Barcode Apps

I was having a play with barcode apps recently. Mainly I wanted a QR code reader, but then started playing with shopping type apps.
However, one app that particularly interested me was Zbar – and that’s because it’s not a shopping app but a barcode app – it let’s you create your own search links, create saved lists and email these as a saved list. This was interesting because despite not being as pretty as the others (it showed the barcode, not the product), the customisation and ability to email scanned barcodes as a .csv file offered great potential.

And that’s whare it sat for a while… potentially interesting & kind of fun, but I was still thinking in terms of shopping. Then, when road tripping for Christmas the thought occurred that if searching within Mandurah Libraries you could almost be assured a 100% hit rate. Scanning the product barcode on an item takes you directly to the full catalogue record of the item – Summaries (from the catalogue record, but also links to Google Books, LibraryThing), Author Links, Subject Links, Series Links, LibraryThing enhancements like tags, similar titles etc. So if you find an item on the shelf you’ve already read – scan and find what else we hold by that Author. Find the 2nd or 3rd volume of a series on the shelf – scan and find out if we have the first….. All without having to type anything in.

Putting this in writing makes it seem a bit naff – you could just go the to OPAC’s like we’ve always done. But I suppose that’s the point, you don’t have to. You can do it all at the shelf where you are so you don’t need to keep going backwards and forwards to the catalogue. You could also do it from home or when out and about - we don't always have a pen or paper handy, but we almost always have our mobiles...
We are always looking for ways of engaging our customers – maybe something like this is a good start, even if it might be a bit naff?