Croft, R., & Davis, C. (2010). E-Books revisited: Surveying student e-book usage in a distributed learning academic library 6 years later. Journal Of Library Administration, 50(5/6), 543-569. Retrieved November 4, 2011, from Academic Search Complete.
This study was conducted at Royal Roads University in the UK, a distance-learning university that grants graduate and undergraduate professional degrees. Fifty-two percent of the library collection is print books and 48 percent is ebooks. The collection acquired its first ebooks in 2000 and Croft and Bedi conducted a patron survey in 2003 (published in 2005) to assess student perceptions of ebooks.
"... results from the 2003 survey noted that the majority of RRU students and faculty had not used e-books (Croft & Bedi, 2005). Also, at that time, the preference for print over e-book versions of monographs for those who had used them was close to an even split among students" (p 548).
The current study is a follow up with additional attention to "the proliferation of handheld devices" (p. 548).
Lit review: The most recent works cited date from 2009. Shelburne's article is cited in reference to several topics.
Methodology: Used Surveymonkey; invited all 1,970 students via email to participate. Offered entry to a drawing for a gift certificate as an incentive. Got 779 responses.
Some key data:
- 76.1% responded "yes" that they had used an ebook of some kind.; 23.9% "no."
- 51.2% responded "yes" they had used an ebook through the RRU Library (compared to 32.82% in 2003); 48.8% "no" (compared to 67.18% in 2003).
- Among the "no" respondents, the primary reason was that they didn't know ebooks were available (40.2%). 29.8% said they prefer print books. In textual responses to elaborate on the "no," three categories emerged: students who didn't need books for their research; students who used only journal articles for their research; students who don't like to read on screen.
The survey asked questions to drill down into how students found out about ebooks.
The survey also measured student satisfaction with ebooks. 68.7% reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the experience of using RRU Library ebooks. 11% not satisfied.
The survey sought information on adequacy of ebook availability and broke it down by subjects to identify weaknesses in the collection.
Regarding features of ebooks that respondents found important:
- 79.4% rated anytime access as very important.
- 68.7% rated downloadable to a computer feature as very important.
- 68.6% rated searchability as very important.
- 37.9% rated downloadable to a phone or hand-held device as not important.
- 87.2% said they had never downloaded an ebook to a hand-held device.
My thoughts
The results concerning downloadable devices need to be seen in the context of the degree of use of ereaders like Kindles and Nooks, information that is not provided. It doesn't surprised me that people don't want to read academic books on cell phones (although not having a cell phone makes me a poor judge of that question, since I can't imagine people wanting to do anything with one). But the increasing availability of iPads and similar tablets as well as Kindles, Nooks, etc. will probably alter the "hand-held device" issue. When was the iPad introduced? It isn't mentioned in this article and doesn't seem to have been part of the study. They do mention Macs, so they were not oblivious to the platform issue.
Engel-Unruh, M. (2010). ReKindling an Interest in Reading with At-Risk Students. Library Media Connection, 29(3), 54-56. Retrieved November 4, 2011, from Academic Search Complete.
The author, a high school teacher librarian, used grant money to purchase 11 Kindles and an Amazon gift card and at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year formed a once-a-week Kindle Club with "at-risk" students to motivate them to read. She reports that the experiment was a hit from the first session and that students remained excited to read on their Kindles week after week.
Engel-Unruh attributes the success of the experiment to Kindle features that support struggling readers:
- Access to books of their choice (690,000 titles as of September 2010).
- Teaching students to use Amazon's subject directory to find books on topics they want to read.
- The immediacy of downloads, both of sample material and of the books themselves.
- Adjustable text sizes, dictionary look-up of words, text-to-speech, highlighting, bookmarking, and annotation
- The book-sharing feature of the Kindle (one title can be downloaded to six Kindles) helps build community among the club members. When one student likes a books and other are interested, they can share the book at no additional cost with five other Kindles.
Engel-Unruh reports that students use the text-to-speech function regularly. They say that hearing the word while they are reading helps develop their vocabulary.
The author provides anecdotal evidence of increased reading but no systematic quantitative data.
After the first year, Engel-Unruh purchased enough additional Kindles to have a class set, which she houses on a cart and loans to classroom teachers.
