For immediate release:
January 8, 2009

For more information, contact:
Kaylyn Groves
Association of Research Libraries
kaylyn@arl.org

Mobile Technologies, Mobile Users: Implications for Academic Libraries

ARL Bimonthly Report Also Features Virtual Resources and Instructional Initiatives

Washington DC—The implications of mobile technologies and mobile users for academic libraries is highlighted in the current issue of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Bimonthly Report, no. 261. This issue also reports on a survey that explored ARL member libraries’ innovations in virtual resource development and instructional programming.

In the lead article, Joan K. Lippincott, Associate Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information, discusses mobile technologies, learning, and libraries. Lippincott provides examples of innovative ways in which a limited number of academic libraries are already designing services around mobile technologies and mobile users and lays out the issues that should be discussed on individual campuses that would like to examine their role in the move to mobile.

Crit Stuart, Director of Research, Teaching & Learning, ARL, reports on a survey that invited ARL libraries to describe innovative experiments in virtual resource development and instructional programming. The survey responses indicate that ARL libraries are setting a rapid pace for experimentation as they replace or supplement traditional information literacy classes with a variety of library engagements in classrooms, through course management systems, and in the virtual spaces inhabited by students and faculty.

This issue of the Bimonthly Report shipped to ARL member libraries and subscribers in late December.

The issue is also freely available on the Web at http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br261.shtml.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.