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The aim of this study is to compare print and e-book use for identical titles in the e-Duke Scholarly Collection (e-DSC) from 2011 to 2013 to determine format preference for a discrete collection of titles in humanities and social sciences.

Use statistics for the e-DSC were downloaded from the e-book platform by title and call number to determine use by title and subject. Circulation statistics were culled from the library’s integrated library system for the same titles to compare e-book use to that of the same print title.

Although e-books had a high number of titles with use as a per cent of the collection, examination of substantive use shows a slight preference for print. While 73 per cent of the e-books garnered enough interest to click on them, only 12 per cent had substantive use.

The e-DSC changed platforms in December 2013. The new platform does not require users to create an account to download e-book sections and digital rights management limitations have been removed. The same examination of collection use in 2.5 years on the new platform will provide an interesting comparison on the function of platform on e-book use.

The comparison of identical print and e-titles is less studied and includes the examination of “substantive use” in comparing print to e-book use.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to present the second part of three inter‐related studies investigating the use and usability of e‐books in higher education based on experiments conducted at the University of Strathclyde.

The research discussed here involved two analyses: an analysis of two e‐book collections in the libraries of the University of Strathclyde and the University of Glasgow and an analysis of a follow‐up study to a web survey into user interactions with e‐books in one of the library's collections.

The follow‐up study found that in general students found that interacting with e‐books in the library collection was easy. Students indicated that their preferred book formats varied depending on the context of their information need. Despite their positive reaction and attitudes towards e‐books, students commented that e‐books needed to be promoted more strongly and that there were limitations with respect to their use.

The study presented here was a small‐scale study based only on e‐book collections from one supplier (NetLibrary) and involved only 18 respondents. While this is considered sufficient based on the discount usability testing concept, generalisation of the results should be made with caution.

The findings should be of value to academic libraries in terms of improving e‐book collection management. This study highlights current attitudes of students towards e‐book in terms of how they interact with them, the features they value and their preferences between e‐books and paper books in a university library.

This paper provides useful information on students’ attitudes towards e‐books.

Over the past decade, as the electronic book (e-book) collection continues to grow, Columbia University Libraries has been gathering information to develop policies related to e-book acquisition, discovery, and access. The purpose of this paper is to investigate users’ e-book search behavior and information needs across different disciplines.

The research method utilizes text data from two sources: users’ e-book search queries that were entered into the libraries discovery tool called CLIO and e-book title words provided by the Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) usage reports. The analysis involves identifying and quantifying certain words from users’ search queries with the purpose of examining the contexts within which these words were used.

The prominence of topical words such as “history,” “social,” and “politics” in the list was an interesting reflection on the kinds of works users were looking for, as were the terms “handbook,” “guide,” and “manual.” The high frequency of these words imply that users were searching for broad topics, reference works, or other collections of instructions, all of which are intended to provide ready reference.

Running search queries and e-book title words through a text analysis tool revealed new ideas related to what types of materials users search for and use. Text analysis of search terms and title words provided insight into the nature of e-book use, including broad topic (e.g. history), academic level of use (e.g. introductory), and genre/type (e.g. reference). While it is challenging to deduce reader intent from word frequency analysis, as text data remain widely open for interpretation, the methodology has significant strengths that drive us to continue to use in future studies.

The paper illustrates the experiences of both academic and support staff in the use of electronic books within a higher education setting. The case studies report upon practice at Edge Hill College of Higher Education, which has allowed for successful e‐book development strategies to be employed in teaching and learning within the college. The paper will deal particularly with e‐book marketing, implementation and evaluation strategies, as well as embedding e‐books into virtual learning environments (VLEs).

The paper reports upon two significant chapters within e‐book development at the college. The first of these is an initial evaluative e‐book research project, from which strategy and policy were formulated. The second part of the paper introduces case studies in which the findings of the initial research impact upon the embedding of e‐books into teaching and learning and subsequently into the college's VLE.

User evaluations provide qualitative analytic data into the benefits and disadvantages of using e‐books in higher education teaching and learning activity.

The findings are limited to one particular higher education institution and specific curriculum areas within.

The evaluative data, as well as particular e‐book strategies identified, make the paper of value to those researching e‐book usage and activity, in particular within online learning.

A questionnaire survey was distributed among 27 students at a library and information science school in the USA to find out what users and potential users think about e‐books in this transition period, when the US economy has experienced downtime, and the e‐book world cannot see profitability in its business as predicted. Among the 27 survey participants, a third of them have used e‐books in the past, mostly reading computer‐based e‐books without special readers. “Available around the clock” and “searchable” are both chosen and ranked as the most important reasons. Those who have never used e‐books mainly think that ebooks are “hard to read and browse” or “need special equipment”. However, about half of the non‐users of e‐books plan to examine some e‐book titles in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the key factors that affect users’ adoption of e-books using an extension of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) that includes the following factors: environmental concerns, perceived benefits, and benevolence trust.

The authors analyzed survey responses from 343 participants using structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized relationships in this research model.

The results show that users’ adoption of e-books is determined by performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, environmental concern, perceived benefit, and benevolence trust.

The authors restricted this study to consumers’ adoption of e-books. Further studies could examine consumer’s adoption of other mediums, such as cutting-edge information technologies.

The results suggest that marketers should consider altering their methods of promoting e-books to attract consumers and further affect their usage intention.

This study proposes and tests an extended UTAUT model that includes the additional factors of environmental concern, perceived benefit, and benevolence trust in order to examine the influence of these factors on e-book adoption. The findings are particularly useful for assisting managers to increase e-book adoption.

This paper aims to report the results of a study that examined the ways in which graduate-level library and information science students make use of e-books and e-readers at an institution that does not offer e-books through its library. The paper can be used as a case study in the adoption of emerging technology.

The study used three research methods – a survey, focus groups and interviews – to investigate library and information science students’ reading habits and preferences.

The findings suggest that despite the barriers of access and usability, the students have generally incorporated e-books into their academic routines. The results also suggest the factors that contribute to reader preferences for e-book technology.

The study sample was limited to one academic institution without e-book collection.

The article presents one of the very few studies that examine e-book reading of an academic population that does not currently have access to e-books through their academic library. Understanding the ways in which such a population accesses, uses and values e-books would help many academic libraries make decisions with regard to the selection, integration and marketing of e-books. Additionally, such a study could serve as the basis of a case study that seeks to understand the ways in which people who do not have ready access to technology through their institutions find ways to work around that obstacle.

The purpose of the paper is to determine how undergraduate students at the University of Namibia perceive and use e-books. This paper aims to report on the result of a study that investigated the adoption of, views about and use of e-books at the University of Namibia.

The study used a mixed-method approach. It used three methods, namely, focus group interviews, observation combined with the think aloud and a survey to investigate how undergraduate students use e-books.

Major findings of the study indicated that students use and prefer e-books for course and research purposes. But they mainly use non-library search engines such as Google, Yahoo and commercial sites. Lack of searching skills, slow/unreliable internet and limited or lack of relevant content of e-book collections were the major hindrances affecting e-book use.

The findings of the study could be used to understand the use of e-books at the University of Namibia and at academic institutions with similar context to Namibia. The study contributes to the knowledge base of library and information science (LIS) by providing a detailed analysis on the views and use of e-books at the University of Namibia. The recommendations of this study can be adopted by libraries in other countries with similar socio-economic conditions like Namibia.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of medical undergraduate students regarding their behavior towards use and non-use of e-books. It also elucidates their preferences between print and electronic book format.

It is a quantitative study based on survey method. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from final year medical students of three medical colleges of Lahore, Pakistan. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse 232 useable questionnaires.

The findings indicate that the use and non-use of e-books is almost equal among students. The students who use e-books mostly access them through Google books, and they used e-books for academic purpose. Users were convinced about the benefits of e-books such as easy access, 24/7 availability and up-to-date information. However, users and non-users of e-books preferred to use printed version of books. Non-users identified that e-books often distract them because of different links on the website, and they do not want to change their habit of reading printed books. Moreover, they are satisfied with printed books available in their libraries and hesitant to read on screen.

The present study is limited to the medical sciences; its results cannot be generalizing to other academic disciplines.

The findings of the study will assist the medical libraries to improve their e-books collection and also negotiate the publishers for its licence issues. The study will also encourage the librarians to acquire handheld devices and load them with e-books for their users.

This is believed to be the first study on the use of e-books in the perspective of medical students in Pakistan.