#QR Codes: Straight from the Stacks to the Smartphone

Benjamin Rawlins, a systems librarian at Kentucky State University's Blazer Library, described a pilot program he led, "Application and Mobility: Extending Library Services with QR Codes."

"I think that QR codes are an excellent tool to reach mobile users," Rawlins told Library Journal in a follow-up interview. "As we see more and more patrons with smartphones, libraries need to find ways to adapt and offer services to reach those patrons, and QR codes provide that bridge."

QR codes at Blazer Library are incorporated into the catalog records. To the right of the typical bibliographic information, embedded with other choices such as "print" or "email," is a QR code that patrons can scan in order to deliver the bibliographic record to their mobile device.

Blazer Library is also planning to create QR codes for the library's mobile resources, so that a patron could scan a code and be taken, for example, to the library's mobile website, or the mobile catalog, or to a host of EBSCO databases.

"QR codes offer the ability for libraries to connect the physical environment with the digital environment, which is increasingly important as more materials become available electronically," Rawlins said. Read More