Libraries and Foursquare: What's In A Name?

Several months back Foursquare released a major update to their iPhone app. At the time I was still using the iPhone 3G so I was slow to download the update. Since then I upgraded to the new iPhone 4S and begun using many of the new Foursqaure features.

One thing I quickly noticed was that Foursquare now gives less room for venue titles. At this point it appears that they are allowing about 30 characters to be visible on the venue search screen (including spaces). This is problematic for libraries on university campuses as the word 'university' is 1/3 of the 30 character limit. For universities with long names, such as my school 'University of Hawaii at Manoa' this is even more problematic as our school's name is 30 characters long itself. Below is a screenshot of the search results for 'University of Hawaii at Manoa'.

As is customary on the Foursquare App 6 venues are viewable above the fold but if you were to scroll down you would find at least 30 venues that all look the exact same. I was intending to check into our Quad by searching for the university's name then browsing venues on campus. Obviously this is not going to work. I am still unsure as to if someone at my university added each of these venues or if they were automatically imported at some point from an online map application such as Google Maps. Either way this creates a problem for venues on campus that are aiming to engage students through Foursquare.

What I did to fix this problem was to simply reverse the order of our title on Foursquare. I know this sounds really basic but had I not spent the time to check into other buildings on campus I may not have noticed this issue.

The title of our library went from 'University of Hawaii at Manoa: Hamilton Library' to 'Hamilton Library: University of Hawaii at Manoa'. I believe that maintaining the institutional name helps keep the library's page looking official.

Take the time to find the library's Foursquare page in different ways and on different devices. This will allow you to maintain the visibility you are aiming for by using Foursquare in the first place and will allow you to see what the patron sees.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa Libraries Foursquare Page:
https://foursquare.com/user/13773510

Hamilton Library:
https://foursquare.com/v/hamilton-library--university-of-hawaii-at-manoa/4b613d2ef964a520ca0d2ae3

Sinclair Library:
https://foursquare.com/v/sinclair-library--university-of-hawaii-at-manoa/4b613cd3f964a520bd0d2ae3