Research and Development of the FOLIO Wayfinder app

Hahn, James F.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105492 Copy

Description

Title

Research and Development of the FOLIO Wayfinder app

Author(s)

Hahn, James F.

Contributor(s)

Ryckman, Nate

Issue Date

2019-10-25

Keyword(s)

• Wayfinding
• FOLIO
• Machine Learning
• mobile
• Internet of Things
• IoT
• BLE
• Bluetooth

Abstract

This presentation will report the results of several FOLIO research and development grants. We will first describe the results of an innovation grant funded by EBSCO in 2018. This FOLIO innovation grant funding awarded to the University of Illinois Library supported the development of a Wayfinder app within FOLIO, with functionality to enhance users’ ability to navigate and browse the library’s physical and digital collections. The mobile Wayfinder solution solves a common library problem of collections-based mapping, and, based on their subject location/interest in the library book stacks, recommends relevant EBSCO databases to users via an EBSCO API. Connected browsing of print and digital resource promises to improve the users’ experiences of navigating book stacks in the digital era, and the collocation proposed provides increased understanding of what exists in the library collection. A guiding philosophy for this work is the contention that geographic locations in libraries are areas of intellectual space in which digital items can be associated more closely. Therefore, recommendations to digital journal content and indexes can be provided to a user via an EBSCO API based on users’ interest within library collections. As an expected benefit, libraries could depend more centrally on their FOLIO platform to provide functionality that third-party vendors have aspired to offer in their platform services related to indoor library maps. A second research and development grant was funded by the University of Illinois Campus Research Board for integrative software development work from 2018-2020 to design Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity into the FOLIO Wayfinder app. While still in the early stages, the Campus Research Board grant aspires to develop a hybrid approach to digital and personalized resource recommendations by way of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons. The IoT infrastructure will provide mobile, dynamic wayfinding support for items in the collection, which includes features for location-based recommendations. The importance of combining personalized recommendation with location-based support in the physical library is the enhanced navigation and discovery of interdisciplinary resources that may otherwise be overlooked during the research process. Such a system does not currently exist; however, with sustained research and development resources, an open source IoT-powered personalized recommender can be made available to research libraries nationally. The significance of integration within FOLIO is to make available to research libraries a configurable system allowing for leading, supporting, and sustaining library users into interdisciplinary collections areas as a component of Indoor Positioning Services (IPS) within libraries generally.

Type of Resource

• text
• image

Language

en

Permalink

• https://2019eug.sched.com/event/WgJA/research-and-development-of-the-folio-wayfinder-app
• http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105492

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

• EBSCO
• University of Illinois Campus Research Board (RB19004)

Copyright and License Information

© Jim Hahn 2019

Owning Collections