Some Aspects of Mobile Applications for Faculty Libraries

Abstract

With the advent of the Internet, as a global network, new challenges have appeared particularly due to technology improvement. In the meantime, mobile phones have provided new opportunities in educational settings and libraries thereby stimulating creation of specialized mobile apps for specific educational and library purposes. This paper reconsiders the question of mobile applications for library purposes, taking as a starting point the classifications proposed in the relevant literature on the subject. The paper is organized around the following sections: the first section is a brief overview of certain aspects of the Internet development, communication technology enhancement, and specific mobile phone usage. The second part is more descriptive in orientation since it provides the data on which our analysis was based, and describes the relevant features of mobile applications for libraries. The third part is more empirical in nature in that it outlines the applicability of the previously mentioned theoretical postulates to a group of practical challenges. By way of illustration, this part examines the utilization of mobile apps for the library based on concrete examples from the author’s needs analysis for students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade. The fourth part summarizes our findings.