EconBiz to go. Mobile search options for business and economics – developing a library app for researchers
| Date | 31 August 2012 |
| Published date | 31 August 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831211266582 |
| Pages | 436-448 |
| Author | Tamara Pianos |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
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EconBiz to go
Mobile search options for business and
economics – developing a library app for
researchers
Tamara Pianos
EconBiz, ZBW – German National Library of Economics – Leibniz Information
Centre for Economics, Kiel, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The author developed a specialized app to cater to the needs of researchers in business
and economics. At the same time the number of library apps in general increased dramatically. This
article intends to put the author’s efforts in developing a specialized app into the context of the
development of mobile apps for library users in general.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews a number of seminal papers on the
development of library apps and sets the description of the development of the EconBiz app against
the developments in general. Users’ needs in relation to library apps seem mostly pretty basic, yet
some of these needs are still hard to meet.
Research limitations/implications – The use of mobile phones, the services available on mobile
devices and the availability of library apps are changing rapidly, so some findings might be outdated
by the time the respective papers were published.
Originality/value – This paper brings together the findings of a number of studies and surveys
against the practical implications of developing an individual app.
Keywords Academic libraries,Mobile communication systems,Information services,
Mobile libraryservices
Paper type Technical paper
Introduction
One of the findings of M-Libraries, a report on a survey conducted early in 2009 was
“Mobile phones are still viewed by the majority of people as devices for making phone
calls and sending text messages, so they often do not associate them with other
activities as information seeking” (Mills, 2010). A number of things changed since early
2009 as smart phones and tablets are dramatically more widely available now. Smart
phones are used for a number of different purposes and using them for actually making
phone calls becomes less important. The number of mobile devices and of the users of
such devices grows rapidly each year. The Horizon Report, 2011 says that by 2015 80
percent of people accessing the internet will do so with mobile devices. As the number
of users grows, so does and will the number of library apps and special mobile library
web sites. In 2007, the first M-Libraries conference was held in Milton Keynes, followed
by conferences every two years since. There is also an M-Libraries group on
Facebook[1]. So, there is obviously a lot of interest in this topic among librarians.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
LHT
30,3
436
Received January 2012
Revised February 2012
Accepted April 2012
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 30 No. 3, 2012
pp. 436-448
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378831211266582
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