College@Home.com let us know about an article they published titled “50 Useful iPhone Tips for Librarians and Researchers”. A lot of these tips are useful to anyone, not just librarians and researchers.

1. Give staff phones to keep in contact with each other and patrons. It can be easy to ask another staff member a question about materials or to quickly respond and reply to patron questions when library staff members have iPhones. Being constantly connected on a small wireless device means quicker turnarounds and better service overall.
2. Creating a texting service for patron questions. Giving patrons the option of texting in their questions to the library can make it easy for those who prefer to avoid telephone conversations the ability to get quick and easy answers to simple questions, and if librarians within your library are using iPhones they can respond to questions in between checking in or shelving materials and other tasks.
3. Create a webclip for your library. Make it easy for patrons to add an icon of your library to their favorites by creating a webclip. This guide will explain just how you go about doing it.
4. Make it easy to use an iPhone within the library. Many libraries make it a point to ban mobile phone usage– and with good reason– but with new technology many patrons may want to take advantage of wi-fi or to use their iPhones for research while they’re in the library. Make it possible for them to do so, so long as they do it quietly. [Read more…]