“Refining Mobile Library Services.” Introduction to Special Issue: Papers from the Handheld Librarian IV Conference. (preprint)

Joe Murphy, Librarian & Technology Trend Spotter http://joemurphylibraryfuture.com libraryfuture@gmail.com Twitter: libraryfuture

The Reference Librarian. Special Issue: Papers fromthe Handheld Librarian IV Conference.

Vol 53 (4), 2012. Pages 347-348

The information landscape shifts under pressure from technological change. Libraries

continue to adapt with flexible services that meet their lasting core mission. The articles in this

volume impart practical steps for implementing services that address some of the most

important current topics of one prominent area of technological evolution: mobile technology.

These detailed guides, coupled with your own personal experience using the technologies and

knowledge of your library’s unique considerations, will bring you up to date on how best to

leverage handheld technologies in your library.

Twitter continues to serve as a fundamental social platform for mobile connections, and

A. Nicole Sump-Crethar shows us how to make the most of it in our libraries. Amy Vecchione

and Margie Ruppel take a multi-library look at best practices for reference service with SMS.

Allison Bolorizadeh, Rabia Gibbs, Michelle Brannen, and Thura Mack explore the need for and

means of enhancing library instruction and outreach services by incorporating mobile

technologies into teaching efforts.

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wref20/53/4 QR Codes, those small bar codes

scanned with smart phone cameras that enable us to add links to physical surfaces in our

libraries are growing as a powerful and low cost mobile tool. Kristen Yarmey and Thomas

Swartz reveal how they implemented a QR Code project in a science-specific academic

environment. Michael J. Whitchurch shares lessons learned through an implementation of QR

Codes for a library audio tour. Dantrea Hampton, Amanda Peach, and Benjamin Rawlins

explain how they made use of QR Codes in promotion of their library’s mobile web resources.

Amy Vecchione and Margaret Mellinger write about using SCVNGR, the social location-

based mobile app, for gamifying orientation and instruction at an academic institution. Stacie

Joe Murphy

Williams and Valerie Enriquez explore how Medical Libraries and more can capitalize on the

portability of mobile technologies to better serve their users. Andrew Carlos demonstrates that

by understanding the possible applications of various mobile resources, we can gain a better

perspective on research on the go.

Sharon Whitfield shows how to use a cross-platform framework for developing native

mobile applications for libraries. James Elder outlines the terminology and challenges for

building mobile apps as well as what libraries need to do in order to get started developing iOS

specific applications. Scott Brown shares the need-to-know apps in the context that librarians

should be aware of the most important and impactful mobile applications.

These papers, based on expert talks delivered at the fourth online Handheld Librarian

conference http://www.handheldlibrarian.org/ (held February 2011) cover the current central

mobile library services and represent one half of the knowledge base necessary to successfully

launch mobile services at your library. The other half includes personal experience with the

tools and an understanding of the impacts they are having on information behavior, both of

which will inform your service designs. Play with the technologies as you read about their

applications and consider the larger implications of each upon information behavior as you

address their service side as a librarian.

The technologies here covered have staying power, but the field is rapidly changing.

Stay on top of the next batch of important tools by attending the next online Handheld

Librarian conference and joining the discussion or sharing your expertise as a presenter and

writer.

- Joe Murphy, guest editor and conference programming committee member.

For an official e-print: see issue # 4 of volume 53 of The Reference Librarian http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/cKTDvgVpuJv4gitnEYfG/full

Joe Murphy