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There are many library automation packages available as open‐source software, comprising two modules: staff‐client module and online public access catalogue (OPAC). Although the OPAC of these library automation packages provides advanced features of searching and retrieval of bibliographic records, none of them facilitate full‐text searching. Most of the available open‐source digital library software facilitates indexing and searching of full‐text documents in different formats. This paper makes an effort to enable full‐text search features in the widely used open‐source library automation package Koha, by integrating it with two open‐source digital library software packages, Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL) and Fedora Generic Search Service (FGSS), independently.

The implementation is done by making use of the Search and Retrieval by URL (SRU) feature available in Koha, GSDL and FGSS. The full‐text documents are indexed both in Koha and GSDL and FGSS.

Full‐text searching capability in Koha is achieved by integrating either GSDL or FGSS into Koha and by passing an SRU request to GSDL or FGSS from Koha. The full‐text documents are indexed both in the library automation package (Koha) and digital library software (GSDL, FGSS)

This is the first implementation enabling the full‐text search feature in a library automation software by integrating it into digital library software.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use and usability of e‐books from the perspectives of users in an academic and research environment.

This study involved an e‐mail questionnaire to survey researchers in the academic and research environment of the Indian Institute of Science regarding their use of e‐books.

The responses indicated that the students tend to use this new technology more often than faculty members and staff. Those who did use e‐books mostly used reference and technical material. The highest response was from the Centre for Ecological Science, followed by the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre, and then the Department of Molecular Reproduction and Development and Genetics. The majority of the respondents have used computers for over five years for a variety of purposes including e‐mail communication, internet browsing and text processing as well as for other advanced uses such as numerical computing and DNA sequence analysis. However, the use of e‐books appears to be very low, indicating a requirement for creating awareness and user education about both software and hardware related to e‐books. Only 37 of the 104 respondents had used the free trial offer from Kluwer and Edutech eBooks during July 2004.

There has been no previous study reported which has investigated users' perspectives of e‐books in an academic and research environment in India using a questionnaire method.

Though electronic books (e‐books) are not new, they are slow in their uptake compared to other types of e‐publications such as journals, newspapers. The possible reasons for this could be because the technology for creating/accessing e‐books (both hardware and software) is not yet matured. However, the recent involvement of many commercial publishers and aggregators in publishing and marketing of e‐books has triggered their use. This trend suggests making an analytical comparative study of the e‐book access model. The main purpose of this study is to analyse and compare offline and online e‐book access models.

In this paper an attempt is made to analyse and compare three offline and three online e‐book access models by identifying various specific e‐book access model features. The access models are evaluated based on three‐point scale.

It is observed that among offline access models Microsoft Reader has most of the features well defined and among online access models, Ebrary has most of the features well defined.

Many publishers and aggregators have started producing and marketing e‐books using different types of access models. There are several access models available and each one has its own merits and demerits. However, there has been no study carried out in comparing and analyzing these models. Hence this study is useful for all the stakeholders of e‐book industry viz., creator (author), publisher, aggregator, librarians and users of e‐books.

This study highlights the trends of qualitative intellectual capital disclosures and patent statistics in the Indian manufacturing context by considering the numerous patent applications, patent grants, forward citations and backward citations. Furthermore, the study investigates the relation among qualitative disclosures, patent statistics and firm performance.

All manufacturing companies of CNX 500 Index of National Stock Exchange of India Limited are considered. Based on data availability, 243 manufacturing firms spanning across seven major manufacturing sectors are included. Secondary data were obtained from the annual report of companies and patent databases from 2004 to 2005 to 2013–2014, generating a sample of 2,430 firm years. Content analysis and citation analysis are used for collecting the relevant data.

Overall, the study results indicated increasing trends for all types of intellectual capital disclosures. Similar trends are observed for patent applications and patent grants, indicating a surge in patenting activities across the manufacturing sector. However, increasing trends in patenting activities are not reflected for forward and backward citations. In addition, significant differences in means and trend coefficients for qualitative disclosures and patent statistics indicated industry specificity within the Indian manufacturing sector. Furthermore, industry specificity is observed when translating intellectual capital to firm performance. The measure of firm performance, that is, Tobin's Q, is having a significant positive association with qualitative disclosures and patent statistics.