My thoughts
It sounds like the students only had the Kindles for the one hour each week that the Kindle Club met. I wonder if it would be feasible to let the students have the Kindles longer, like over the weekend, since the club met on Fridays? If they showed interest for the hour, what might they have done with permanent access?
This report supports my suspicion that students would take to Kindles quickly, that the "cool" factor would generate a lot of buzz.
Shrimplin, A. K., Revelle, A., Hurst, S., & Messner, K. (2011). Contradictions and consensus -- clusters of opinions on e-books. College & Research Libraries, 72(2), 181-190. Retrieved November 5, 2011, from Library Literature & Information Full Text database.
The goal of the research is to better understand the source of "resistance" (p. 181) among academic library patrons to the use of e-books. With the goal of shaping both collection development and the purchase of e-reader devices, the study seeks to answer three questions:
"1) What are the reasons some library users choose to use or not use e-books?
"2) Do patrons differ in their reasons for selection or rejection of e-books as a technology? and
"3) Do some users' negative attitudes about e-books stem from issues that can be addressed by changes in library services?" (p. 182)
The researchers used Q methodology, which they define as a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods (p. 182-183).
The study took place at the Miami University of Ohio. E-books constitute 1 percent of the monograph collection. They come from a variety of distributors. Library policy is to not buy the print edition if the monograph is available as an e-book. The usage seems low compared to some other research reports I have read, although it is increasing, as other reports indicate: Downloads from Springer during spring semester 2008: 3,929; spring semester 2009: 4,096; spring semester 2010: 8,114. Downloads from all publishers/distributors during spring semester 2010 were 12,226 (p. 182).
Lit review: I saw Shelburne's article as marking an early point in the current phase of e-book studies, but in Shrimplin et al.'s list of nine studies of user perceptions (endnote 1, p. 189), only one is as recent as Shelburne's (on e-references, which is my concern at this point). So not much seems have been done on user perceptions between Shelburne and this article.
Findings: The research surfaced four distinct "factors" in relation to patrons' perceptions of e-books:
- Book lovers (27 individuals of 74) -- "Book Lovers like print books as physical objects" (p. 185).
- Technophiles (17 of 74) -- Understand, prefer and enjoy the benefit of e-books, although even they say they would prefer a print book for leisure reading.
- Pragmatists (3 of 74) -- Can't see themselves reading an entire book online but like the features of e-books.
- Printers (3 of 74) -- Like book lovers, they have a negative view of e-books, but their negative attitude arises from their displease of reading e-books rather than their pleasure in reading print books.
[Note that there is no explicit discussion of e-readers like Kindles; the references to devices up to this point in the article simply talk about "computer screens." I wonder what's up with that in terms of the experiences the research subjects have had and reported on? Did the researchers avoid this point because of limitations on how the library provides access to e-books?]
In the discussion section of the article, the authors provide very interesting comments on the implications of their findings for libraries:
- All four groups prefer print books for leisure reading.
- All four groups recognize the advantages of searching text in an e-book.
- E-resources need to be as easily available in the OPAC as print sources. [seems like a given]
- For some patrons (printers) the interface is as important as the content of the e-book collection.
- "Dedicated E-book readers would also address the portability concerns of Book Lovers, Pragmatists, and Printers" (p. 189). [Confirms the suspicions in the note above that the library was not loaning Kindles, Nooks, etc.]
My thoughts
I'm not sure I agree with the first phrase here:
"... although those scoring strongly on the Book Lover factor will likely remain opposed to e-books regardless of improvements in interface and usability, some library patrons (Printers) who are currently reluctant to use e-books might be persuaded by emerging display technologies" (p. 189).
I suspect that many book lovers will ultimately conclude that it is the stories in the books that they love, and that they will come to enjoy their Kindle or whatever with the same intensity that they now love their print books.
Q methodology looks like it bears investigating for my research design project. It's not listed in Creswell's index; see notes on wiki for Shrimplin et al.'s sources. Q methodology seems to do what I had been vaguely thinking about: Use qualitative methods to define issues and then quantitative methods to define perceptions on those issues. Q methodology also includes a third step, interviewing participants to deepen understanding of their perceptions. Sounds very cool.
