Multimedia information using mobile computers: accessing the digital campus and the digital library

Abstract

It is clear that the role of the information resource is changing. Major publishers have been slow to adapt to the emergence of a global digital medium, but there are now signs that a great deal of information will be delivered on-line, (although at present only about 25 databases account for 80% of usage in UK and optical publishing is still in its early stages). However, digital publishing on the Internet — with services for libraries such as just-in-time purchasing and delivery, for example — will be a driving force in creating the ‘global digital medium’. One issue that will become increasingly relevant is how the individual user accesses rich multimedia data in the most appropriate way. The ‘digital university campus’ and the ‘digital library’ are coming to be important concepts, with the aim that users of information services will receive information on-line supported by a ‘ubiquistructure’ of information technology. For the ‘digital campus’ this means that not only scholarly but also teaching activities are based on interactive access to information, and where not only the digital library but also the digital bookshop and the digital classroom are becoming possible with the development of 140Mb/s SuperJANET links. However, it is recognised that libraries will not be truly digital for the foreseeable future, and that libraries will maintain traditional and digital media side by side. In this paper, reporting on work at the University of Bristol's Educational Technology Service multimedia resources unit MRU, and the University of the West of England's Centre for Personal Information Management (in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories and the University of Bristol's Centre for Communications Research), we look the ‘digital library’ and ‘digital campus’ from the perspective of the individual user and her information needs. We are particularly interested in the use of small, mobile computers as access points to the global digital medium. We suggest that, in an environment of change — where the traditional campus and the traditional library exist alongside the digital campus and digital library — the most appropriate form of access technology is based on ‘personal technology’ which allows a linking between digital information and traditional paper-based information.