Title Mobile Technologies & Academics: Do Students Use Mobile Technology in their Academic Lives and are Librarians Ready to Meet this New Challenge? (Preprint) Authors Angela Dresselhaus & Flora Shrode Utah State University Source Information Technology and Libraries Abstract In this paper we report on two surveys and offer an introductory plan that librarians may use to begin implementing mobile access to selected library databases and services. Results from the first survey helped us to gain insight into where students at Utah State University (USU) in Logan, Utah stands regarding their use of mobile devices for academic activities in general and their desire for access to library services...

As the end of the year approaches, end-of-year review articles also approach. One of these comes from Richard MacManus at ReadWriteWeb, looking back at how online reading has changed over 2011. MacManus identifies two key trends—reading has become a lot more social, thanks to article-sharing apps and sites like Facebook, and new tablets and apps have brought e-reading to more people. He writes that e-reading has become a lot more mobile (citing the improved system of notifications that came to iOS) and easier to discuss across a variety of platforms. Looking at the apps and other...

HP's flagship tablet, the Touchpad, launched just a month ago in 16GB and 32GB models for $500 and $600 respectively, but in an attempt to move more units the company has introduced a $100 discount to both models. The new $400/500 prices are now showing up on sites like Amazon and BestBuy.com, but if you want a slightly better deal you should check out today's offer from Amazon-owned Woot.com: $380 + $5 shipping. Here's another review of the device if you want a second opinion....

The Poetry Foundation's free poetry app, released for the iPhone last year, can now be installed on iPads and Android devices too. Here's more info from the press release: The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is pleased to announce that its POETRY app is now available for the first time for Android and iPad. The free app has been updated for all mobile devices, including the iPhone. The updated POETRY app now offers audio versions of many of the 1,700-plus poems included in its virtual poetry library, links to biographies of poets whose work is featured in the app, source...

From an OverDrive blog post: The days of having to dig your library card out when you’re trying to download an eBook at the doctor’s office (or park, or airport terminal, or a bar mitzvah) are over. With the latest update to OverDrive-powered mobile sites, users will have the option for their devices to store their library card numbers. Starting now, when customers check out a title, the device will have a box where they can check “Remember me on this device.” The device will then hold the characters in its memory for 90 days after each use. This is...

German ebook software company txtr has updated its Android app with several new features. Some, such as bookmark and note syncing, are familiar to users of the Kindle app, but the update surpasses Amazon's offering by including cloud storage for personal docs as well as purchased books. The company also offers a white label version that can be customised or branded by third parties, and claims to have the largest selection of German language titles in the German market. From the press release: Besides searching for books and browsing by genre, users can now discover books through channels, such as Featured Books...

We've all seen tech demos of location aware augmented reality apps in recent years, but what else can be done with this "format"? The writing on a gravestone is also an example of site specific literature, writes Andrew Wilson at The Literary Platform, because it depends on its physical location to create a memory. He continues, "Of course all books make memories, but site specific literature uses 'here' to help make them." Wilson then goes on to examine other possible characteristics of this largely experimental concept of writing, such as it's non-linear, it relies on the real world for world building,...

Japanese company Glory recently unveiled a new ebook vending machine concept aimed at customers with smartphones. The Digital Reader writes, "You select and pay for the ebook on screen. The machine will print a receipt with a QR code and other info you’ll need to download the ebook." Here's the full post....

Over at Publishing Perspectives, Hannah Johnson reports on a panel at the recent Tokyo International Book Fair where publishers discussed ebooks in Japan. It's an interesting look at what some publishers think, especially if you've read Robin Birtle's Innovation in the Japanese eBook Market that we posted last week. From Johnson's report: One of the roadblocks to developing Japan's e-book market lies in the usability of e-book stores and devices, according to Fujio Noguchi, Senior General Manager of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division. Noguchi said currently, customers are confused about where to buy e-books and how to get that content on their...

When I’ve written a post with a list of mobile storytelling applications, I had a chance to take a closer look at Blurb Mobile. When I opened it for the first time a couple of days earlier, it looked a bit complicated, but when you give it a second chance, it’ll reveal all the possibilities and open your imagination as to how future digital storytelling will look like. The most prominent part of Blurb is that it prompts you to think of a story as a sequence. You can upload up to eight elements at once and this is immediately making...

On Wired.com, John Siracusa (who I’ve mentioned previously for his insightful look back at the early e-book industry on Ars Technica) looks at the argument being raised in some quarters that Apple should license its iPhone OS to other hardware manufacturers, lest it risk being relegated to a tiny fraction of the mobile market by Android, much as the Mac was relegated to a tiny fraction of the PC market by Windows. Siracusa is skeptical of this argument, and for good reason. As he points out, the situations are not quite analogous. For one thing, whereas PCs could...

A MobileRead forumgoer reports that the latest Project Gutenberg newsletter contains an announcement of a new Project Gutenberg mobile website, m.gutenberg.org. The site is to be optimized not just for iPhones, but for any mobile phone including browsing-enabled dumbphones. Writes Gutenberg: There are 4.5 billion such devices in the world, versus only 1.15 billion computers, and more and more readers, in spite of what the pundits say, are surfing, reading, and everything else on such mobile devices. We’ve previously covered a couple of stories—earlier this year, and last year—on the possibility of using...