xxxdb; doran@uta.edu

Michael Doran, Systems Librarian

ILS data – the gate keepers cataloging client circulation client

“data” acquisitions client mobile client

OPAC


1 doran@uta.edu

Where do we go to get the ILS data?

To a computer...

...on a desk

... and for non-OPAC data, (generally) in an office or behind a counter.

doran@uta.edu


Working in the trenches stacks


You could carry your PC with you


But wouldn’t it be nice...

If we could access ILS data with a wireless-enabled hand-held device?

Palm Windows

Mobile iPhone and iPod Touch

WiFi or cellular data networks

Michael Doran, Systems Librarian any smart phone doran@uta.edu

1

…not only for OPAC access…

Innovative Interface’s “AirPAC” catalog doran@uta.edu


…but also for staff

Stacks maintenance would be so much easier if I could look up stuff on a handset.


A vendor perspective

John McCullough, “Redesigning Library Applications for PDAs:

ILS Vendor Perspective.” Library Hi Tech, 21:4 (2003), p. 396.

“At this time Innovative is releasing a wireless OPAC interface and developing wireless solutions for staff applications”

“Offline circulation suggests itself […and…] Inventory of the physical collection is a second area of great interest in PDAs.”

“Innovative Interfaces is currently developing a wireless Inventory product which will use a PDA to read barcodes using Bluetooth and populate an HTML form on a Web browser on the device. This form will then submit the barcodes over a wireless connection to the library database server and will return a response to the device indicating item status, whether the item is out of shelf order, and giving the option to dynamically, and from within the stacks, update the item record itself.”


1 doran@uta.edu

Vendor products for staff use

Innovative Interface’s “wireless solution for inventory and circulation functions”





2004 – originally released as

Wireless Workstation

2008 – rebranded as Circa

SirsiDynix’s PocketCirc client

“for circulation and inventory functions”



2004 – Unicorn ILS version



2009 – Horizon ILS version

Note: dates are approximate doran@uta.edu


1

Back to the future…

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

AirPAC

Circa &

PocketCirc

Where’s my @#$% handheld app!


7 doran@uta.edu

Waiting for Godot the vendor

How long must we wait for a handheld client for our ILS?

…or one that doesn’t cost us extra dough?

…or one that does what we want?


4 doran@uta.edu

Waiting for Godot the vendor



Vendors are smart and competent



Aware of the growing demand for mobile data access





Have an intimate knowledge of the ILS systems

Have crackerjack programmers



So what’s the hold up?

 ILS product life cycle

– saturation stage



No good pricing model for mobile clients





Vendor/ILS programming paradigm:



One client/app that does everything

Mobile device programming paradigm:



Many clients/apps that do one thing well doran@uta.edu


Back to the future…

Inventory, SQL, Perl, wireless network,

PDA, …bingo!

2009

2005

2006

2007

2008

2003

2004

“…developing a wireless Inventory product which will use a PDA to read barcodes … and populate an

HTML form on a Web browser … then submit the barcodes over a wireless connection to the library database server and will return a response to the device indicating item status…”


1 doran@uta.edu

ShelfLister 1.0 – released in 2003

Generates a shelf list shelf list - a file of bibliographic records arranged in the same order as the corresponding materials on the shelves

Oooohh

Additionally, includes any or all of...

 Item status

 Historical charges

 Historical browses

 Enhanced call number information

And allows user to save item information for batch updating ILS

1 doran@uta.edu



2 doran@uta.edu

ShelfLister 1.0

Start barcode

End barcode

Minimize data entry


4 doran@uta.edu


3 doran@uta.edu


2 doran@uta.edu

Use as input file for bulk updating ILS


2 doran@uta.edu

Paging Mr. Godot…

All this time, we’ve been waiting for the vendor to provide us with (and charge us extra for) handheld apps.

We could have been developing them ourselves .

But wait … we still can!


3 doran@uta.edu

Rocket scientists

This is not the

Library Systems staff at the

University of Texas at Arlington.


UT Arlington Library Systems staff

…before our first cup of coffee in the morning


So, if we can do it, you can do it

If I just knew what button to push!


All it requires is an “open” ILS system

They told me I didn’t need to know what was inside.


All it requires is an “open” ILS system

This presenter really knows how to flog a metaphor.

All I see is an empty box… where are the donuts?

Did I say “donuts”?

I meant data.


…and the “Four Knowings”

It’s really quite simple!



Know your ILS data



Know the available APIs



Know what you want to do



Know how to (web) program


1) Know your ILS data

The leg bone’s connected to the knee bone…



Relational database system



 data dictionary – “a list of all the tables in the database and all the fields in the tables” entity-relationship diagrams –

“a graphical representation of database entities and their relationships to each other”

 mental model of data



BLOBs and other problems doran@uta.edu


ShelfLister – 1 st knowing

“Know your ILS data”

Voyager ILS

It’s all up here, baby!

Oracle Database data


2 doran@uta.edu

2) Know the available APIs

Application Programming Interface





Web services (XML, SOAP, RESTful, y.y.)



Aleph : “X-Services”





Voyager : Web Services

Your ILS : ???

Protocols… boor-ing!

Library protocols



Z39.50 ISO/ANSI/NISO Information Retrieval Protocol







3M SIP ( Standard Interchange Protocol ) 2.0

NCIP ( NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol )

DLF’s ILS Discovery Interfaces recommendation



Database connection

 e.g. Oracle/MySQL/etc. listener doran@uta.edu


1

APIs – getting around the gate keepers cataloging client circulation client

“data” acquisitions client

OPAC


4 doran@uta.edu

Which API should you use?



