Review of Literature, Emerging Technology Paper
Background
In order to stay relevant, our libraries need to grow and change along with our communities. It has been well documented that libraries do a decent job serving their regular patrons, but there still remains an overwhelming population of users whom are not being reached.
Internet capable phones are opening new avenues to where and how people access information. Two mobile technologies, QR codes and augmented reality both have significant potential to change the way that libraries offer information. By being able to provide information to patrons at their point of need, inside the institutions walls or out, libraries have an incredible opportunity to broaden their user base and relevancy in their communities. Both of these emerging technologies are being internationally explored in term of their library potential. The literature in this review considered the strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as their current and future library applications.
Literature
Four journal articles, six online conference presentations, three YouTube videos, one video blog, two scholarly research reports, three monographs.
(For a working bibliography see HERE)
Findings
2010 was a year of great strides when it came to mobile usage. Location based apps exploded, Twitter experienced a user growth of 347%, the iPhone became the most popular camera on Flickr, and 2.4 million jobs were created by the mobile industry. While the instance of Americans owning and using an Internet ready mobile has increased, it is still not past the 50% mark. It is expected that by the year 2015 more than 80% of Americans will be accessing the Internet via their mobiles.
Even though Internet access through a mobile device is not yet an activity of the majority, it’s usefulness is being exploited on a broad spectrum of markets. From realtors to rock bands, banks to men’s fashion, QR codes have been popping up everywhere. QR codes or 3 dimensional bar codes are one emerging technology that allows instant access to information through the use of a smart phone. By scanning a QR code, the user’s mobile will be sent to a dynamic web page, a text, a tweet, a web tutorial, an instant song download, you name it, the QR code can send the user there. In libraries, there have been both successes and failures. The failures have mainly been attributed to poor awareness and marketing as well as lack of usefulness, i.e. a QR code that does not go to a helpful and dynamic page. Over all QR codes have been successful when the libraries implementing them have truly considered their users and community. This technology works well on college campuses where the instance of smart phone owners is saturated as well as in young adult library spaces where users are interested in trying new things. QR codes are easy and inexpensive to make using freely available programs online.
Augmented reality is another emerging technology that has been gaining in popularity. Like QR codes, it to has been around for a while. Augmented reality is the layering of information on top of the real world. Some examples would be the heads up displays in some cars and airplanes. Recently, several new applications have come out that take advantage of the prevalence of smart phones with cameras. Apps such as Layar and Google Goggles allow mobile users to point their cameras at the real world and get an added layer of information about it right on their screen. The library applications of this emerging technology are still a bit out there on the horizon due to current clunky-ness of the programming as well as other technical and financial limitations. However, several libraries have developed walking tours that utilize their unique set of local historical information and give the public unique access to it through AR. Some children’s books have been published containing addition information that can be unlocked using AR and a computer with a camera.
Conclusion
While technology might soon evolve beyond the need for QR codes, and augmented reality may still be in its developing stages as far as library implementation goes, exploring and evaluating the potential of these mobile technologies will only help libraries continue to stay relevant to their users.
On more than one occasion in my past two years of experience as a library student I have had cause to feel unwelcome in the very institutions that I someday hope to work in (see recent 
J. Lauren