The J.D. Williams Library is now offering iPad minis for rental. (Photo Illustration | Cady Herring )
The University of Mississippi’s Interlibrary Loan Office has begun offering iPad rentals to students. To check out an iPad UM faculty, staff, and students just need to bring valid ID to the Interlibrary Loan Office on the first floor of the J.D. Williams Library. Currently there are four iPad minis available to be checked out. Each device can be checked out on a seven day loan period, and chargers for the devices can be checked out separately. The program was started two weeks ago and all four iPad minis were checked out within one hour of availability,
Each device is pre-loaded with 50 e-books and apps, such as iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote, and Pages. Funding for the project was provided through a grant from the Mississippi Library Commission and the United States Institute of Library and Museum Services. The Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library also have iPads that can be used in their library, and are equipped with a service called Overdrive that allows users to access thousands of popular fiction titles.
Judy Greenwood, head of interlibrary loan and associate professor explained the motivation for the program.
“We uploaded a lot of e-books written by Mississippi authors because so much of our print collection is located in Archives and Special Collections. This makes those books more accessible to our users who want to read them,” she said.
Melissa Dennis, outreach and instruction librarian and assistant professor started the program with Greenwood because the University library subscribes to research e-content and the Oxford Public Library offers recreational e-content, yet neither library provided mobile devices for reading and research. Dennis said that in recent library surveys, students said they wished the university had more technology available to students. “This was a great opportunity for us to purchase something new that otherwise the library had no budget to develop,” she said. The increasing popularity and demand for tablets made the move one that was appealing from a technology aspect as well as the way that content is delivered.
Through the lending program the library hopes to improve user-centered services, and provide the University with up to date devices that represent technological changes in instruction, publishing, and research as well as manage resources to match user behaviors.
