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The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons behind the persistent preference for printed content among Arabic-speaking library patrons in Jordan. Specifically, this study highlights the availability of reading materials in print, electronic and audible formats in Arabic as an intervening factor shaping reading behavior. More broadly, it aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how language preference can impact reading format preferences.

This study’s research design revolves around understanding reading format preferences among registered members of Jordan’s largest and oldest private library. This approach involved the examination of secondary library user survey data collected from N = 313 of its patrons in 2022. To gain a greater understanding of the preference for printed materials, this study conducted semistructured interviews over the phone with n = 31 participants of the library’s survey.

The findings of this study indicate a strong preference for print books among Arabic-speaking library patrons in Jordan. However, the availability of content in electronic and audible formats in Arabic, their preferred reading language, emerged as a potentially significant factor in the persistent preference for printed reading materials.

This study offers new insights into the specific role that the availability of content in Arabic, and possibly languages other than English, may play in shaping reading format preferences. By shedding light on this aspect of reading behavior, this research offers valuable information for libraries and publishers seeking to cater to the needs and preferences of Arabic readers.

This conceptual paper relates disparate evidence on the factors influencing reading format choice and preference, whether print or digital, in order to inform educational practice and scholarship.

The authors propose a reading event analysis model (REAM) to help guide practitioners and scholars through a consideration of relevant factors, as evidenced by empirical research, to predicting whether print or digital formats will best support the reading and/or learning objectives of a reader in a given reading event in the current technological era.

The evidence synthesized and communicated by the REAM model reflects complex interactions between reader characteristics, task characteristics and text characteristics that influence the effects and outcomes of reading in print or digital format.

This model serves to guide scholars in the design of future empirical studies that account for critical performance variables related to reading comprehension and user preference.

In examining the effects of reading format on learning and the relationship of learning to overall reader format preferences, this model will help educators, educational administrators, industry practitioners, technologists and interface developers transfer current findings to practice, make decisions and determine developmental priorities to meet the needs of readers and learners across a variety of contexts and support the pursuit of equity in education.

This model is necessary and contributes important original synthesis and to an area of scholarship that in recent years has yielded results that at times appear contradictory. The model provides possible resolutions to these apparent contradictions in a construct that lends translational value for practice.

The effect of different formats of message delivery has received little theoretical and empirical examination. This research focuses on the effect of written relational communication formats used by service providers. This study aims to answer three questions: Do different formats of written communications (i.e. handwriting and print) influence customer perceptions (i.e. feelings of warmth) of service firms? What are the mediators of these influences (i.e. perceived effort and psychological closeness)? And under what conditions do they occur (i.e. what is the contextual factor)?

One field study and three laboratory studies were conducted to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of format in written communication.

Handwritten messages are more effective than print messages in building relationships in a service context because they elicit stronger feelings of warmth because of both the perception of greater effort and feelings of greater psychological closeness to the service provider. However, the presence of handwriting fails to deliver feelings of warmth when the quality of core services is low.

Service providers can effectively use handwritten communication to signal effort and create psychological closeness for relationship building with their key customers only when the quality of core services meets customer expectations.

First, the research differentiates the formats of written relational communication (handwritten vs print), and links communication formats with feelings of warmth, which is an important factor for impression and relationship formation in the practice of services marketing. Second, based on cognitive-experiential self-theory, this research demonstrates the dual mediators underlying the effect of handwriting (vs print) on warmth: perceived effort and psychological closeness. Third, it identifies the quality of core service as a boundary condition for the effect of handwritten communication.

This paper presents the complete findings from the Academic Reading Format International Study (ARFIS), the world's largest study of tertiary students' format preferences and behaviors. The analysis of ARFIS proceeded in two stages. This paper reveals results from the second stage for the first time and compares them with the earlier results. The authors then present and discuss the results from the combined datasets of 21,266 students in 33 countries.

A total of 44 members in the ARFIS research team distributed an online survey composed of 22 Likert-style, multiple choice and open-ended questions to tertiary students on their format preferences and behaviors. Inferential statistical analysis was used on participant responses, and descriptive statistics analysis was used on the combined amalgamated dataset.

