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Sunday, 22nd November 2009

The Mobile Academic Library?

In a post on Blog U from Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim discusses academic libraries (and the materials they offer) being available to students/faculty in multiple formats so they will usable on a wide variety of mobile tools.

While firm numbers are hard to come by, it appears that a significant number of people prefer to consume at least some of their reading on a mobile device. This reading is mostly done at "in-between" times, while on coffee breaks, waiting in lines, sitting on the bus etc. I'm currently reading the Kindle version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my iPod Touch ($6 at Amazon).

Whatever reading our students are doing on mobile devices, we can be pretty sure it is not academic or curricular reading. It seems to me that libraries have made a mistake in trying to have physical e-reading devices available for checkout, rather then having the digital file available that students (and faculty and staff) can check-out to the mobile devices that they already own.

In the comments section of the post one person points out that OverDrive offers a program for universities (NetLibrary, too) and Gary points out that it's not only books that need to be available for mobile users but also articles and other content. Gary links to his recent overview of new mobile products from Summon (Serial Solutions) and EBSCOhost.

Source: Blog U / Inside Higher Ed


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