Mobile Information Services and Initiatives in University Libraries: A New Way of Delivering Information

Abstract

Students these days are seen in campuses and other study environments bowing their heads to mobile devices to seek information. Studies show that students are heavy users of their hardware, spending an average of 19.6 hours per week using an electronic device. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mobile library services initiated and adopted by some prominent academic libraries for the easy mobilisation of their existing services and also to assess how such services can be helpful to the user community. Moreover, the study raises awareness of the important mobile library services, some of them that are already in use in different Academic libraries and how the other services could help libraries to mobilise their information in fast and time bound manner that too without the constraints of space and time. The value of the study is to helping academic libraries to identify and embrace the mobile initiatives. With these mobile initiatives, libraries can provide a wide array of mobile services to the interested users.