I can see a couple of issues that aren’t restricted just to librarianship.

As a vendor of software to an industry choosing the platform(s) to support is going to become and incresingly complex decision. While the iPhone is the popular example Android is gaining more traction and there are a number of other alternatives.

Which one would you as a vendor support? How would you choose?

Libraries as a market have other issues to consider. Which platforms are you going to target / support? Does it rely on which platforms your vendor(s) supports?

What do you plan on using the advanced functionality for? How do you plan on supporting it? Could you develop something in house? Do you have the staff / skills?

All of these are interesting questions. My concern though is that what will happen is that there will be a few libraries / users who will be the leaders, the others will take what the vendor provides, and the vendors will provide what they want to. In all of this the actual user can get lost.

The mobile industry as a whole is very interesting and one worth watching. In all of this thinking though there is one other aspect that is increasingly troubling me.

That is, what is going to be the impact of the network providers. You could have the best app, the best service, and have everything in place. But if the users network provider doesn’t give them sufficient data allowance at a reasonable cost the users will have to prioritise which apps they use and when.

So the final question, how do you make these apps relevant to your users?

I did a short presentation at Ignite Sydney on a similar topic http://www.slideshare.net/neeravbhatt/evolution-of-mobile-phones just the other day

1. Penny if you have any questions about Google Android phones send me an email via http://www.neeravbhatt.com/contactme.php, I own one myself and prior to that tested it for Optus

2. Peta much of what you mentioned is already close to being possible eg: libraries are slowly adopting mobile friendly OPAC’s and my mobile phone can scan book barcodes and tell me if its available via Google Books, Libraries Australia etc

I embedded the code into our YP blog, thus sharing the conversations with many others via a simple click.

These snippets are a great way to help promote and market the library and its services

We’ve just asked for a “google phone” so we can do txt reference using Library H3lp. Waiting to see if we’re successful

If phones one day have RFID readers in them, and mapped collections, we may end up being able to get directions to a specific item on the shelf, in a particular library. Even if my local branch can’t help, I could get directions to the nearest branch that does have a copy – all the way to the shelf.

With an application like Fring that combines phone (and voip), instant messaging and combines all those contacts into a single list it’s feasible to respond to service requests via multiple channels from anywhere in the library. Even during activities like shelf reading.

But seriously, here are some thoughts on what this technology could do in a law firm library:
* if there’s a way that an iPhone could log onto the intranet, lawyers could access the library’s subscription databases when at court, client meetings, travelling etc
* I see potential for using these devices for legal research training videos/slideshows – with particular possibilities for print resources. It would be handy to view a quick tutorial about using the English Digest when in the stacks