Going mobile: creating a mobile presence for your library

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine how students at the University of Regina would like to interact with the library on their mobile devices and how to best construct a mobile site to suit the university community's needs.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was designed to gather feedback from the university community on their use of mobile devices and how they would want to use the library's resources and services via their mobile device. This survey also attempts to better understand how academic libraries can provide effective mobile services. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to several Canadian academic libraries. Its purpose was to discover what other institutions were doing with mobile technologies.

Findings

The survey found that 95.4 percent of students that responded to the survey had a smartphone and 75 percent of them used their mobile phone to access the web. The survey indicated that the library catalogue was the most popular resource chosen to become mobile enabled. The questionnaire distributed to other Canadian academic libraries showed that some libraries were designing and building web apps, while others were creating native apps.

Originality/value

With the increase of mobile technology availability and the demand for accessible mobile content, it is imperative that libraries examine how they can provide services to their patrons within this medium in order to continue to provide valuable services. Mobile technologies are constantly changing, so continuous assessment in this area is of importance.

Citation

Nowlan, G. (2013), "Going mobile: creating a mobile presence for your library", New Library World, Vol. 114 No. 3/4, pp. 142-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074801311304050