Channeling my next-gen device

Information Outlook, March, 2005 by Stephen Abram

I'm cheating on my Palm Treo[TM]. It's sad but true: I am the Post-it Note[TM] of lovers. I thought I'd never look at another PDA, but I'm already eyeing PT's younger, newer, shinier sibling--with its clearer screen, swappable battery, and Bluetooth. Why is it that I can stay happily married to the same woman for more than 30 years yet want to trade up my gadgets every year--even though, in the first blush of infatuation, I invariably sign two-year contracts? Sigh.

PT and I met when I was looking to purchase my first corporate phone. It was important that the phone meet several criteria. My position requires that I investigate the latest technologies that will affect information users and libraries of all types. This can be accomplished only partially using my desktop and laptop. I also travel a lot and need access to services worldwide--it isn't enough to see electronic services on PCs, which are oh-so-last-century.

Wireless PDAs outsold simple cell phones last Christmas--that's a key marker. When cassette tapes outsold vinyl, when CD-ROM outsold cassettes, and when DVD started outselling VHS, the bell was tolling for the transition to a new mode. My inner compass told me that I needed to experience this new end-user world of information appliances, and fast. If the PDA was emerging as a critical component of the information user ocean, then I'd better work (actually, play) with it. So I got my beloved Palm Treo.

The love affair actually started earlier. I was sitting in the lobby bar of the Washington, D.C., Hilton Hotel and Towers at the Computers in Libraries conference last year. Jenny Levine (librarian extraordinaire and leading librarian blogger at www.theshiftedlibrarian.com) was sitting beside me, taking advantage of the free wireless. (Librarian/traveler's tip: Hotels make more profit from the drinks in the bar than from the $9.95/day Internet connection in your room, so they're likely to offer a free connection in the bar. I've noticed at library conferences that the bars are lit up by more laptop screens than candles.)

Anyway, Jenny had a really cool new phone. It even had a removable chip with her favorite Simpsons episode on it. She was e-mailing, listening to MP3s, surfing the Web, and making phone calls--all on her PDA. I was enthralled. I went home and surfed the reviews and found that the Palm Treo was the PDA of the moment. On her blog, Jenny chronicled her experiences with her PT. I followed along and waited patiently for a few months, until it came to Canada.

It arrived and I fell in love. After a few weeks of setup and a month of reading the hard-copy manual (which is four times the size of the phone), I've found it to be a great productivity tool. On half-hour rides to the airport, I can check my e-mail or read Word or PDF files. In hotel rooms and at conferences, I use the hands-free speaker to conduct teleconferences. When my laptop can't find a wireless signal, I can still check facts on the Web.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In a pinch, I can even use my wireless keyboard peripheral to build Word documents or PowerPoint presentations. A colleague told me that his company has converted almost completely to the PDA for driving the PC projector for PPT presentations. Gotta try that! All in all, it was worth the effort to get it going. I feel connected (mostly) to the office, my professional network, and my family, seamlessly and all the time. I am much more productive than I was before, and I've even learned to take PDA-free time to stay human. (By the way, the digital camera still stinks.)

So what does this have to do with special libraries?

These devices--Blackberries, Palm Treos, HP iPacs, fancy phones, etc.--are ubiquitous. Most of our key users in the special library world have some form of these devices. They are especially popular in auditing firms and the military, among consultants and executives, in medical enterprises, and for salespeople and investment and finance pros. Many of our colleagues use them, too. The student population is among the most deeply penetrated markets. If our users are getting addicted to these devices (and many are), and they are starting to use them in preference to laptops and desktops, what do our services look like? Those of us who serve adult users and fellow employees still have time to catch up; those who provide library services and information support to students have considerably less time, since they have adopted these devices at a much faster rate. Here are a few key questions:

1. Do you have a PDA and use it? If you don't, you can't understand the environment of your users. This isn't one of those "I don't have to be a chicken to understand an egg" issues. This is experiential learning at its finest. Once you have experienced the features and functions, you can address usability issues at a more informed level. I'm not saying that it's a perfect environment, any more than our carpal-tunnel-inducing desktop environment is. But it's where the users are, and that's where we have to be.