MIT Libraries News

We asked how the MIT community uses mobile devices to access library resources and this is what we discovered….

…many MIT users want to use library resources on their smart phones and mobile devices. The good news is, we have an app for that! The MIT Mobile App and website offers the capability to:

• renew library books,
• search for library-owned books,
• request library books, and more.

See our online guide to learn about all the mobile tools we offer for library research. And if you have a moment, tell us about your use of mobile devices.

Find out more about the 2011 MIT Libraries survey.

Want to brush up on your language skills or learn a new language? Use all that time you spend waiting for the T, and learn a new language with Byki Mobile!

Learn over 70 languages, including English, using the Byki language-learning system. Learn at your own pace with virtual flashcards and quizzes.  Byki will remember where you left off, so you can track your progress and easily learn on-the-go. The mobile app works for iPhone and Android, but if you don’t have a mobile device, you can still use Byki from any computer.

To get started: 

1. Visit Byki through the MIT Libraries from a computer or mobile device, and log in through your MIT Touchstone account.
2. Click the “Sign Up Now” button and create an account. (Or just log in, if you already have a Byki account.)
3. After you’ve logged in, click the “Byki Mobile” button, and follow the steps to download and activate the Byki Community Edition app for Android or iPhone.

To access the full version of Byki, use the same link from a computer: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/byki.

Questions? Ask Us!

Have a smartphone?  Many popular library services are available on the run through MIT Mobile!

Download the Android or iPhone app, or visit the MIT Mobile web site from your smartphone.  Then tap the “Libraries” icon to:

• Search for and request books
• Manage Your Account
• View library locations and hours
• Ask questions & submit comments or ideas
• Discover mobile tools to help with your research
• Read news from the MIT Libraries on our blog

Find out more information.

What else would you like to see on the mobile web site? Give us your ideas!

Special thanks to the MIT Mobile Computing group for their help in developing the MIT Libraries’ mobile services.

If you have a smart phone and use the Foursquare app, follow the MIT Libraries! Foursquare is an app that allows you to check in at various locations and read tips and reviews from other users about that place.

We’ve added tips about all of the libraries at MIT, and if you follow us, those tips will pop up when you check in around campus.  We’ve also set up a list of libraries, so if you follow the list, you can take a tour of the MIT Libraries with Foursquare!

See our full list of betas & widgets and recommended mobile apps & sites.  Also, check out MIT’s Foursquare tips!

Posters scattered throughout Lewis Music Library direct users to listen to streaming music on their mobile devices by scanning QR codes.  Each poster highlights a different genre from Alexander Street Press music databases (Contemporary World Music and American Song).

Tips:

• Make sure you’re connected to the “MIT” network on your mobile device (not the “MIT Guest” network) before scanning.
• Only 3 users can listen to music at the same time, so if you’re turned away, try again later!

Interested in trying more new tools & services?  See all of our betas & widgets!

If you’re a member of the MIT community and you have a smart phone, chances are good that you’ve visited the MIT Mobile Web already.  (Anyone else love the shuttle schedule?!)

Good news – we’ve just improved the Libraries’ section of the MIT Mobile Web!  Check it out by looking for the Libraries’ icon on the MIT Mobile Web, or go straight to http://m.mit.edu/libraries from a smart phone.

Now, you’ll be able to:

• Search for and request books
• Manage Your Account: renew books you have checked out and view your requests or fines
• View hours and locations for each library
• Ask questions, submit comments, or request a meeting with the librarian for your subject
• Read news from the MIT Libraries on our blog
• Discover mobile tools to help with your research

Find out more information.

What else would you like to see on the mobile web site? Give us your ideas!

Special thanks to the MIT Mobile Web team for their help in developing the MIT Libraries’ mobile web site.

SciFinder Mobile is now available to those registered to use the web version of SciFinder at MIT.

