Study On Usability Of Mobile Library

Mobile library get more attention which, due to its mobility, is not limited by spaceand time. Nowadays it should be concerned that whether the service of mobile librarywill meet user’s demand or mobile library can go deep into user’s life for reading andresearch. The main purpose of this thesis is to test effectiveness for partial services ofmobile libraries and usability of the mobile library in Chongqing University，in order tofind problems in mobile library service.Through studying relevant literatures of usability study both at home and abroad,and understanding research status in this field, strengths and weaknesses are reviewed.Combining with the actual situation at present, This thesis chooses seven researchapproaches including literature research, network survey, questionnaire investigation,usability testing, think-aloud, observational method and comprehensive analysis. Theobject of study is WAP business model of mobile libraries in “985” Universities.Pointing at four services which including resource retrieval service, digital resourcereading and document delivery services, news announcement, and subscription services,smart phone was adopted to test with assessment criteria. Problems in the testingprocess was discovered and suggestion was put forward. Secondly, this paper furthertests WAP and client model of mobile library in Chongqing University, estimates itseffectiveness and satisfaction, then find out problems in mobile library. Finally theresearch of this thesis is summarized and prospected.The research indicades that mobile library services have expanded the scope oflibrary users, broke through the limit of time and space under entity library, improveresources efficiency for obtaining and the utilization rate of resources, and furtherreflect information fairness. At the same time, some problems in this research are found,for instance, there is no way to study further because of authority restriction; Due to thelimits in some aspects such as user testing scope, mobile phone models, cost and so on,universality of research result cannot be embodied; Expert evaluation and ordinary usersmethods are not able to combine. In the construction of mobile library, this studyreflects the openness in the aspects of resources and services are not well in someuniversities which seriously impedes the sharing of information resources. In laterresearch, the user testing should be paid more attention and users should participate inthe resources construction. During the use of mobile library services, libraries should transform idea, overcome obstacles, open resources and services as soon as possible,and emphasize the propaganda of mobile library service, for the sake of providing betterservices for users.