There's an App for That! by Andrea D.

 

Technology has literally put the world at our fingertips, and these exciting advancements directly impact the world of books and libraries. In addition to a digital collection of “ebooks” and digital audio books now available at Stillwater Public Library, there are now other options for accessing your favorite titles. Smart phones are providing a variety of book-related and reading applications available for download, some for free! The types of applications vary from e readers for books, magazines, newspapers, and children’s titles to organizational apps to help you arrange your personal digital library collection. There are even apps that can assist with school work. Here are a few popular applications, but to find a complete list of apps for your particular phone, consult your phone app store’s website.

There are a variety of ebook readers available to Blackberry and Android phone owners. Aldiko, Kobo, Nook, and Kindle all offer feature-rich apps. iPhone users have a variety of ebook readers to choose from, too. iBooks is not only an amazing ebook reader, but it is also a great place to browse and shop for books. Stanza is another ebook reader that makes it possible to download from a selection of over 100,000 books and periodicals.  

BookBag is a complete book and personal library organization software for Blackberry devices. You can keep track of books, magazines, etc. that you own, that you have read, that you have checked out, that you want to read/buy, and more. For iPhone users, Goodreads now offers an app that allows you to get book recommendations from friends, keep track of current reads and what you’d like to read, form a book club, answer book trivia, or collect your favorite quotes.

And perfect for students, QuickCite is a new smart phone application that takes most of the work out of citing books in scholarly papers. It costs 99 cents and is available for both iPhones and Android-based phones; it e-mails you a bibliography-ready citation in one of four popular styles—APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE. Wow! I wish I’d had that in grad school!

Whether reading for pleasure, organizing your library, or getting help with that special project, there are hundreds of smart phone apps to choose from... so start downloading!