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What do faculty and students really think about e-books?

29. March 2007 by ob | Kategorien: Bibliotheken

What do faculty and students really think about e-books? Ian Rowlands, David Nicholas, Hamid R. Jamali and Paul Huntington. CIBER, University College London (UCL).

Einige interessante Aussagen:

existing e-book users are relatively independent (or at least this seems to be what they claim) of formal library provision.
For most disciplines, existing e-book users are much more likely to be male than female. This effect was by far greatest in the field of medicine.
neither status (full-, part-time or occasional) nor regularity of use of print library collections are associated with existing e-book use.
current users of e-books are very likely to be already aware of UCL’s e-book offerings, to be male, and to be less than wholly satisfied with UCL’s printed book collections.
Textbooks are clearly the most popular form for academic users, followed by reference works.
E-books clearly compare very unfavourably indeed with print titles for perceived ease of reading. The benefits of e-books cluster around convenience: ease of making copies, perceived up-todateness, space-saving, and around the clock availability.
There is a big difference between men and women in respect of features and functionality: men tend to rate these aspects much more highly
The main channels forming initial awareness of UCL Library Service e-books were the website and library catalogue. This is especially so for men: staff briefings and course tutors were more effective awareness-raising channels for women. Course tutors play a vital role: 68% of undergraduates said that they found out about UCL provision this way.
Overall, the most effective marketing channels for e-books in this context are likely to be information on the library website and email user guides, but more precise targeting for different groups may well pay dividends.