LibCompass Wayfinding App - Experience Sharing from the Library of City University of Hong Kong

Abstract

Imagine that a patron is in a big academic Library (over 13,000 sq. meters in CityU Library), it would not be easy for the patron to locate a particular service point or an item in the collection without any assistance. This is especially difficult for first-time visitors or infrequent users. With the advent of technology in indoor positioning, mobile technology and the Internet of Thing (IoT), the CityU Library launched the first beacon-based wayfinding app, namely LibCompass, among the libraries in Hong Kong. Users can search for the locations in the Library using the app on their mobile devices. Based on the signals from the beacons installed at different corners of the Library, LibCompass can identify the location of the users and to show them the path to their desired locations. What is the experience and advantage of using beacon-based and cloud-based wayfinding system in CityU Library? What is the technology involved in the system? Apart from answering these questions, we will provide a demonstration to present how we leverage the technology in Library services. Diagrams and maps showing the beacons locations, the place-marks and the route will be presented with an aim to illustrate the mechanism of the system.