Using Mobile Technology to Deliver Library Services: A Handbook

Abstract

When reviewing a book, a useful test of its value is to browse through the table of contents and note whether it indicates that the book contains information that one is in particular need of at that particular moment in time. This review starts with a question that many librarians who deal with web-based library services are facing: namely, the complex matter that is summed up in the title of chapter 5 of this book, “Apps vs Mobile Websites.” The book would be of somewhat limited utility for medical librarians, given that its intended audience is primarily librarians in academic and public libraries. But there are sections that would be of value to medical librarians as the world in general moves toward mobile computing. The chapter, “E-Books for Mobiles,” for example, is a handy overview for medical librarians who are dealing with the need to provide patrons access not just to e-books, but e-books that can be easily read on mobile devices. Health sciences librarians in academic settings might also find the chapter, “Mobiles in Teaching,” to be quite valuable. That chapter has quite a number of useful examples of activities and tools (such as audience response applications) for those needing examples to use in their own classes and to recommend to medical and nursing school faculty. While the book is well organized and well written, it is rather disappointing that this chapter does not have a single picture of an app as it would look on a mobile device nor are there any screenshots of what mobile websites look like in comparison to mobile apps or compared to web pages that are not optimized for mobile users. There is a good deal of description and the usual admonitions to consider the needs of users, but nothing in terms of illustrations that would convey what things actually look like. What things look like is a key consideration in any discussion of web matters. There is a useful table of what the application suite of Ryerson Mobile of Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, consisted of when the book went to press (e.g., Campus Directory, Class Schedule, Campus Map, Book A Room, Find a Computer). Otherwise, everything is rather dry as dust visually. That is the case with the book as a whole: scanty illustrations. That would not matter so much if this were a book about a subject in librarianship that primarily has to do with textual matters. But mobile technology is, to a large extent, a visual matter. A major flaw of this book is that it does not seem to acknowledge whatsoever people who have some kind of disability or impairment and whose needs should be addressed in any discussion of online library services. There is no chapter about accessibility or disabilities such as visual ones or those having to do with neuromuscular issues or hearing impairments (despite the fact that many of the resources discussed are audio ones). Whatever were Andrew Walsh and his publisher thinking? No text on web services librarianship these days should lack some discussion of accessibility.