Mobile Web Adoption in Top Ranked University Libraries: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This paper aims to study the level of adoption of mobile access to the academic libraries in the best universities in the world as well as the quality of services offered in order to ascertain if the quality of academic apps and mobile websites are at the level of the overall web impact of world-class universities. For the top 50 universities according to the Ranking Web of Universities (2014), we determined whether there is a mobile website or app for their libraries. Finally we evaluated the services offered against a list of 14 indicators. The results show that 88% of the libraries studied (44) offer mobile access via web or app, showing a high level of mobile adoption in elite universities. The form is clearly uneven: 80% (40) offers mobile web access while only 34% (17) has an app. As to the content, no library offered all 14 points evaluated, and the results are varied. Only 50% of apps meet at least half the indicators. In the case of mobile web this figure improves notably to 74.3%. We can note a high level of mobile web adoption in the world's best universities, although the quality does not reach their level of excellence. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.