MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARIES AND MOBILE LEARNING – AN ANSWER TO THE MODERN DEMAND OF INFORMATION USERS

With the introduction of the new information and communication technologies in public life, a radical transformation in the thinking, attitudes and needs of citizens is taking place. The new cultural and educational environment creates active users, without restrictions in the search, with the desire to solve problems and constantly develop their competencies. There is a need for constant and unlimited access to all the accumulated world knowledge and information, the need to transform the ways and means of obtaining and acquiring knowledge.These changes in consumer attitudes and current technological capabilities lead to the creation of e-learning and mobile learning, digital and mobile digital libraries. These new forms aim to optimize the collection, structuring, sharing and use of information and knowledge so as to respond as effectively as possible to the needs and requirements of modern society.Mobile access to information and knowledge is also the subject of this paper, which presents the results of a survey on mobile digital libraries and mobile learning conducted among information users – students at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, ULSIT (BULGARIA). The research was conducted in connection with the implementation of a research 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, combined and presented in a common information Internet portal, through which to reveal and summarize the positive changes through a systematic study of the issues related to mobile learning and mobile access to library services and resources, which information technologies cause in modern society in terms of new opportunities for access to education and information.The main objective of the research, presented in this paper, is to examine and analyse the extent to which information users use mobile devices for reading, education and access to information resources, their attitude towards the inclusion of mobile digital services and education in library services, and the extent to which they are informed and support international policies for mobile access to education and library services and resources.In order to achieve these goals, a questionnaire with three main panels has been developed:• PART 1. Mobile digital libraries and mobile readers’ service.• PART 2. Mobile learning and lifelong learning.• PART 3. Policies for mobile information services and mobile learning.The object of the research are young people as active users of information resources and digital services. Through the online form of the questionnaire with the application Google Forms in the period June – July 2021 were recruited approximately 170 students from ULSIT with different professional and socio-demographic profile. The empirical data was entered and processed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 21 statistical software.The obtained results emphasize the need to include mobile educational and information resources and services in library policies in order to adequately respond to modern consumer needs, as well as the need for a new single information Internet portal to bring together information on these issues and promote them among all stakeholders.