All I see are zeros and ones!

What data can it read



 database connection – everything!

web services, library protocols – eh, not so much



What data can it write



 database connection – (effectively) nothing web services, library protocols – it depends



Mix and match



Response times/latency doran@uta.edu


ShelfLister – 2 nd knowing

“Know the available APIs”

Voyager ILS

2003

2006

2007

2005

2004

Oracle listener

2008 listener

2009

Voyager ILS

Web services


3 doran@uta.edu


3) Know what you want to do





Public access





Mobile OPAC?

????????

Staff access



Inventory tool?



???????





Be ambitious

But not too ambitious (at least the first time) doran@uta.edu


ShelfLister – 3 rd knowing

“Know what you want to do”

Free the data!


2 doran@uta.edu

4) Know how to (web) program



I.e. server-side, not client-side



Java



C/C++



Ruby



PHP



Perl

You must code in Perl.

It’s the Law.

Just kidding!

Use whatever you want!



Lisp



 bourne shell whatever…


1 doran@uta.edu

ShelfLister – 4 th knowing

“Know how to (web) program” shelflister.cgi

Perl DBI/DBD::Oracle

SQL queries form generation, data munging, and formatting output

Voyager ILS listener



3 doran@uta.edu

ShelfLister – 4 th knowing

“Know how to (web) program”

Web programming… heh, that’s not a real iPhone app!

“Most of the folks I know in app development are moving to standardization on web versus device specific development.”

Linda Woods, AT&T Education Advocate

Industry & Mobility Application Solutions comment at 2009 Handheld Librarian Online Conference doran@uta.edu


1

You can (and should) do this

If that imbecile Doran could do one…

How hard could it be?

Getting something to beta would only take me a couple weeks.

...and maybe a case of Red Bull.


1 doran@uta.edu

The Tao of mobile web design

A mobile web app should do one thing and do it well.

A mobile web app must be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

 standards compliance

 web usability design

 minimal user (data) input

 design and testing

 cross-browser

 cross-platform doran@uta.edu


Mobile design browser compatibility

Chrome

Internet Explorer

Firefox


2 doran@uta.edu

XHTML/HTML/CSS validation



XHTML/HTML



CSS



Accessibility

Get right with these before you get to the platform compatibility.


3 doran@uta.edu

iPhone web apps (according to Apple)



Three types content:

 compatible with Safari on iPhone

 optimized for Safari on iPhone

 iPhone web application

W3C standards compliant

- no framesets or

- unsupported technologies

“Most of the folks I know in app development are moving to standardization on web versus device specific development.”

Linda Woods, AT&T Education Advocate

Industry & Mobility Application Solutions comment at 2009 Handheld Librarian Online Conference doran@uta.edu


2

Mobile design – platform compatibility viewport


4 doran@uta.edu

Mobile design – platform compatibility


3 doran@uta.edu


Larger buttons for finger tapping


1 doran@uta.edu

Handheld emulators/simulators

Operating System





Generally come with handheld OS SDKs





 webOS (Palm)

 http://developer.palm.com/ iPhone (Apple)

 http://developer.apple.com/iphone/

Software Development Kit

Android (Google & Open Handset Alliance)

 http://developer.android.com/

Web-based simulators (be leery)



Opera Mini Simulator – good



 http://www.opera.com/mini/demo/

TestiPhone.com – absolutely worthless doran@uta.edu


Handheld emulators/simulators

Palm iPhone Android


3

Opera Mini doran@uta.edu



2 doran@uta.edu

Test it on the real thing (handset), too!

Just need to… test… my app… one... more time.

Or, as a last resort…

Borrow from colleagues


Don’t forget the documentation!



Mobile/handheld developer sites have useful information on how to “design for small”



Read it



Seriously. Read it.

A viewport?

Who knew?

It’s a small world after all.


Example docs and websites

Reading?

I just want to code!

 iPhone



Principles and Guidelines for

Creating Great iPhone Content

 iPhone Human Interface

Guidelines for Web Applications



Safari Web Content Guide for iPhone OS



Others





Opera Mini Developer resources many, many, more… doran@uta.edu


ShelfLister version 2.0 (for handhelds)

Start barcode

End barcode


3 doran@uta.edu



2 doran@uta.edu


UTA hereby grants USER permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee […]


3 doran@uta.edu

Source code http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/


2 doran@uta.edu

Open systems – ILSs

Hello ILS vendor?

I’d like to order an open system.

What does that mean?

It means I want database access. And web services.

Yeah, and an NCIP server.


Open systems – your mobile client

Consider releasing your mobile app as free open source. It’s better than free beer!

Ask permission first, though!


1 doran@uta.edu

Asking permission http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/ip/


1 doran@uta.edu

Questions?

Doran

His lips are moving… but I can’t hear a thing he’s saying

.


Unlocking Your ILS Data : Mobile access via

Unlocking Your ILS Data

Working in the trenches stacks

…but also for staff

Related documents

Products

Support

Unlocking Your ILS Data : Mobile access via

Unlocking Your ILS Data

Working in the trenches stacks

…but also for staff

Related documents

Add this document to collection(s)

Add this document to saved

Suggest us how to improve StudyLib