Mobile Technology and Academic Libraries

Mobile technology has become a ubiquitous presence in the lives of today’s students and faculty. The maturing of this technology has led to our becoming more and more comfortable in a world where digital information flows seamlessly from screen to screen as we move about our daily lives. This evolution presents both risks and opportunities for academic librarians, operating in a field that is both uniquely tied to a static sense of “place” in the public imagination and at the same time passionately devoted to the freedom, spread, and accessibility of information for the public at large.

In seventeen chapters ranging from A Mobile-First Library Site Redesign to Mobile Technology Support for Field Research to Virtual Reality Library Environments, Mobile Technology and Academic Libraries explores how librarians around the world are working to adapt their spaces, collections, teaching, and services to the new possibilities presented by mobile technology. This is a detailed and thorough examination of technology that’s emerging now and how to incorporate it into your library to help the students and researchers of both today and tomorrow.

Leveraging the potential of smartphones, tablets, and even wearable technologies allows academic librarians to further expand their reach to students and faculty beyond the library’s walls. Furthermore, by understanding how mobile technology changes the behavior of our users, we can gain new insights into their needs and make improvements to our traditional services and spaces to better contribute to faculty research and student learning.