[803] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) technology
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lee Jaffe, Microcompu)
Thu Jul 23 11:52:21 1992
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 10:45:05 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: "Lee Jaffe, Microcomputer & Network Services" <jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am wondering what readers of this list think the potential might be
for personal digital assistant (PDA) technology to (eventually) change
the way the library is accessed.
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At a presentation during the ALUG meeting earlier this month, the project
manager for Apple's Newton started to throw out some of their "weirder"
ideas for directions they have considered for the Newton concept. For
example, he showed an artist's rendering of AppleChalk, a blackboard-
sized digital tablet on which the teacher could write. He challenged the
audience of librarians to think about how the PDA concept could be applied
to libraries.
My only thought so far is that the PDA concept seems to be limited to a
stand-alone application, not much different than a filofax. They do talk
about being able to print, to upload and download to computers and sending
faxes, but all the examples I saw demonstrated were self-contained. If
the PDA concept included a research assistant component and there was the
possibility of going online, then it would be important for online systems
to be able to talk to PDAs and vice versa. I can imagine a student scrib-
bling down a reference and then indicating that s/he wants to "get" that
item. The PDA would have to recognize enough of the information to link to
a smarter and richer information server that could lead through the maze of
possibilities and retrieve the most likely items. I don't think that this
sort of research should be dumped on the PDA, but that the PDA should have
a home-base server that could drive such a function. The PDA would be
like an executive assistant that called the reference desk for you.
-- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz
