The advancement of communication technology has changed our everyday lives. The computer and internet have combined an offline environment with the online environment, and the emergence of mobile devices has generated great transitional changes. Accor...
The advancement of communication technology has changed our everyday lives. The computer and internet have combined an offline environment with the online environment, and the emergence of mobile devices has generated great transitional changes. Accordingly, many libraries have initiated mobile services such as SMS Notification while building digital libraries and constructing the information service system based on wireless internet. In the year 2004, WDL(Wireless Digital Library), the university consortium, was held in Korea, where fifty universities participated. This has enabled to install a book search plug-in and other various services on a mobile device. Likewise, although university libraries advanced the mobile library service in cooperation with the computer and communication corporations, it was rather passively arrived at as a part of U-Campus project and its supports were limited to the subscribers of certain communication corporations.
However, the current trend of the wide use of smartphones and wireless networks has increased the utilization of mobile-internet services. Also, 'Mobile website' , 'Mobile OPAC' and 'Mobile application' optimized for a mobile based environment are emerging. Although, following the trend, a library has adopted its own 'Mobile website', 'Mobile OPAC' and 'Mobile application' running in portable devices like smartphone, providing its users with better access to library website, we are still falling behind foreign countries.
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze organization systems and labeling systems that were currently used in the mobile libraries of foreign universities, and also to design the mobile libraries for domestic universities. In addition, we plan to submit the result of this study as a preliminary report for the mobile libraries that will be designed hereafter. In accordance with the purpose, we conducted literary research and analyzed the organization systems and labeling systems of the mobile university libraries. We also attempted a design of a domestic version of the mobile university library.
The results of the study are as follows.
1) Twenty two mobile libraries of foreign universities which were the subjects of the research had hierarchy structure.
2) The number of services each main menu of all internet sites presented was estimated; five sites were providing five to six services while the average of all was providing eight.
3) The depth of all internet sites was estimated; eight university mobile libraries allowed access to information after '1' minimum and '2' maximum steps, and some after '0' step.
4) We tried to figure out the services that were provided by the foreign mobile university libraries by inspecting how it was labeled. Twenty one university libraries among the twenty two subjects labeled 'Hours'. 'Contact Us' was the second most used label which eighteen libraries used; ‘Catalog Search’ and ‘Directions’ were used in twelve libraries; ‘Staff & Departments’ in eleven; ‘News & Event’ and ‘Borrowing’ were labeled in eight libraries; ‘Main Library Home Page’ and ‘Links’ in six; ‘Computer Availability’, ‘Floor and Location Guide’, and ‘My Accounts’ in five; ‘Other Libraries Links’ in four libraries.
5) In order to enhance understanding of user tendency, we held a workshop where twenty university students participated. The first thing was to prioritize a preferred location of each service displayed on main screen. The synthesized results of individual outcome show that the upper areas scored 1,2, and 3, the middle areas scored 4,1,5 and 6, and the bottom scored 7, 8, and 9. We will name the area that scored 1 as 'area 1' and the same rule applies for the rest numbers. Then, we selected a menu and designed a domestic version of the university mobile library. The following is the most selected labels for each area; area 1 was assigned 'Search', area 2 ‘e-Resource’, area 3 ‘Guide to Library’, area 4 ‘My Library’, area 5 ‘e-Resource’, area 6 ‘Bulletin Board’, and area 7 was assigned ‘Other Institution’. Those selected for more specific service were ‘Information Retrieval’, ‘Borrowing/Reservation’, ‘Domestic eBook’ and ‘Foreign eBook’, ‘Room Availability’, ‘Q&A’, ‘Notice’, ‘Other Institution’, and ‘Guide to Library’, with a suggestion of two new labels ‘View New Materials’ and ‘Main University Home Page’.