Will Smart Phones and Other Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) Dominate How Academic Library Services are Developed and Delivered for the Foreseeable Future?

摘要

In 2007, an Australian study (Skene et al. 2007) identified that 90% students possessed their own mobile phones. There is no doubt that this percentage will have increased in the intervening years as the mobile phone has been transformed into a smart phone with greater capacity and more features. Since 2007, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept has emerged which is the "practice of allowing employees of an organisation to user their own computers, smart phones or other devices for work purposes" (Oxford Dictionaries 2013). University libraries and IT departments are providing ICT cover specifically for students and their hand held devices (e.g., University of Western Australia 2013). At the same time, as students have increased ownership of (very often) a variety of hand held device, "M Learning" has arrived in the teaching and learning arena. MoLeNET (2013) have proposed that M Learning is the "exploitation of ubiquitous handheld technologies, together with wireless and mobile phone networks, to facilitate, support, enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning." The combination of BYOD and M Learning means that academic libraries have to give serious consideration regarding the impact to their services and support. There are some key questions libraries have to ask themselves: · Does the library need to continue providing access to fixed PCs for students? · Should library staff be equipped with BYODs as part of their job? · Should the library provide a laptop loan service to students? · How are information literacy programs changed to reflect the BYOD with students becoming M Learners? · How are library services developed so they can be accessed via BYOD?