Mobile Web Apps for Library Exhibits
- 1. Mobile Web Apps for Library Exhibits Cory Lown NCSU Libraries Code4Lib 2011 February 2011 http://go.ncsu.edu/4hexhibit
- 2. Opportunity ! Increased power and popularity of mobile devices ! Digital special collections are now easier to repurpose and reuse (Thank you Solr & Djatoka image server) http://go.ncsu.edu/4hexhibit
- 3. Project Goals ! Establish a set of tools for creating mobile web applications to supplement temporary exhibits in the library ! Keep development time/cost low ! Make use of existing digital special collections content http://go.ncsu.edu/4hexhibit
- 4. 4-H & NC State Exhibit with mobile supplement http://go.ncsu.edu/4hexhibit
- 13. Tools we used ! Web App: ! Ruby on Rails ! Data: ! Solr index of image metadata ! The user interface: ! jQuery Mobile lightly customized css
- 14. Tools we used ! Serve images from Djatoka Image Server: ! 1st request: served on the fly by Djatoka (any size and crop) and cached locally by rails (slow) ! 2nd request: Apache serves image cached by rails (fast)
- 15. Lessons learned ! Exhibit designer hand selected the images for the mobile supplement. ! jQuery Mobile and Djatoka are very useful
- 16. Future plans ! Package rails app as an engine gem for re-use for future mobile supplements to exhibits ! Build an admin interface so exhibit designer can manage themes and associated images
- 17. Thanks! Cory Lown Digital Technologies Development Librarian NCSU Libraries cory_lown@ncsu.edu The mobile site: http://go.ncsu.edu/4hexhibit About the project: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/mobileexhibits/