Accessing SciFinder Mobile is easy. Using the web browser on your smartphone

1. Visit scifinder.cas.org/mobile.
2. Sign in with your SciFinder web version username and password and you’ll be seamlessly directed to the mobile-friendly version of SciFinder.

Use SciFinder Mobile anytime and anyplace.

With SciFinder Mobile, you can:

• Explore by Research Topic. Locate information on a specific area of research

• Explore by Substance Identifier. Search for substances of interest to retrieve information such as molecular formula, predicted properties, and experimental properties

• Explore by Author Name. Enter an author’s name to locate their published research

• Explore by Company Name. Find articles and patents issued by a particular company, academic institution, or government organization

• Review Keep Me Posted Alerts.* Stay up-to-date with the latest information found via SciFinder Keep Me Posted alerts that were Previously created in the web version of SciFinder

• Retrieve Saved Answer Sets.* Review search results from SciFinder Saved Answer Sets

* From alerts and answer sets that were previously created in the web version of SciFinder

Remember you are limited to 100 detailed substance or reference displays per day.

Questions, contact the CAS Customer Center at help@cas.org, or 800-753-4227.

Do you have an iPhone, iPad, or Touch? Or are you just interested in learning more about apps that could help with classes or research projects?

Apps4Academics: iPhone/iPad apps & mobile web sites for academic life

Monday, February 28: 12-1:30pm in 14N-132

Register for class

In this whirlwind show & tell, we will recommend the best iPhone/iPad apps & mobile web sites for use in your academic life. We’ll demo apps for productivity, library research, note-taking, e-reading, PDF-reading & annotating, sketching, and more. Some apps we’ll demo include Evernote, Instapaper, Dropbox, GoodReader, Papers, Wolfram Alpha, PLoS, ACS Mobile, and WorldCat Mobile. We’ll point you to the best apps and mobile sites, and also ask class members to also share their favorite apps. If you’re thinking about getting an iPhone or iPad, this may help you decide how you might use it. The class is 90 minutes, and will include break-out sessions where each small group will discuss the apps they find useful and report back to the larger group. We will have several iPads available for use during the breakout sessions. If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad that you use for academic work, we invite you to bring it and share your knowledge with the group. Feel free to bring your lunch!

The MIT Libraries are constantly experimenting with new technologies and services to help make access to information easier. You may already know about our betas program, where we experiment with new ideas and technologies, but we’ve recently revamped and expanded the Betas guide.

The new Betas & widgets guide showcases current, graduated, and retired beta tools, and it now includes web widgets and mobile apps and sites, too!

We’ll be adding new betas and widgets in an ongoing basis, so look for updates on the guide itself, or follow the news blog categories for “Betas” and “Mobile web.”

We’d love to hear what you think… Do you have any ideas for betas, web widgets, or things we should try in our physical spaces?  Tell us about it!

Photo credit

What’s SCVNGR?

It’s a fun little scavenger hunt using an app called SCVNGR.  If you have an iPhone or Android, play the MIT Libraries trek with us!

How do I play?

Download SCVNGR on an iPhone or Android at http://www.scvngr.com, then open the app, and click on “Treks” to play the MIT Libraries’ Tour.  If you complete most of the challenges by 9/5/10, you’ll win a gift card for free ice cream at Toscanini’s!

Challenge runs between 8/26-9/5. We’ll contact the winners by text or email by 9/10/10.  Only current members of the MIT community are eligible to win.  Questions?  Contact Remlee Green.

The American Chemical Society has released an app for iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad users.  ACS Mobile provides readers with a live stream of peer-reviewed research content published in ACS journals and “Latest News” from Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).

MIT users can access content from an on campus network connection.  Articles may only be read from on campus, but you can read and save abstracts from anywhere.

ACS Mobile allows you to:

• Filter journals to see your favorite ACS publications quickly.
• Save favorite abstracts in a folder for offline reading.
• Search for articles published by ACS and read them on your iPhone.
• Share links and via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Video demo and more info

Buy for $2.99 in the Apple App Store.

