We’re pleased to announce that in the year since we launched, over 200 libraries now use Library Anywhere as their mobile catalog and homepage. Library Anywhere takes an existing OPAC and makes it mobile—you can also create a custom homepage with Library Anywhere (add hours, events, contact info and more)—making it your entire mobile library website.

Library Anywhere is flexible, and works with a wide variety of systems—which means we’re used by a wide range of libraries—from small public libraries and school libraries to large universities and huge consortia of public libraries. A few examples (of many):

• Ocean State Libraries (RI, WebPAC PRO)
• Libraries Online (CT, WebPAC PRO)
• Institute of Technology Carlow (Ireland, WebPAC PRO)
• Özyeğin University (Turkey, WebPAC PRO)
• University of Cincinnati Libraries (OH, WebPAC PRO)
• University of Houston (TX, WebPAC PRO)
• Wake County Public Library (NC, Horizon)
• City of Playford, (Australia, Horizon)
• Richland County Public Library (SC, Horizon)
• Chandler Public Library (AZ, Sirsi e-Library)
• Milwaukee County Federated Library System (WI, WebPAC PRO)
• North Vancouver City Library (Canada, Sirsi e-Library)
• Clifton Forge Public Library, (VA, Polaris)
• Samuel Merritt University (CA, Koha)
• University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (NJ, Voyager 7)
• Southampton City Libraries (UK, Spydus)

New Features
We’ve released a number of pretty substantial updates recently—version 1.4 of Library Anywhere is now live in the iTunes app store, and in the Android market. Some of the new features include:

Barcode scanning
Our new barcode scanning feature is available in both the iPhone (and iPad, iPod Touch, etc.) and Android apps. It lets you quickly scan the ISBN on a book and see if your library has a copy. Read the more about barcode scanning here.

Multilingual capability
Library Anywhere now includes the ability for any library to translate or edit any of the strings of English text into whatever language they like.

Libraries can also choose to have multiple languages and link between them—one in Spanish, one in English, for example. Read more about multilingual support in Library Anywhere here.

Built-in web browser
The Version 1.3 update of Library Anywhere added a built-in web browser. This means that when you click external links in Library Anywhere (that go to ebook records, mobile databases, etc.), they no longer completely leave Library Anywhere, but launch a browser within Library Anywhere. That makes it simple to just close and go back to the page you were on before.

Saved Searches/Booklists
We’ve added the ability to include booklists on your Library Anywhere homepage.

If you can make booklists in your OPAC (new items, staff picks, etc.) then you can feed those same lists into Library Anywhere. Just choose the ‘action’ type Direct catalog URL, and put the URL to the OPAC list in there, as in the image below:

Screen rotation
We’ve enabled screen rotation for iOS, so when you’re on your iPhone or iPad, you can now move your phone to switch between portrait and landscape mode.

Incredible statistics
We recently added a comprehensive statistics section to Library Anywhere, keeping track of traffic, users, native app vs. mobile web use, and more. Read more in this blog post, which also includes a screencast.

More coming
We have a number of additional updates coming down the pipeline, so stay tuned.

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About Library Anywhere
Library Anywhere is the mobile catalog and homepage for over 200 libraries and library systems worldwide. See all the libraries using Library Anywhere by simply clicking the … menu within Library Anywhere and choose “Select a Library”. Read more about Library Anywhere here.

To order Library Anywhere, or get a free trial, call 877 340-2400, or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com. You can also email questions to Abby@librarything.com.

Learn more: Attend a webinar
We do weekly webinars to show off both Library Anywhere and all the LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements for your library catalog (tags, similar books, other editions, series, awards, shelf browse, reviews, and Lexile measures)!

Webinars are scheduled for every Tuesday afternoon at 2pm EST. Sign up for one today and I’ll tell you everything you ever wanted to know, and more, I promise.

Click here to register. On the WebEx registration page, under Attend a Meeting click “Browse Meetings” and then “Monthly” to register for scheduled webinars.

Labels: app, iphone app, library anywhere, librarything for libraries, mobile, mobile catalog, mobile web