A short new report M-Libraries: information use on the move (PDF link, 1.2Mb) on mobile-phone use and university libraries. It places a question-mark over the popular idea that there’s a tech-savvy ‘Twitter generation’ of undergraduates out there, clamouring for mobile access to the latest edition of Journal of Proctology as they skateboard down the corridors.

Library users at the University of Cambridge and the Open University, both in the UK, were surveyed via a short online survey (a total of 2306 respondents). Despite it being an online survey at two very strong universities — and therefore presumably attracting more tech-savvy students than otherwise — there are some discouraging results for the academic use of mobile devices.

The number of student who say they “never read an e-book” or “never read a journal article” on their mobile are very high (between 86%-94%). From this survey the report concludes that, even if funding permitted, it is…

“not worth libraries putting development resource into delivering content such as eBooks and ejournals to mobile devices at present.”