[Web4lib] Boopsie Anyone?

[McMahon, Daniel]

Our public library consortium went live with Boopsie back in April.  Overall, it's been a very positive experience and we've had few major issues.
 
Our usage isn't huge, but it is about 20-25 percent of detectable smart phone use on our catalog, and I don't think we've even been promoting it that heavily.  The user base is really steady, and has reached 1 percent of catalog use a couple of times.  It just seems that people who start using it continue using it, and that's a good sign.
 
We've found that people really do "get in, get it done and get out" with Boopsie, in that almost every search leads to a request.
 
Every once in a while, it'll stop working, but this has generally been due to changes we've made to our ILS, and their tech support has been very fast in getting us back up every time.  At first our updates weren't frequent, but by July they had set it up where Boopsie is checking hourly to see if there's a new data file, and if there is, uploading it.   We've found that one update overnight is sufficient.
 
Our app is very basic, since the consortium members really wanted just the catalog and patron account features.  (Everyone has their own website for booklists, etc.)  Even with just these basic functions, we're pretty satisfied, especially with the cross-platform versions.  We're not worrying about any other mobile catalog version right now, and since any other version would lack Boopsie's truncated searching, I'm not sure how a mobile app without that would be received.
 
Dan McMahon
Tech Support Specialist
MARINet
http://marinet.lib.ca.us
 

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Antoinette Turner
Sent: Mon 12/27/2010 1:40 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Boopsie Anyone?



Hello,

I was wondering if any of you have used Boopsie to create mobile apps for your library.  If not, are you considering creating a mobile app for your library in the future?  If yes, what was your experience like with Boopsie?

Antoinette Turner
UT Southwestern Medical Library
antoinette.turner at utsouthwestern.edu

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UT Southwestern Medical Center
The future of medicine, today.
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