How Can Libraries Address Mobile Phone Users? Cambridge U. Report Sheds Some Light

Several new services can be considered; iPhones have mixed potential

Lynn Blumenstein -- Library Journal, 6/25/2009

• Phone usage studied: photo feature helpful
• Configure services for small screens
• iPhone platforms may be too limited

How can university libraries serve users "on the move?" Develop services for mobile devices or as known in a report from the Cambridge University Library, UK, "m-library services." 

The university library’s Information on the Move project studied how mobile phone users interacted with retrievable information, identified trends, and "then extrapolated ways that libraries could support those mobile information needs." Many of the services have already been tested or implemented by academic libraries.

Recommendations
The study recommends establishing text alert services generated by library management software as well as offering text reference services, along with developing an OPAC interface for phones. A library’s web site should be configurable for small screens. 

Also, limited, silent-mode phone service should be allowed in libraries. Libraries should develop audio tours. University libraries should wait for technology to make phone ejournal access possible without developing platforms on their own to facilitate this.

How phones are used
Some 50 percent of respondents said they take photos of signs, books, etc to save information for later reference. Library staff reported seeing users take pictures of the catalog results screen, rather than making notes on a piece of paper.

Students at University of Cambridge and the Open University reported that they used their phones most to get campus maps or contact information, but a substantial number also access the OPAC (45 and 55 percent at the two universities, respectively).

iPhone, smartphone growth
Although students surveyed currently prefer to access information via SMS (text messaging) than via the mobile Internet, the growth of iPhones and iPhone-like smartphones may change that in the future.

Most users with regular phones don’t use them to read journal articles or ebooks, as the screen quality is poor. But iPhone users are already more inclined to read ebooks on their phones. Within the next two years, writers of the report predict that the majority of people who regularly use the mobile Internet will have an iPhone-like device, or instead use a netbook.

However, given the relatively low percentage of iPhone owners in the UK and the proprietary nature of iPhone applications, the report recommends that it would more cost effective to either provide the same library applications through a web site, or to develop applications in Java, which will run on most other phones.

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