[832] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) technology
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gregory.A.Finnegan@Dartmouth.EDU)
Mon Jul 27 13:00:47 1992
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 11:42:34 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: Gregory.A.Finnegan@Dartmouth.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Lee Jaffe & Eric Celeste hit most of the points I'd have made (and others!),
but Eric's point "No more lugging that
big book back to the desk to jot a few notes, or scribbling on scrap cards to
carry back with you" made me think about a PDA that not only would take
'enhanced'OPAC downloads (or permit wireless OPAC access in stacks), but
would have citation-scale scanning ability for print tools. We occasionally
see a patron w/ one of the handheld 'strip' photocopies, and similar handheld
tools exist for scanning. An "Intelligent Bibliographer Notetaker" would
certainly be neat--especially one that could then pull down local call
numbers & sort the file by stack location for easiest physical access.
Just occurred to me that maybe large libraries could sign out PDA's to
patrons to as intelligent stack maps: do your opac search, download to PDA &
be guided to items, then turn in the PDA at the checkout desk--at least until
all patrons have them? (We already require students to buy a Mac; when will
PDA's be taken for granted? (We already do this w/ "Walkmen" for audio tours
of Orozco murals that happen to be in our Lib.; why not for our own
collections?)
I had not had much interest in pen-based systems until I saw the Newton PDA
videos at ALUG; the "wow factor" was very high! I'm trying to figure out how
it'll handle my very illegible printing--and whether latter is so bad I can
make a claim to be a beta tester! Similar to first time I saw HyperCard
demo'd--sudden visions, not of doing things better/faster, but of doing
things I'd imagined being able to do at all.
Greg.Finnegan@Dartmouth.edu
Baker Library/Dartmouth College
