New Android App Interfaces with OpenRoom Web Application
The popularity of Bracken Library’s group study rooms is high among students and faculty. To make it even easier for students and faculty to reserve a group study room, a new mobile Android app is
now available for free download.
By linking this Android app with OpenRoom, students and faculty on the move can reserve a room for group and team research, study, and group projects - accomplished easily and directly from an Android smartphone.
A new neat feature in the Study Room Reservation App is “Any Room Will Do.” After opening the app, the student can use the Any Room Will Do feature, along with a date and time, to have OpenRoom present a list of rooms that are available. This feature simplifies reserving a space. A user can also use the App to review or cancel his/her open reservations. The prompts, screens, information, and style are all mobile device friendly.
The OpenRoom Web application provides students, faculty, and staff with an easy method to reserve use of any one of the 24 Bracken Library group study rooms from any device connected to the Internet. Introduced in January 2010, OpenRoom is a second-generation room reservation Web application developed with a focus on ease of use and the open source software model.
Budi Wibowo, Head of Digital Libraries and Web Services, began developing the Study Room Reservation Android App in the summer, 2011. The app was published in the Android Market in September 2011. In working on the project, Budi was seeking an easier way to reserve study rooms in Bracken Library using his Android Smartphone.
OpenRoom is an open source software Web App developed in the University Libraries at Ball State University that is available on SourceForge.net. Robert L. Seaton, Web Development Analyst in the Library Information Technology Services unit, is the primary developer and architect for OpenRoom.
For more information, contact
Bradley D. Faust, Assistant Dean for Library Information Technology Services. ◙