For comments or more information, contact Erja Kajosalo, Chemistry Librarian.

Want to check out an iPad for a few hours? The Lewis Music Library has purchased an iPad for circulation to MIT faculty, students and staff. It contains over 85 music apps along with an iTunes library holding over 3,000 audio clips from the library’s recently-received CDs. It will circulate for 4 hours (no renewals or overnight loans). First come, first served.

The iPad was purchased with money from the Class of 1982 Music Library Fund.

The Lewis Music Library is located in Bldg. 14E-109 and library hours are posted on the web.

If you’ve ever tried to browse articles on an iPhone, you’ve probably gotten stopped with an error message about insufficient permissions.  There’s an easy way around that!

If the content is available through the MIT Libraries, using an iPhone bookmarklet will allow you to reload the page easily and get you to the article you need. To add the bookmarklet to your iPhone, see instructions for Inserting the Proxy String with an iPhone Bookmarklet.  As long as the MIT Libraries have paid for the content, you’ll be able to log in through Touchstone and get to the information you need.

Questions?  Ask Us!

Have you ever been in a bookstore and wondered if you could avoid buying a book by checking it out at the library?  Book prices can be pretty steep, and borrowing books from the library is a great way to save a few bucks.

With the pic2shop iPhone app, there’s an easy way to find out if the MIT Libraries own a book.  You can even request it for library pick-up from your iPhone.  Here’s how:

• Download the free pic2shop iPhone app from the Apple store
• Scan the barcode of a book with your iPhone’s camera (at a bookstore, friend’s house, wherever!)
• Click the “See local libraries” button.  If the book is owned by the MIT Libraries, it will show up in the list.
• Click the arrow in the listing for MIT, and you’ll be routed to the Barton catalog where you can click the availability links to see if it’s on the shelf or request it through Your Account.

No worries, if MIT doesn’t own the book and you need it for MIT research purposes, you can still request it through Interlibrary Borrowing!  pic2shop will save a list of everything you’ve scanned, so you can email yourself or request the book later.

(This app is not yet available for iPod Touch, but check the pic2shop website for updates.)

The Naxos Music Library, already loved by many of you, just got better… If you have an iPhone, you can take Naxos with you as an app! Set up a playlist of your favorite pieces on Naxos and listen to them whenever you want.

To add music to your iPhone:

• Go to the Naxos Music Library.
• Click “Playlists” in the top menu bar.
• Click “Login” or “Sign up.”
• After logging in, you’ll see a list of current playlists.
• To add music to your playlist, browse of search for music, select tracks, then click “add to playlist” on the left. A window will pop up to ask you where to save it. Choose to add it to the current folder and name the playlist.
• Download the Naxos Music Library iPhone app.
• When you open the app for the first time, log-in using your playlist log-in info.
• Your playlist should appear in the corresponding folder in your iPhone app.
• Enjoy!

If you’re new to Naxos, give it a try! Stream a wide range of music, including Johnny Cash, Scott Joplin, and Beethoven.

Problems? See technical requirements for Naxos. (Mac users: if you have problems setting up playlists in Safari, try Firefox.)

We’d love to hear what you think! If you have comments or questions, contact Peter Munstedt.

Many of the services featured on the MIT Libraries’ web site are available from a mobile phone on the MIT Mobile Web.

To get to the MIT Libraries’ mobile site, visit http://m.mit.edu from your mobile device’s web browser.

The site is currently optimized for iPhones.  In the future, we plan to create versions optimized for other mobile phones.

From the Libraries’ mobile site, you can:

• View hours & locations for each library
• Ask questions and request a meeting with the librarian for your subject
• Read news from the MIT Libraries on our blog

Read more about the mobile web site.

What else would you like to see on the mobile web site? Give us your ideas!

Special thanks to Andrew Yu and the MIT Mobile Web team for their help in developing the MIT Libraries’ mobile web site.