Reflections on the Impact of a Library-based Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Service

Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine if a librarybased personal digital assistant (PDA) service is a significant factor in the clinical use of PDAs at an academic medical center. Methods: Health sciences students, faculty, staff, and residents at an academic medical center were the participants. The library has serviced several thousand PDAs. This population was used as the basis for the study group. The study design is a cross-sectional study using survey methodology. The analysis was done based on age, college affiliation, and gender, and answered questions such as frequency of PDA use, usefulness of library’s PDA service, and usefulness of programs the library installed on users’ PDAs. Results: One hundred and eight people responded. Seventy-five percent of the respondents would still be PDA users, even if the library did not assist or promote the service. Almost 90% were daily PDA users. Seventy-five percent stated that they would not feel confident that they could install the software without the library’s help. Conclusions: The survey results reenforced the library’s feeling that the service fills a crucial need in the community it serves. The survey also provided information on the databases it buys, which gives the library information for future collection development.