UF is trying out a new iPad app, free to students, that could make academic research a far less cumbersome experience.
BrowZine, available as a trial for all students and faculty until Jan. 31, lets its users browse, sort and save scholarly and peer-reviewed articles on the go. Once retrieved and saved, an article can be accessed without the need of an Internet connection.
“Depending on the feedback, we’ll stick with the service,” said Denise Bennett, a librarian at the Marston Science Library.
Anyone who has the app is given a link to the survey. It can be accessed directly at www.guides.uflib.ufl.edu/browzine.
BrowZine is sold only to institutions, and UF is one of about 20 colleges currently testing the service. Others have already become subscribers since its release in October, including Loyola University Chicago, University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins University.
“So far, feedback has been positive,” Bennett said.
The trial period ends this month, after which it will be decided whether UF will become a subscriber.
The service most favors people who are familiar with using scholarly articles on a regular basis.
“We can’t really foresee undergrads getting much use out of it,” Bennett said, “only staff and research fellows, people who have specific journals and like to follow them.”
Such is the case for Fiona Foley, a first-year law student.
“The mobility would change how I can do research, if they have the right journals,” she said as she hefted the edge of the book on her Library West table and let it fall.
Foley doesn’t own an iPad, but there are plenty of journals available through the service.
Kendall Bartsch, CEO of Third Iron, BrowZine’s developer, said there are currently “close to 12,000” published journals accessible via the service, and thousands more will be added by the end of January.
When rental iPads become available in Library West, Foley could be the one to install the app, as there are no explicit plans to preinstall the program on the Library West iPads. Whether renters can sync the saved articles on a shared device or even install it themselves is up in the air because the terms of the iPad rental agreement are still being determined, according to the Library West circulation desk.
BrowZine is currently only available through the official Apple App Store. Bartsch said an Android version is in the works and slated for release by the end of March.
Contact Evan Walker at ewalker@alligator.org.