Majorities of students in all countries consistently show preference for reading their academic texts in print. However, variations of preferences do occur between countries. Overall, the language of a reading does not affect reading format preferences, but national scores on this question are greatly diverse.

ARFIS is the largest study of its kind created through a collaboration of researchers in countries on six continents, collecting data in more than 20 languages. The sample size, rigorous statistical analysis and consistency of results strengthen the reliability of the findings. Analysis of the first dataset has received widespread recognition, but this paper is the first to publish the second dataset and the complete amalgamated results.

The introduction of electronic journals and electronic versions of journals has made serials collection management more complex. Libraries may want to offer a particular journal in both print and electronic formats, but find that it is often not financially feasible. More publishers are charging separately for the print or electronic versions or charging a higher price for both bundled together. As budgets become tight, librarians are having to choose between one format or another. In order to make the decision about what format to purchase, librarians need to know the format preferences of the users. To determine these preferences, library professionals can use several methods, such as user surveys, usage reports, and educated guessing.

This research is a part of an international study about the academic reading format preferences among students. The study aims to determine the preferred format among students considering the study materials used for different academic activities.

An online questionnaire was used to collect data from the students of the University of Zagreb. The students were approached through official library websites and were asked to answer 24 questions, out of which 16 were Likert-style statements.

The research presumes that students still prefer the print format to electronic, but with a slight variation in their choice when it comes to the purposes of reading and length of text. The results are discussed across various variables, e.g. language, number of pages and studying techniques. The variable of academic major was analysed using a chi-square test to check for possible associations with the students’ responses. Conclusions are made about the students’ general format preferences.

Not all university libraries agreed to participate in the research. Therefore, the student population sample is not evenly distributed across all academic fields. Future research should aim for a more evenly distributed sample.

As part of an extensive international study, this research gives comparative results across multi-national student populations. The findings can also be used as the basis for further research on academic reading preferences in and outside Croatia.

Laser disk databases containing MARC records that can be retrieved, edited, and used to print cards and labels and/or to produce machine‐readable catalog records in some transferable form are compared for seven vendors: Gaylord Information Systems, General Research Corporation, The Library Corporation, OCLC, Solinet, Utlas, and the Western Library Network. Major areas of exploration include: database characteristics, access, display, editing, new records, hard copy products, hardware, and price.

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.

Literature loss refers to the declining ability of US libraries to maintain a comprehensive book collection in the face of extraordinary growth in publications and price inflation. Another possible explanation of literature loss might be that libraries might be shifting the emphasis from collecting books to collecting alternative formats such as non‐print materials, or depending more on access to materials rather than ownership. This study attempted to: identify the collection patterns for print ( books) and non‐print

The purpose of this paper is to compare the prices of print and electronic versions of the same scholarly titles charged from a university library. This study also examines whether preferences for print or electronic formats differ with disciplines and whether high preferences for the electronic version in particular disciplines lead to tagging of high prices for e-books in those disciplines. This study evaluates association in prices of e-books and their print versions for scholarly books. It also explains trends in gaps of prices of electronic and their print versions over the time to understand changing price policy of e-books with time.

This is a case study analysing and interpreting prices of 717 book titles available in electronic and print versions out of 1248 book titles recommended by the faculty members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in early 2014. The minimum prices quoted by publishers or aggregators for these books became the secondary data for the study. The research methodology is based on quantitative descriptive and inferential statistical techniques.

The study statistically rejected the hypothesis that price tags of electronic and print versions of books do not differ significantly. E-books are usually more expensive than their print counterparts. They are more highly priced in disciplines, where the users prefer electronic books over the print ones. There is a moderate association in prices of electronic and their print versions; libraries can estimate about the budget which would be required for procuring books in electronic format with the help of price of print version; however, the accuracy of this stipulation would be only 20 per cent. The study has highlighted that 95.4 per cent of the scholarly e-books in English medium are published in the USA and the UK. The university presses of Cambridge, Oxford, Columbia, Princeton and MIT and commercial publishers like Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Ashgate and Springer are the major publishers and providers of the scholarly e-books.

This study provides insights into pricing policy of electronic and their print versions of scholarly book titles for libraries. Thus it may be relevant and helpful for library administrators in informed decision making while developing their collections for books.