Starting Oct. 20, Concordia University is going to be lending out 25 iPads to students after the success of their pre-launch period.
The university will be the first in Quebec to do so and has just finished testing the project with library faculty members, said Guylaine Beaudry, director of Concordia’s Webster Library.
Beaudry said the program would give students struggling with high tuition costs the opportunity to use an iPad without having to buy one.
“We know that many of our students are at the point in their lives where they can’t afford buying this type of device, so it’s a way to share resources and to provide another kind of experience,” Beaudry said.
Students will need to use their student cards to borrow an iPad and if it’s lost or damaged, they’ll be charged accordingly.
Beaudry said depending on the feedback they receive, the library may increase the amount of iPads they rent.
“We consider it a pilot project right now. We want to receive comments from the community, our users and our faculty, and from there we’ll consider expanding it,” she said.
Concordia, like many schools including Carleton, already has a loaning program for laptops, which allows students to rent them out for a six-hour period. Beaudry said this program is already very successful.
“We asked ourselves whether we should provide an e-reader for students but we chose the iPad, which we consider more robust, and the model that would offer more possibilities,” she said.
One of the reasons they chose the iPads, Beaudry said, is because of the abundance of applications they offer.
“We have list of 105 apps that are related to academic work,” she said. “We are lending a device, but we are also lending a library by doing so.”
Now is the time for the digitization of academic resources, Beaudry added.
“Very early in our history we integrated the digital technology in our operations and we’re just not stopping there,” she said. “Libraries are about change . . . we are part of the digital revolution.”
