My introduction to a special issue of The Reference Librarian which i guest edited featuring papers from the Handheld Librarian Conferences - "Mobile Reference: Papers from the Handheld Librarian Conferences." - Originally published in The Reference Librarian, Volume 52 Issue 1 & 2 2011.

1. Introduction: The Mobile Revolution and The Handheld Librarian
Joe Murphy
Kline Science Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT
libraryfuture on Twitter
The blossoming trend of gearing library services and collections to mobile devices has
recently grown from an emerging concept to a high profile and central focus in our profession.
The recent Handheld Librarian conferences (http://www.handheldlibrarian.org/) have highlighted
and grown out of this shift in focus from the desktop to the handheld as library platform.
These two special issues of The Reference Librarian (volume 51 #1 and 2), which reproduce
talks given at the first two online Handheld Librarian conferences, are dedicated to the work and
progress we are making in bringing libraries and their rich resources to our patrons’ mobile
devices. This focus is about more than technology: it is about a shift in service and possibly even
in the roles of librarians and libraries. It is not sufficient to think of this transition as a trend: the
statistics cited by the authors within say it all. Mobile usage is neither a fad nor a facet of one
demographics’ behavior.
The roles of mobile devices in information discovery and engagement are expanding with no
end in sight. Librarians exploring this shift now are doing more than reacting to a trend; they are
preparing for the future. So let’s critically examine this concept together, explore the
possibilities, and discuss as a profession how to best adapt to these changes while maintaining
the central roles our libraries have always played. The goal of these special issues is to highlight
and deepen our discourse around this topic to take this topic from a segmented introduction to a
deep analysis.
Here is a brief introduction to the Handheld Librarian conferences by Lori Bell, the primary
organizer:
The first Handheld Librarian online conference was held July 2009. The second
conference was held in February 2010 and the third in July 2010. Mobile technology
in libraries is a very hot topic: everyone wants to know about it and how to implement
it in their library. At the same time, travel budgets are being slashed. The mix of the
mobile library technology topic and the travel cuts created a wonderful opportunity
for Alliance Library System and LearningTimes to provide a rich online
conference/training session for librarians all over the world. The topic is changing so
quickly which is why it was decided to do this conference twice a year. Each
conference has had over 300 registrations with half coming from individuals and the
other half from groups which has resulted in 800-1,000 people attending each
conference.
Conferences are delivered online via Adobe Connect Pro. Lori Bell and Tom
Peters work with a volunteer committee of librarians from all over the US to plan the
conference, select speakers, and market the conference. The LearningTimes team
provides the Adobe Connect Pro, technical support for attendees and speakers,
registration, and the design of the conference website. Alliance Library System was a
Joe Murphy – Twitter: libraryfuture

2. partner with LearningTimes for the first two conferences. For the July 2010
conference, TAP Information Services and LearningTimes have partnered to produce
the conference.
The Handheld Librarian conferences have continued to grow. A third iteration was held on
July 28-29, 2010 and a fourth is planned for February 2011.
In these issues we will hear from some of the presenters from the first two Handheld
Librarian conferences. Their pieces presented here will serve to spark productive discussions as a
means of pushing the dialogue on this timely subject forward. Topics covered in these issues
range from text messaging, to mobile applications, from planning and evaluating mobile
services, to spotting future trends in mobile technology. A reader of these special issues can
expect a thorough review of mobile technologies and libraries.
We will use the Twitter hashtag #hhlib for this issue to bring this discussion well beyond the
pages of this journal and onto our colleagues’ cell phone screens around the world in a real time,
mobile medium. Include this hashtag when tweeting about this to contribute to the dialogue and
search for tweets with the tag to bring together all related posts. Leveraging the Twitter hashtag
also helps us bring this discourse into the social and mobile realms, where so much of scholarly
communication now takes place.
Whether you are reading this on your iPad, in print, on your iPhone, laptop, or Nexus 1, let’s
use this as jumping off point to move our libraries and our profession forward into and through
the adoption of mobile devices.
Joe Murphy (libraryfuture on Twitter), Science Librarian, Coordinator of Instruction and
Technology, Yale University, Kline Science Library, 219 Prospect St., P.O. Box 208111, New
Haven, CT 06520-8107. E-mail: joseph.murphy@yale.edu
Joe Murphy – Twitter: libraryfuture