m-Libraries Conference

Wow. About time.

Those were my two immediate reactions upon seeing the announcment for “The First International m-libraries Conference” that “aims to explore and share work carried out in libraries around the world to deliver services and resources to users ‘on the move,’ via a growing plethora of mobile and hand-held devices … bring together researchers, technical developers, managers and library practitioners to exchange experience and expertise and generate ideas for future developments.”

A quick look around any library, shopping mall, airport, coffeeshop, grocery store, etc. and we see that library users are often on the move with mobile information devices. Yet – most of our resources and services are either place-bound or they are digitally available but assume a computer screen – not a cell phone, blackberry, or PDA. Have you ever looked at a library website through a mobile device web browser? I have. It wasn’t pretty. Forget getting to any of the licensed content.

I hope this is an area of quick and determined action for libraries but, even if not, the conference sessions look intriguing and may spur some new areas of activity.

Website: http://library.open.ac.uk/mLibraries/index.html

Author: Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

Lisa is Head, Undergraduate Library, Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, Office of Services, and Associate Professor, Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. View all posts by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe