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The purpose of this paper is to provide ebook designers and researchers with design insights by promoting historical knowledge about books and reading as sources of ideas to implement in current and future ebooks.

The authors review historical features of books and practices of reading that have been implemented, weakened, or lost over time, referring to historical texts and resources, and relate them to ebook viewers (software) and readers (hardware) that are currently on the market. In particular, the review focuses on the physical form of the book and the practices of reading, annotation, and bookshelving.

While some older forms and reading practices have been implemented in ebook devices, others have been forgotten over time, due in part to physical constraints that are no longer relevant. The authors suggest that features that constrained print books and print reading in the past might actually improve the design of ebooks and e-reading in the present.

This review is necessarily based on a limited set of existing historical sources.

Translating insights into novel tangible designs is always a challenging task. Ebook designers can gain insights from this paper that can be applied in a variety of design contexts.

No previous work on ebook design has foregrounded historical aspects of books and reading as viable sources of ideas to implement in ebooks.

This study seeks to evaluate a selection of second‐generation ebook readers in order to determine which devices deliver the best experience for the user, in terms of functionality and overall experience. The technical and physical elements of the devices are also compared.

This paper starts with a brief discussion of the current ebook marketplace, and previous studies that evaluate ebook readers. It then reports on a study in which 33 Master's students from an Information and Library Studies course were each given an ebook reader and asked to complete a task designed to engage them with the device. The participants then evaluated the devices by completing a questionnaire. A discussion of the results of the study and implications for the development of ebook reading devices follows.

Although some issues, specifically size, weight, and screen quality, have been addressed in the new generation of ebook readers, some residual dissatisfaction remains. The participants in the study preferred to use devices with which they were familiar.

This study provides guidance on the usability of ebook readers and provides insights into the future of ebook reading devices. It will be of benefit to information professionals seeking to utilise ebook reading devices, and to designers of ebook readers.

Highlights the evolution and potentiality of electronic books (eBooks) and presents a comprehensive definition from the various definitions reported for eBooks and their types, the pros, cons and users. Available eBook hardware, such as Rocket eBook Reader, SoftBook Reader, EveryBook Dedicated Reader and Millennium eBook Reader; software, viz. Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, Glassbook Reader, DocAble, SoftBook Reader, RocketLibrarian, PeanutReader, etc. is listed together with sources for eBook titles. Also briefly discusses eBook standards and copyright protection. Concludes that eBooks are rapidly becoming a viable alternative over the traditional medium and will continue to stay in one form or another.

The purpose of this study is to examine the diffusion of ebooks among postgraduate students in arts and technology faculties of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Electronic books have become increasingly popular in recent years, but factors influencing their adoption and use are not understood in many institutions.

Guided by a sample survey design, data were collected from 1,518 postgraduate students, 438 from the arts and 1,080 from technology, using a questionnaire and an interview schedule.

Students from both faculties used ebooks, identified through serendipitous browsing of the internet, and mainly Google searching. Many of the ebooks they find are not recommended by their lecturers, while those that are recommended are not available free of charge. Students therefore use ebooks mainly to cross-validate and gain extra insights about what they have been taught. There are significant differences between arts and technology students ' use of ebooks with respect to cost, ease of use and other aspects, with technology students having the advantage. There is no programme in the university aimed at harvesting and organising ebook resources for students to access.

The study focused on only one institution.

Institutionalising ebooks could be a useful strategy to address the dearth of current and relevant texts in universities, although ebooks may pose challenges to existing library management processes.

An ebook revolution will cause great changes in information services in libraries – how would university libraries partner to benchmark this evolving practice with respect to questions about standards, technologies, licensing and pricing, particularly in the developing world?

There is no empirical study on this subject matter either in the University used in the study or in any other.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if and how government intervention can nudge students to become ebook readers.

A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 1,144 students from four middle and high schools in urban and rural areas of Indonesia participated in this study. The results from statistical analyses were further discussed through the lens of the nudge theory.

This paper founds evidence that government intervention in the form of the Buku Sekolah Elektronik (BSE) policy that has been providing free electronic textbooks for more than a decade can help nudge students to become ebook readers. After controlling for student’s demographic information, this paper founds that their awareness of such a policy is significantly associated with a stronger preference toward ebooks while having no significant effect on their preferences toward printed book format. This paper also founds that mobile device adoption plays an important role where early adopters tend to prefer ebook format, whereas laggards are more associated with printed book format.

