Mobile News for Librarians

Those of you interested in mobile technologies and libraries will be interested to know about MedlinePlus and a free webinar from EDUCAUSE on mobile services.

MedlinePlus:
On the medical library and consumer health side of things NLM has released Mobile MedlinePlus (http://m.medlineplus.gov/). Unfortunately you are going to have book mark or copy this URL because currently their server doesn’t recognize your phone to send you automatically to the mobile site.  If you happen to go the regular home page on your phone there is a link to the mobile version.

Mobile MedlinePlus is available in English and Spanish (http://m.medlineplus.gov/spanish) and includes a subset of content from the full Web site. When you go to the mobile site you will see options to browse for information within Health Topics and Drugs.  Clicking on one of those sections provides you with a search box as well as an A-Z list of topics.

It will be interesting to play with this more and see how it works for consumer health information.

EDUCAUSE:
From the regular library side of things, EDUCAUSE has announced there will be a FREE webinar, “Library in Your Pocket: Strategies and Techniques for Developing Successful Mobile Services.”  The webinar is Wednesday January 20, 2010 and is 1:00pm ET. 

David Woodbury and Jason Casden will discuss the need to be able connect to library users mobile devices to the library. 

“Students are arriving on college campuses with the ability to connect to the web with a diverse array of mobile devices. However, some online services aren’t a good fit for the small screen, and new services can also be developed that take advantage of the mobile user context. Developers of the NCSU Libraries Mobile site [http://m.lib.ncsu.edu/] will share their strategy and techniques for creating a suite of mobile services that are optimized for a majority of mobile web platforms, from iPhones to flip phones. The session will also include a discussion of site usage and promotion as well as plans for future mobile services.”

Registration is Free! Go to http://net.educause.edu/RegisterNow/1024840 to register.