For Road Warriors

I just got a note from Michael Shawver of Revolve Design. They've released their "new HP/Compaq iPAQ vehicle docking solutions with on-board charging, serial connections and optional keyboard." This looks like an interesting solution for those who travel a lot.

Now, if we can just get the vendors to design products for libraries... like a work table with a public charging kiosk in the middle along the lines of the work tables with outlets for users of laptops.

Intranet Professional September/October 2002

Check out the latest "Intranet Professional"! "Gadgets for Healthy Intranets" is an article on gadgets in health sciences libraries by Barbara Fullerton, Tom Peters and myself. There is also an article entitled "Medical Information at the Patient's Bedside: The Medical Library at Hand" by Sandra Kendall, Sandra Fischer, and Stephen Lapinsky.

Articles on PDAs in the Classroom and detecting wireless networks

Here is a link to a great article in "Wired News" (courtesy Teri Ross Embrey) on Pocket
PCs in the classroom (http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54183,00.html) and
War Walking: Detecting Wireless Networks (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/Nov02/e_warwalking.asp)

Point of Care to Their Palms Medical Library PDA Grant Report available!

The final report for the "Point of Care to Their Palms: Medical Libraries Provide Critical Knowledge-Based Resources, Technology and Training to Medical Professionals" LSTA grant is now available at http://pdagrant.osfsaintfrancis.org/shortfinal.htm. The report chronicles a nine-month project (October 2001-May 2002) undertaken by the OSF Saint Francis Medical Center Library & Resource Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences-Peoria. Through this project, the library staffs were able to provide handheld computers, associated peripheral equipment, general and specialized software and applications, training, technical support, e-content and various discussion methods (websites, blogs, and email discussion groups) to enable healthcare professionals to use and evaluate the use of PDAs in real-life, real-work situations. The grant also enabled the libraries to host a conference for librarians on the use of PDAs in libraries. In addition to the final report, there is information at the project website at http://pdagrant.osfsaintfrancis.org. Carol Galganski, Manager, Library & Resource Center, OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, served as Project Director for the grant. The final report for the grant was written by Tom Peters, Project Evaluator, Director of the Center for Library Initiatives, Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Other project team members included Jo Dorsch, LHS; Lori Bell, OSF Saint Francis Medical Center; and Peg Burnette, LHS. Funding for this LSTA project was provided by the Illinois State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

Contact information:
Carol Galganski, carol.galganski@osfhealthcare.org
Tom Peters, tpeters@cic.uiuc.edu
Jo Dorsch, jod@uic.edu
Lori Bell, lbell927@yahoo.com
Peg Burnette, phburn@uic.edu

News

Hello! August 23 is my last day at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. On Monday, August 26, I start as the Director of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center, located in Pekin and Quincy and serving central Illinois. I have very much enjoyed working on this blog and the people I have met! It has been a lot of fun! Although I will continue to contribute to this blog, especially in the interim until my replacement starts, this blog will belong to Carol Galganski and the staff at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. Anyone else who has been contributing is still welcome to contribute to keep this going.

We will have an article in the October issue of "Computers in Libraries" on our PDA project entitled "Integrating and Introducing Alien Technology From Planet PDA: The Librarian as Astronaut, Explorer, Innovator and Expert" co-authored by Tom Peters, Carol Galganski, and myself. Peg Burnette and I will be doing a poster session at the ILA Conference; and Carol G. and Jo Dorsch will be doing a poster session at MCMLA. I am going to speak on the project at the South Central Chapter meeting of MLA in October in San Antonio.

I look forward to contributing, and keeping in touch and I have enjoyed this group very much! However, the blog lives on!

PDA Wrist watch

I've heard about the PDA vendors working on a combination PDA --wrist watch. Fossil has them now for both the Palm OS and Pocket PC devices.

PDA/Ebook yahoo group

Here is a yahoogroup on ebooks and PDAS that might interest you. For more
information and to join go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pda-ebook/
Group description: This eGroup list is for Users, Publishers and Content Providers of electronic books (eBooks) that can be view on all Handheld / PDA devices. This list covers commercial and freely distributed eBooks and other eBook related topics. This list also covers the different Readers and Browsers(Web or offline) software you are using on your Handheld / PDA devices. If you enjoy reading and/or publishing eBooks for Handheld devices, or simply providing content on the web for these devices; this list is for you

New book on handhelds

There's a new book on handhelds for those developing handheld applications and services. Entitled "Handheld Usability," by Scott Weiss (John Wiley & Sons: 2002), it covers design, prototyping, and usability testing of handheld devices, which include mobile phones, PDAs, and two-way email pagers.

Voice activated handhelds coming soon...

Jenny of The Shifted Librarian just told me about this great article on what might be around soon. The SALT standard looks interesting. I wish they would have opened it up for some public input though.

PDAzone correct address

Here is the correct address for the PDAzone at University of Alberta.
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/pdazone/index.cfm

Mark Glissmeyer of pdasupport.com shares the following:
"I saw this small computer mouse that is made to fit the hand of a young child and thought some of your readers might be interested in seeing it. It might be neat for children visiting a library to use, in a school classroom, or if someone needs one at home to teach PC skills to their kids. The company is called Kidzmouse and their website is at www.kidzmouse.com



There is also another company called Secret 7 at www.secret7.com that makes a small mouse and also has a special kid’s keyboard as well. It has large colorful keys on it so it is easier to read for them.



In the handheld area, it looks like we should be seeing another type of PDA come out over the next year or two that will allow us to run our regular desktop software on it. One company already has this working prototype PDA running Windows XP that allows them to do this-



http://www.tiqit.com/specs.html



It has 256 MG RAM and a 10 GB hard drive, just like a regular PC. It is more bulky than the Palm units but also has a larger screen, and they claim it will cost about $1000 initially.



Since it is on a hard drive, I don’t think it is instant on like our Palm or Pocket PC units are, but if one doesn’t mind waiting for a boot up then you get all the benefits of desktop software in a handheld. Until the prices come down though I don’t think it will replace many Palm or Pocket PC units. It will probably also need a faster processor for heavy use, but it is quite a step towards having a PDA become independent of a PC."

Thanks, Mark!