Abstract:

Libraries are one of the most widespread and popular cultural and information institutions in Europe. They have a centuries-old tradition of providing quality and widely available information and have won the broad support and trust of society.

But the effective and high-quality provision of information requires modernization of the processes for collecting, processing, and providing information resources and developed technological infrastructure. Modern mobile technologies provide limitless opportunities for the introduction of innovative library activities and services, for the initiation of current and sought after by users’ policies that further increase the social status and role of library institutions.
The application of modern information and communication technologies (ICT), in particular the inclusion of mobile technologies in education and library information provision is the subject of research by a team of researchers from the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (BULGARIA) that implemented a project entitled “Information portal for mobile learning and mobile access to library services and resources”. The main goal of the project is to achieve new scientific knowledge through a systematic study of the issues related to mobile learning and mobile access to library services and resources, united and presented in a common information Internet portal, through which to reveal and summarize the positive changes that information technologies are challenging in modern society in terms of new opportunities for access to education and information.

The main goal of this paper is to promote the final results of the project, objectified in:
• a thematic information portal, freely available on the Internet, containing the following information databases:
- Information database: Mobile digital libraries;
- Information database: Projects and initiatives in the field of mobile education;
- Information database: Institutions – leaders in the sphere of mobile libraries and education;
- Information database: Scientific forums, related to mobile digital libraries and mobile education;
- Information database: Regulatory documents on the field.
• scientific monograph, including theoretical and practical issues in the field of mobile learning and mobile access to library services and resources, as well as conclusions and summaries of the analysis of the results of 2 surveys on “Mobile Digital Libraries and Mobile Learning”, conducted among librarians and information users in the period June – July 2021.
• papers and publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The methodology applied for the realisation of the study includes instruments for observation, search, systematisation, summary, and analysis of traditional as well as electronic information sources. In processing the data from the two surveys, the statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics 21, one-dimensional frequency distributions and qualitative content analysis of the free answers of the respondents were used.

In summary, this paper and the implementation of the presented research project aim to emphasize the key importance of the active inclusion of modern mobile technologies in the information and educational space today and to prove that mobile digital libraries are a key element of the information system of any modern library, adequately responding to current reader’ needs.

Keywords:

Mobile digital libraries, mobile learning, digital libraries, mobile technologies, research project.