The Apple Iphone 3 Gs is a big hit, with lines of people waiting to pick up the new smart phone. Blackberry and Palm have both introduced their new touch screen smart phones and more applications are being developed for these new phones.
The appeal of a smart phone is clear – you have one device that acts almost as your own personal manager/laptop. You can check e-mail, look at Facebook, text message friends and family as well as find out where you are with GPS information. One small device can carry your calendar, your contacts, serve as your phone and e-mail/text device. You can even read a book on the IPhone, with a special application developed by Amazon.com.
Libraries are watching the new technology and looking for ways to make it easier for smart phone users to access library services. Library catalogs, like the Huntington Beach Library catalog are available online and can be searched on a smart phone.
Some libraries are introducing IPhone applications for their catalogs and looking at additional ways to make it easier for smart phone users to connect to their library.
We are looking at ways to get the Huntington Beach Library out where our library patrons are – we will continue to look at adding new features and technology that can help people find what they want and need.
Even with budget cuts, we are looking at more Ebooks, both audio and text – both of which work on smart phones. We hope to figure out how we can provide whatever form of content that our library patrons want. If you have an IPhone, a Pre or a Blackberry, it shouldn’t matter – our library services should be “device agnostic”.
But don’t worry - a “device agnostic” library also means a book friendly library, where you can still find that old friend the Book.
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