What started out as a big idea to create a multi-media website to review apps available through the London Public Library quickly became evident to be too large a task. It takes a lot of time and effort to review just one app, nonetheless the 3-to-5 I had proposed. I wound up choosing two apps that marketed similar features: Libby by OverDrive Inc. and Hoopla by Midwest Tape. I chose this project as a way to evaluate remote technology that is accessible to all patrons of the London Public Library. I thought this was particularly important with the prevalence of mobile technology as well as the need for accessing library media remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I really wish that the scale of this project allowed for me to review more apps but to effectively communicate my thoughts and be clear on the pros and cons of each app, I really needed to devote 1000-1200 words per app rather than the proposed 500-800.
As Bell and Peters (2013) say, "the mobile platform has become the twenty-first-century service platform for most sectors of the economy, society, and culture" (pg. x). Just as demand for web-based services rose in the 1990s, now we need to offer mobile services to meet the needs and demands of increasingly tech-savvy patrons. Perhaps the biggest question for libraries in the mobile technology revolution is: how should libraries and librarians invest their time and resources? For the most part, I think that libraries investing in technologies developed by outside entities is the right way to go. This allows for more variety of media and services without requiring any additional library staff to maintain or program the apps. Perhaps larger libraries with higher budgets could justify developing their own apps, but this is not as strong a practical across-the-board solution.
Access to apps such as Libby and Hoopla through public libraries is very important. Revelle and Polanka (2013) say that both reading and the concept of what a book is has been transformed by mobile devices (pg. 109). EBooks and audiobooks have had a huge effect on both publishers and libraries (Revelle and Polanka, 2013, pg. 110). Carreiro (2010) says that eBooks have "caused the greatest transformation to the long-established publishing industry since Gutenberg and his printing press" (para. 2). For these reasons, the relationships between publishers, book distributors, libraries, and readers have changed immensely.
I do plan to continue conducting and publishing reviews of library apps and digital services outside of this project. I think it is very valuable for both librarians and patrons to have access to these reviews to help inform their decisions in promoting or using an app. At this time, there is not a lot of academic literature on the subject of mobile/web apps and libraries. I think there is a lot of potential for growth and research on this subject and I hope that I can be a part of that growth. There are a lot of merits in studying remote access and digital library media. Fostering a better connection with modern technology, user needs, and accessibility is key for libraries in these uncertain times.
References
Carreiro, E. (2010). Electronic Books: How Digital Devices and Supplementary New Technologies are Changing the Face of the Publishing Industry. Publishing Research Quarterly, 26(4), 219–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-010-9178-z
Peters, T. A., & Bell, L. (2013). Introduction: The Mobile Revolution and Libraries, Librarians, and Library Users. In The Handheld Library: Mobile Technology and The Librarian (pp. ix-xxii). essay, Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Peters, T. A., Bell, L., Revelle, A., & Polanka, S. (2013). Reading Transformed by the Mobility of E-books. In The Handheld Library: Mobile Technology and the Librarian (pp. 109–118). essay, Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.