As the study is based on secondary data, its accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the data sources such as the annual reports of companies and patent databases.

The study findings imply that policymakers should devise and execute sector-specific policy interventions. Moreover, managers and policymakers should emphasize the qualitative aspect of patenting activities.

The study is an original work that highlights the trends in qualitative disclosures in the Indian manufacturing context. The value relevance of intellectual capital and patent statistics has been established.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how, in the spring of 2007, Arizona State University Libraries held a focus group of selected faculty to discover their perceptions and use of electronic books (e‐books) in their research and teaching.

The services of the Institute of Social Sciences Research were employed to recruit and moderate the focus group. Major themes explored were: use of e‐books as textbooks; use of e‐books for personal research; comparison between e‐books and print; disciplinary differences in perceptions of e‐books; and motivators for future use.

Overall, the focus group revealed that faculty had generally unsatisfactory experiences in using e‐books in their research and teaching owing to the unreliability of access, lack of manipulability, and the steep learning curve of the various interfaces. However, most faculty agreed that e‐books would be a very viable and useful alternative if these issues were resolved.

The focus group consisted of only six faculty members and hence is not representative of faculty as a whole. A larger survey of a more diverse faculty population would greatly serve to clarify and expand upon the findings.

The implications for academic libraries include providing better outreach and training to faculty about the e‐book platforms offered, provide better course support, and advocate to e‐book vendors to consider faculty's teaching and research needs in their product development.

This is believed to be the first published study of faculty opinions and use of e‐books utilizing focus group methodology and offers detailed information that would be useful for academic libraries and e‐book vendors for evidence‐based decisions.

The decision-making to outsource and select the most suitable global manufacturing outsourcing partner (MOP) is complex and uncertain due to multiple conflicting qualitative and quantitative criteria as well as multiple alternatives. Vagueness and variability exist in ratings of criteria and alternatives by group of decision-makers (DMs). The paper provides a novel Stochastic Fuzzy (SF) method for evaluation and selection of agile and sustainable global MOP in uncertain and volatile business environment.

Four main selection criteria for global MOP selection were identified such as economic, agile, environmental and social criteria. Total 16 sub-criteria were selected. To consider the vagueness and variability in ratings by group of DMs, SF method using t-distribution or z-distribution was adopted. The criteria weights were determined using the Stochastic Fuzzy-CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (SF-CRITIC), while MOP selection was carried out using Stochastic Fuzzy-VIseKriterijumskaOptimizacija I KompromisnoResenje (SF-VIKOR) in the case study of footwear industry. Sensitivity analysis was performed to test the robustness of the proposed model. A comparative analysis of SF-VIKOR and VIKOR was made.

The worker’s wages and welfare, product price, product quality, green manufacturing process and collaboration with partners are the most important criteria for MOP selection. The MOP3 was found to be the best agile and sustainable global MOP for the footwear company. In sensitivity analysis, significance level is found to have important role in MOP ranking. Hence, the study concluded that integrated SF-CRITIC and SF-VIKOR is an improved method for MOP selection problem.

In a group decision-making, ambiguity, impreciseness and variability are found in relative ratings. Fuzzy variant Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods cover impreciseness in ratings but not the variability. On the other hand, deterministic models do not cover either. Hence, the stochastic method based on the probability theory combining fuzzy theory is proposed to deal with decision-making problems in imprecise and uncertain environments. Most notably, the proposed model has novelty as it captures and reveals both the stochastic perspective and the fuzziness perspective in rating by group of DMs.

The proposed multi-criteria group decision-making model contributes to the sustainable and agile footwear supply chain management and will help the policymakers in selecting the best global MOP.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, SF method has not been used to select MOP in the existing literature. For the first time, integrated SF-CRITIC and SF-VIKOR method were applied to select the best agile and sustainable MOP under uncertainty. Unlike other studies, this study considered agile criteria along with triple bottom line sustainable criteria for MOP selection. The novel method of SF assessment contributes to the literature and put forward the managerial implication for improving agility and sustainability of global manufacturing outsourcing in footwear industry.

This study aims to investigate and analyze the usage patterns of electronic book (e-book) users and their perceptions of e-books from various perspectives. Recently, e-book usage and subscriptions at university libraries in South Korea have significantly increased.

