Learning Resource Center Offers New Services for PDA Devices
(a.k.a. personal digital assistants or handheld computers)

The Learning Resource Center is offering support services starting this fall for faculty, staff, and students using handheld computing devices. Special equipment, such as a compact flash card reader, USB hubs, hot sync cradles, IrDA ports, and palm keyboards, was purchased to make downloading software from the Internet and loading to both Palm OS and Windows CE devices possible. Patrons will also be able to send files from their PDAs to these computers for printing.

There are two stations in the library, one in the JBSU student lab, and several in the Academic Computing Support Center on the 8th floor of EDII which are being set up for downloading software and installing it to a handheld device. In addition to these stations, PDA peripherals are also being placed at the student clerkship computers that are being set up in several clerkship locations.

The College of Medicine, Curriculum Committee, Subcommittee on Computer Education, requested funding from the College of Medicine Foundation Funds in the Spring 2001 to purchase medical handbooks for handheld devices for interested 3rd year students. Ninety-two students are participating in the project. Students will provide feedback on their experiences with handhelds and the medical software at the end of the year.

Realizing that there would be the need for on-campus support for this project, the LRC has worked in conjunction with the College of Medicine and Academic Computing to make sure the resources would be available to make this a great success. In fact, the handheld medical textbooks have been such a success that special limited purchasing for faculty, staff, and other students not part of the grant funding has been made possible with the vendor. If you have questions or need further information about what or where services are available, please contact the Learning Resource Center in the Library at 686-6752 or email learningresourcecenter@uams.edu.

Loretta Edwards,
LRC Network Manager