If you thought the Dalhousie University Archives and Special Collections (DUASC) was just about managing old stuff in old formats, well, think again. At its monthly staff meeting on May 4th, DUASC staff members conducted the entire meeting; sharing minutes of the previous meeting, reviewing staff reports and user statistics, analyzing other documents and taking notes, using no paper.

With iPads provided to them in April, the staff received all relevant documents via e-mail and consulted these documents at the meeting using their tablets. “It worked beautifully and will over time reduce the amount of printing and filing of personal copies of material that is needed for one meeting”, said Dalhousie University Archivist, Michael Moosberger. “This is only the first step.” “We’ll be looking at a variety of other ways of taking advantage of this mobile technology to improve staff productivity and efficiency”, added Moosberger.