Ball State Libraries has decided not to subscribe to an e-journal iPad app after its trial run ends this week.
Brad Faust, the assistant dean for library information technology services at Bracken Library, said the primary reason for the decision was the limited amount of titles available compared to the library’s entire title base.
“BrowZine provided access to 2,600 to 2,700 e-journal titles that we have,” he said. “That’s compared to about 50,000 titles we provide access to across all of the information services in the University Libraries. It’s a fairly small percentage of the title base.”
Ball State agreed on a trial run of the app from mid-May until the end of June. In the first two weeks, the table of contents was viewed 761 times and 255 articles were retrieved from 188 e-journals.
Faust has no doubt that there will be interest in apps like BrowZine, although BrowZine was only available for use on the iPad.
“I think increasingly it’s important that we reach out to students on mobile devices,” Faust said. “That’s a very powerful device. Tablets are very powerful devices and delivery of information online meshes very well with those kinds of client use devices. I think there’s a lot of value there.”
Faust said the libraries are always looking for opportunities to improve access to library resources, and he has no doubt that they will continue to search for ways to reach students on mobile devices.
Diane Calvin, head of information services, was one of the first people to try the BrowZine app.
“I thought it was very user-friendly, that’s what impressed me the most about it,” she said. “As long as somebody understood ‘I want this journal, I want this issue’ then it was very easy to maneuver and navigate through the interface. That’s one of the things I always look for.”
Calvin said students with a tablet or mobile device can go to the library’s homepage at bsu.edu/library and see a mobile icon where they can then download mobile apps onto their devices.
“We see a lot of students coming through with laptops but also coming through with tablets and other devices,” she said. “We figure if there’s a way of making electronic resources available in yet another format, that’s a great thing.”
