Thursday, 30 July 2009
Trend Watch: More Databases go Mobile
A growing number of our research databases are going mobile, e.g. providing applications optimized specifically for iPhones, Blackberries, and other mobile devices. These typically are very streamlined apps designed for small screens and folks on the go. One example is IEEE Xplore, which has built a beta mobile version of its digital library. Xplore Mobile lets you search search – for free – on all Xplore documents and view up to 10 article abstracts per search. You can email the article links to yourself and then view them via the Tufts IEEE Xplore subscription. Another mobile application comes from RefWorks, the bibliographic citation tool that we offer. RefMobile lets you search and view the references in your RefWorks account; manage folders; create new references through its SmartAdd feature; and annotate your references. Expect to see more of such applications in the coming year.