Citation
Philip Calvert (2015), "m Libraries 4: From Margin to Mainstream - Mobile Technologies Transforming Lives and Libraries", The Electronic Library, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 152-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-07-2014-0120
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
These are the collected papers from the Fourth International M-Libraries Conference held in Milton Keynes (United Kingdom) in 2012. The presenters come from all library sectors, though academic librarians are in the majority. Countries represented include India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Japan, Qatar and Spain, plus the European Parliament. Mostly the papers are relatively brief, practical and approachable, making this a suitable book for all those interested in developing the use of mobile technologies in their libraries.
Part 1 is called Transformation and includes papers on using SMS for a content alert system, using iPads for a roving enquiry service and promoting services through Twitter. A very interesting paper in this section is one that says students do not wish to use their own devices in a university library because they feel they are now in a consumer–provider relationship and their fees should be enough to pay for necessary technology.
Part 2 is intriguingly called Inspiration and is about extending services to places they have not been before or using them in ways not done before. Examples are using Quick Response (QR) codes in teaching, and the Indian government’s use of mobile devices to widen educational opportunities.
There are ten papers in Part 3, making it slightly the longest, and the topic of this section is Implementation. I liked reading about the project on making training Polimedia videos and then making them accessible by mobile devices. Others papers to mention briefly are the ones on searching the library catalogue through Twitter and a pilot Kindle project.
This will be a good reference for librarians looking to see how others have used mobile to keep the library developing and retain its connections to customers who expect us to use the latest technologies.