Using Mobile Technology to Deliver Library Services: A Handbook - Softcover

Walsh, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810887576 ISBN 13: 9780810887572

Publisher: Scarecrow Press, 2012

Synopsis

This is an essential practical guide for all information professionals who want to get to grips with or improve their use of mobile services.

Packed with easy to implement ideas, practical examples and international case studies, this provides you with the ultimate toolkit, exploring ideas as simple as renewals and reminders to the more complex such as access to e-books and virtual worlds. Jargon-free coverage of the background and context to mobile delivery will enable you to fully understand the challenges and embrace the opportunities, getting to grips with critical issues such as what sort of services users really want.

Key topics covered include:
context including market penetration, range and functionality of devicestextingapps vs. mobile websitesmobile information literacy vs. other information literaciesmobiles in teachinglinking the physical and virtual worlds via mobile devicesE-books for mobilesthe future of mobile delivery.
This will be an invaluable practical guide for all information professionals and museum staff who want to get to grips with or improve their use of mobile services. Library and information students and academics will find it a useful introduction to the topic.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Walsh is an academic librarian at Huddersfield University who has written, researched and presented widely on the application of mobile technologies within the library environment, information literacy, the use of active learning and using web 2.0 technologies. He won the UC&R Innovation Award in 2009.

Reviews

Walsh is an academic librarian at Huddersfield University who has written and presented widely on the application of mobile technologies within the library environment. This slim volume provides a primer in a wide range of mobile technologies and devices as well as chapters outlining the critical differences between traditional information literacies versus mobile information literacy and how library workers can make the most of mobile devices and technologies to increase productivity and flexibility in supporting users. Meticulously researched, each chapter is filled with useful case studies, along with extensive references and suggestions for further reading. Although the focus is primarily the application of mobile technologies in an academic library environment, the ideas outlined by the author are easily transferable to any library. As Walsh cautions in the final chapter, the most important consideration when introducing mobile technologies as a method of service delivery in the library is: What do your users want, and what can your staff deliver? The worst thing library professionals can do is rush headlong into a project that cannot be sustained and provides services of little use to patrons. Careful readers of this guide should easily be able to avoid that pitfall. --Magan Szwarek

Edition details

• Publisher: Scarecrow Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810887576
• ISBN 13: 9780810887572
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160