Many have studied the benefits of using ebooks in learning, but the literature also shows that most students still prefer reading printed books over ebooks. This is true not only in developing countries where problems with infrastructures can hamper the adoption of ebooks in general but also in developed countries where ebooks are much more prevalent, even among the general population. This paper showed how government interventions have the potency to help tip the scales and nudge students to become ebook readers.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the global scientific outputs on eBooks research using Scopus database.

This study collected literature published during 2001-2016 from the Scopus database. Following keywords were used: “eBook*”, “e-Book*”, “electronic book*” or “online book*” in title or keyword or abstract with time span covering 2001 to 2016. The authors further restricted their search limit to subject category of social science, computer science and arts and humanities. A total of 2,965 documents were found from the search strategy, including 1,582 research articles. Articles were considered for the analysis using Microsoft Excel 2007. The bibliometric analysis was performed to analyze the document types, language, publication output, citations, authorship pattern, journals, prolific authors, productive countries and most frequently appeared top words/phrases from the title of the articles.

Literature on eBooks grown exponential and eBooks was the hot topic of the research in recent decade. Most of the articles were contributed by the single authors, and the USA and the UK were the most productive countries; however, in recent times, Taiwan has also joined them. The articles published in the year 2009 have recorded highest citation rate. Publishing Research Quarterly was the most productive journal, which has published 61 articles on eBooks, followed by the Electronic Library (59) and Library Hi Tech News (35). Korat O. was the most productive author on eBooks research who was affiliated to Bar-Ilan University, Israel. The researchers were keen on investigating the experience of use of eBooks, reader, impact, challenges, access, reading habits and usage of the eBooks.

This is the first kind of study to quantify global research patterns and trends in eBooks, which might provide a potential guide for the future research.

The purpose of this paper is to find out whether eBooks are cannibalizing print books, as well as an assessment of factors that are influencing eBook usage. Ebooks are a hot topic. Traditional book publishing, especially in the academic world, is changing at a rapid pace. The question on everybody's mind is what direction book publishing will take? Will print survive in the Google‐generation, or is it destined to be totally replaced by eBooks? Springer publishes over 4,000 book titles annually, which are converted into eBooks almost without exception. Being the market leader and innovator of a new business model in electronic books in the STM area, Springer has conducted a study on the implications of the Springer eBook collection in comparison to its print book activities.

The study is based on interviews with both end‐users and librarians. In addition, Springer has assessed the (COUNTER‐compliant) usage statistics from SpringerLink.

Overall, Springer's eBook usage is already 50 percent of its journal usage, while the amount of content compared with journals is only 15 percent. Taking this success of eBook usage into account, Springer still believes strongly in the print model, and has recently launched MyCopy: heavily discounted print‐on‐demand books from the electronic versions.

The study shows that print and electronic can exist together, and will complement each other's strengths.

This paper discusses the accessibility issues surrounding electronic books, focusing on the opportunities and potential dangers of this new technology, relevant emerging standards, and commercial products that aim to make ebooks accessible to readers with disabilities and learning difficulties.

The purpose of this study is to find out: gender, social and emotional factors as obstacles that influence Generation Z in using e-Books.

The method in this study is exploratory quantitative research that was conducted by testing the factors that influence the use of e-Books by Generation Z. This study was analyzed using structure equation model, which involves regressions, measuring direct and indirect effects and path analysis. Social influence, emotional attachment and gender are suspected to be a barrier in the use of e-Books by Generation Z.

The results of this study indicate that social influence and gender do not affect the use of e-Books, in which only emotional attachment directly affects the preference towards e-Book.

The limitation of this study is that the sample used is still in Generation Z in Indonesia so that further research can use samples from various countries.

The results of this study can be used as a consideration for e-Books Publishers to create e-books as readers wish, for example, there is a special sound when opening e-Books, there is an easy feature to give notes in e-Books and features are presented to immediately see the link in the e-Books.

Generation Z is actually ready to use e-Books for reading activities. However, there are several things that make them consider reading e-Books. what they consider is the ease of use and the usefulness of the E-Books for their daily needs. Therefore, managers of information institutions and information providers in Indonesia can at least consider what genre of e-books collection can be provided and for whom the e-books are intended.

This research shows that Generation Z in choosing a reading format will be influenced by the intention of using the reading format, whereas the intention is influenced by the attitude in determining the reading format.