The fact that all four groups prefer to read leisure reading in print format is intriguing to me. I think our students would want to use the Kindles for leisure reading. With the limits on graphic display, it seems that's what Kindles are best for.
Although the printers were a small portion of the participants in this study, their concern with the interface of the e-reader device and their desire not to read a book on a computer has been true of all my students who I have tried to interest in the Follett's e-books in our OPAC.
Shelburne, W. (2009). E-book usage in an academic library: User attitudes and behaviors. Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services, 33(2/3), 59-72. Retrieved October 22, 2011, from Library Literature & Information Science database. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2009.04.002
Regarding the trajectory of e-book use in academic libraries, Shelburne confirms the picture that has emerged from the articles I have already read:
"After a disappointing beginning and a quiet time in between, in the last few years a rebirth has occurred with new products and services for libraries offering robust access models and presentation options" (p. 59).
Given the date of her article, it's a good beginning point for my lit review. Her own lit review of materials published before her article cites only seven articles (p. 60).
Shelburne's description of the e-book situation at the University of Illinois-Urbana at the time of her writing provides an interesting benchmark in the evolution of e-book usage in academic libraries:
- In early 2009 they had 292,000 e-book titles in the catalog.
- They came from a number of distributes; she names six and "others."
- Some titles were in the "federated" search system; it seems others were not but it's not clear to me what the alternative was.
- The library didn't have an "official" (p. 60) policy for e-book acquisition at that point. They had subscriptions in some subject areas.
- The usage rate grew quickly: "This includes 3992 chapter downloads from August 2006 through December 2006, 26,675 for 2007, and 82,622 for 2008, and, finally, 10,737 in January 2009" (p. 60).
The survey reported in this study took place between April 24 and May 4, 2008. 47,000 students, faculty, and staff received email invitations to take the survey. 1,547 responded (3 percent). Demographics of respondents:
"40% of the total respondent group identified themselves as undergraduate students, 37% as graduate or doctoral students, and 11% as professors or assistant professors (faculty)" (p. 61).
42% mathematics and science; 27% social sciences; 20% humanities.
Survey showed that 60% of the faculty, 60% of graduate students, and 55.5% of the undergraduates had used e-books. The reasons given for not using them include:
- Didn't need to use them: 18% of the 41% who hadn't used e-books
- Don't like to read on screen: 15%
- Don't know how to find them: 10%
- Prefer print: 7%
- Couldn't find titles in their area of need: 5%
- Only use e-journals: 3%
"Eighty-six percent of those who indicated that they use e-books want to use them more and 85% of those who have used ebooks categorized them as 'useful'” (p. 62)
"Advantages to e-books were described as 'instant, desktop access (27%), ability to keyword search (25%), access from anywhere (17%), portability (15%), and environmentally better (7%)" (p. 62). [end quotation mark omitted in original]
Disadvantages cited by those who use e-books (as opposed to those who don't that were noted above):
"The primary disadvantages, according to the survey respondents, to e-books were difficulties in reading from the screen (33%), navigation issues (10%), and problems related to locating materials and searching in general (8%). Ten percent noted Digital Rights Management (DRM) as a problem and 14% noted problems relative to Internet access or technical difficulties such as needing special readers or the difficulties in trying to decipher poorly scanned copies" (p. 63).
Another very interesting question/response: Survey asked respondents to predict their future reading in terms of whether they expected to be reading e-books or print books. The answers were pretty consistent across the three categories of faculty, grad students, and undergrad students. 11 to 11.5% predicted they would be reading mostly e-books, 24 to 28.5% predicted mostly print books, and the remainder thought it would be some combination.
Conclusion:
"Clearly if libraries make e-books available to their users they will be used. The usage statistics show this to be true. The next few years will be an exciting time in the world of e-books" (p. 65).
My thoughts
I suspect that 10 years from now many more than 11% of university people will be reading mostly e-books.
Keep in mind that the study does not seem to include users response to being able to read e-books on e-reader devices other than laptop and desktop computers. There are references to downloading books, but not to downloading them on Kindles or similar devices. So, even before the advent of the latter, this research indicated substantial interest in e-books in an academic setting.