The authors conduct an extensive survey of 959 e-book users at the five major university libraries, which subscribe to the most e-books in South Korea. The survey contains structured questions as well as fields for open commentary to acquire various opinions. The authors also apply diverse analysis techniques, depending on the characteristics of the survey questions.

Since the early 2000s, when e-books were first introduced, there has been a considerable change in perception and increase in usage of e-books at South Korean university libraries. Despite this progress, most functions of e-books are not fully utilized. The authors find the role of the library to be very important, as most users learn about and access e-books through the Web sites of university libraries, not through such portal sites as Google. The remarkable result is that users with higher education more easily recognize and have better experiences with e-book services.

This study draws extensive samples and objective questions compared to previous research. The authors also contrast our research results with the other studies conducted within and outside of South Korea. The research shows the changes and differences in perception and usage of e-books by period and country. More importantly, the authors suggest strategies to boost e-book use based on user demands.

In this study the technology acceptance model (TAM) is used to investigate non‐users' acceptance of e‐books. This study evaluates the relationships between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, perceived usefulness and intention, and attitude and behavioral intention towards using e‐books.

This study utilized a quantitative approach where questionnaires were used to collect data from 119 undergraduates from the mathematics department of University Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia.

The result shows that perceived ease of use is positively related to attitude. Perceived usefulness has a significant effect on attitude towards using e‐book. Perceived ease of use also has a significant effect on perceived usefulness. However, perceived usefulness has no significant effect on intention to use.

This study has provided some useful factors based on TAM model on non‐users' intention of using e‐book.

University libraries are increasing their e‐book collections. The purpose of this study is to investigate graduate students' usage of and attitudes towards e‐books at National Taiwan University.

A total of 20 graduate students from the fields of humanities, social sciences, science and technology, and medicine were interviewed.

The results indicated that graduate students used e‐books mainly for the purposes of study and research. Monographs were the type of e‐book that students used most often, followed by textbooks and reference tools. While they appreciated the convenience of using e‐books, students mentioned several limitations. They liked the keyword search function of e‐books. Most of the time, graduate students browsed a few paragraphs or pages online and then printed out copies for further reading. They also borrowed the corresponding paper versions of the e‐books from the library. Students preferred that university libraries supply both the electronic and paper versions. In certain aspects, students' use behaviour was found to vary among disciplines.

This study highlights multiple aspects of graduate students' use behaviour with respect to e‐books. The findings could be used to enhance e‐book collection development in university libraries.

This paper aims to assess the usability of electronic books (e‐books) and paper books (p‐books) with objective measures, including user comprehension, eye fatigue, and perception.

A total of 56 sixth‐year public school students participated in this study. This paper was conducted in the following order: pre‐CFF measurement, p‐/e‐book reading, post‐CFF measurement, quiz, and questionnaire. A standard CFF device, a computer with a monitor for reading e‐books, p‐books, desks, and chairs were provided.

This paper found that there is a significant “book effect” on quiz scores; compared to e‐books, p‐books appear to enable better reading comprehension. Regarding eye fatigue, students had significantly greater eye fatigue after reading e‐books than after reading p‐books. Students were satisfied with the e‐book, but they preferred p‐books.

Students would show satisfaction with e‐books and acknowledge their usefulness, but still prefer p‐books. However, a clearer understanding of this paradox in perception is needed. Further studies should try to explore the students' perceptions of e‐books.

Surprisingly, though, Korean students studied herein, who have had a higher level of exposure to technology than those in other countries, did not show positive behavioral intentions toward e‐books. Overall, the responses from the Korean students suggest that there was general satisfaction with reading e‐books on screen. However, this study also found a discordance in the students' perceptions of e‐books. In this study, most students grew tired of reading on the screen; this tiredness could have an adverse effect on both reading comprehension and the perception of e‐books. In further analyzing user responses, many of the critical remarks were found to refer to the screen/text size or clarity rather than to the e‐book itself.

Although this study suggests that students in general are not yet ready to entirely give up p‐books, e‐books are becoming increasingly common. However, great challenges remain in terms of making e‐book content more available and in enabling improved comprehension and reducing eye fatigue.