Heard the news? SOLUS launches new Library App! We are always looking at what we do and what you need, we listen, we learn we innovate! At SOLUS, engagement is everything, any screen, their device or yours, we drive interaction and ensure that the user enjoys a rich and rewarding experience. That is why SOLUS is pleased to announce the launch of this brand new Library App for 2023
We’re passionate about helping all libraries to engage and develop their audience and grow their user base. Libraries offer high quality and free content and we believe that the Library App is the best product available to connect you and your audience – effortlessly.
When it comes to marketing and promoting your library it can be hard to know where to start and where to spend any budget you have. Your patrons today expect excellence in their digital interactions with you and a beautiful, intuitive app with good promotion can result in a huge uptake of your library’s resources and perception of your service!
The Library App is supremely user-friendly, so your audience can discover new experiences and content, quickly and easily. Users can customise it to their needs, prioritising the content and services that are most important to them. Users can change their UI experience to suit how they like to interact. They can change the language seamlessly if required and of course, we ensure the highest accessibility standards.
Heard the news? SOLUS launches new Library App! Users can add linked accounts; to help friends, family, or community members get engaged with the library and its content and even introduce friends and contacts to the library service.
The App will be rolled out to all customers and reseller partners over the course of February. Featuring a brand new, cleaner and more engaging homescreen, the UI hints at major changes to incorporate some much requested new functionality.
Some key features of the new Library App are:
- Brand new User Interface
- Enhanced Push Notifications – for hold and checkout alerts & changes, library alerts, marketing and events & room bookings
- Deeper 3rd party eContent integrations and seamless handoff, from discovery to content
- Events & Room Bookings (for SOLUS’s eb#1) integration
- Reading and Wish Lists
- Right-2-Left language support – to support Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and other right to left languages
- Reading Tracker – like fitness tracking for reading, where users track their reading activity and unlock virtual rewards
- Format Rollup – FRBRized display of available formats under a single search return
- Multi-Part RFID Tag Support – for checking out items such as box sets with multiple RFID tags
- Additional Consortia Support – including reporting by invividual member library templates
- Chromebook version
- Support for user-selectable templates, so a member of a library in a consortium can switch to a different library’s template.
In addition to the new App and functionality, every customer that subscribes to The Library App will also get access to Planet Library, our unique Children’s App completely free of charge. Planet Library will help drive children into the library by rewarding them for visiting and reading and it’s hoped that this will benefit libraries still trying to recover visitor figures post-Covid.
There is some gamechanging functionality in the App that should really help libraries maximise their return on investment. For instance, the deep integration of Events & Bookings in the App will make it easy for library users to discover and book events and rooms from within the App. They can book, pay for and manage those bookings. They’ll be alerted to their forthcoming attendance via notification and if for whatever reason they can’t attend, they can tap to cancel, freeing up space for someone on the wait list. This simple addition, making it easy and instant to cancel, will ensure libraries don’t run events with empty spaces.
For the first time we’ll be opening up the App platform to our customers other key vendor partners, with the library’s authorisation. We’re making APIs available in Q2 to enable 3rd parties to utilise the App to communicate with library users. This could be something like a push notification, or even to add content within the App. Whilst 2023.1 is adding a lot, 2023.2 is hot on the heels and it’s going to be a big year for The Library App!
Excellence in a mobile app requires an understanding of your audience – what do they need, what do they like and dislike, where do they spend their time? We listen to our customers all over the world and we love to see their succcess with SOLUS products. That is why SOLUS is the world’s #1 Library App provider for public libraries and growing in academics; with SOLUS built Library Apps now in use in almost 8,000 locations globally and growing rapidly.
The Library App supports 15 different ILS platforms using APIs and web services and is available in 40 languages. SOLUS has expanded its product suite to include Events & Room Bookings with its eb#1 product and to Library Web Discovery with the LUCi Discovery platform. Based in Glasgow, Scotland, SOLUS has offices in Australia and the US and provides white labelled solutions to a number of ILS partners, as well as direct sales & support.
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