App of the Week: iDrakula

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Name: iDrakula
Platform: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch (requires iOS 4)
Cost: Free preview (first five days) and $1.99 to finish the story

I’m kind of obsessed with Dracula and I rather enjoy my iPhone, so when I heard that Bekka Black had written a modern retelling of Dracula that I could read on my phone, I had to have it. ‘ Like Stoker’s original version, the story is told in correspondence, in this case, through texts, emails, voice mail, and browser history.’  Check out these cute YouTube promotional bits.

Here’s the title page and contents:

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App of the Week: MoMA

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Name: MoMA, Museum of Modern Art
Platform: For iPhone and iPod touch
Cost: Free

Contemporary art can be one the weakest areas of school and public library collections. When teens want more about a modern artist than the one or two plates in the Abrams histories, the free MoMA app can be a tremendous boon.’  Through the iPhone and iPod touch, the MoMA app features unprecedented mobile access to the collection, including a digital image for most works.

The app will appeal to art lovers of all ages, but is ideal for both self-guided study and whole-group instruction as it features comprehensive artists’ biographies, an integrated database of subject terms from Grove Art Online, and particularly high quality digital images. Breradcrumbs link artists thematically through headings like Primitivism or 1930s Drawings. You can browse by artist, medium or through movement.

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App of the Week: Evernote

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Name: Evernote

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile

Cost: Free for basic account; $5/month or $45/year for premium account

I have only recently become an Evernote user, having wanted to try it for a long time as a tool for researchers of all ages. As it stands now, I certainly don’t use it to its full capacity; that would require more time to immerse myself in it than I have. But I do believe that this app could be of use both to librarians and to teens. Here’s why.

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App of the Week: Poem Flow

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Name: Poem Flow
Platform: iPhone (OS 3 or later), iPad, iPod Touch
Cost: ranges from $0.99 to $2.99

POEM FLOW is an app available for the iPhone (requires OS 3 or later), iPod Touch, and iPad. It was one of the first apps I ever downloaded to my iPod Touch several years ago. After all, I am a former English teacher, one who recalls her own students’ distaste for all things poetic back in the 80s and 90s when I was teaching middle school (and I doubt that has changed much since then either).

app on iPod Touch


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App of the Week – Pulse

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Welcome to YALSA”s new weekly feature App of the Week. Every Wednesday a YALSA blogger will review an app of interest to librarians and/or the teens with whom they work. If you have an idea for an app that should be reviewed, feel free to send it to YALSA’s Blog Manager, mk Eagle.

Name: Pulse
Platform: iPhone, iPad, Android
Cost: iPhone – 99’¢, iPad/Android – $1.99

Pulse is a news reader for the iPad and smartphones that turns browsing and reading feeds into a visual experience. Read More →