Library and Information Science Commons^™

Academic E-Books: Publishers, Librarians, And Users, Suzanne M. Ward, Robert S. Freeman, Judith M. Nixon

Purdue University Press Books

Academic E-Books: Publishers, Librarians, and Users provides readers with a view of the changing and emerging roles of electronic books in higher education. The three main sections contain contributions by experts in the publisher/vendor arena, as well as by librarians who report on both the challenges of offering and managing e-books and on the issues surrounding patron use of e-books. The case study section offers perspectives from seven different sizes and types of libraries whose librarians describe innovative and thought-provoking projects involving e-books.

Read about perspectives on e-books from organizations as diverse as a commercial publisher and an association press. …

The Brief Wondrous Life Of The Syracuse Kindle, Melinda Dermody, Suzanne Preate, Nancy Turner, Scott Warren

Suzanne Preate

In the fall 2009 semester, the Syracuse University Library launched a pilot program to test two Kindle DX e-book readers as content delivery devices. The pilot objectives included exploring additional options for access to curricular resources that are cost-prohibitive and frequently requested by library users, testing a new technology, i.e., Kindle DX, for delivery of ebooks, gauging user reactions to e-book readers, and using Kindle statistics and user feedback to develop or modify services and technologies. Through the pilot, the Library gained practical experience with a new technology and attempted to determine whether an e-book reader loan program would interest …

Interpret The Numbers: Putting E-Book Usage Statistics In Context, Maria Savova, Madelynn Dickerson

Library Staff Publications and Research

E-books have been an integral part of library collections for a long time now, but they are still surrounded by controversy. How much our patrons really use them? That seemingly simple question has a very complicated answer that could depend on a number of factors. The e-books’ usage reports mean very little on their own and leave many unanswered questions. In order to contextualize the usage statistics, the Claremont Colleges Library conducted an analysis of enhanced usage reports in comparison with the total offerings of e-book content available to our users from all major providers, and through all access models. …

New England Technical Services Librarians Spring 2012 Conference: Ilibrary: Digital Futures For Libraries (May 3, 2012, Worcester, Ma), Andrée J. Rathemacher, Michael A. Cerbo Ii, Julia A. Lovett

Julia Lovett

This report discusses the program of the 2012 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) annual spring conference, held on Thursday, May 3 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, titled “iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries.” NETSL is a section of the New England Library Association and a regional group of the American Library Association.

Conventional Wisdom Or Faulty Logic? The Recent Literature On Monograph Use And E-Book Acquisition, Amy Fry

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The idea that academic libraries acquire a great many books that are never used, and that this is because traditional collection development – i.e., professional librarians purchasing books based on subject expertise and local knowledge of student and faculty needs and interests – is ineffective, has been repeated frequently during the last decade. This claim has been used as justification to change collection practices and to bolster ideas about new organizational models for libraries and their work. A closer look at the literature, however, reveals that the data being cited to support this claim has been communicated, for the most …

E-Book Usage On A Global Scale: Patterns, Trends, And Opportunities, Michael Levine-Clark

University Libraries: Faculty Scholarship

This study examines worldwide usage of over 600,000 e-books from Ebook Library (EBL) and ebrary. Using multiple modes of analysis, the study shows that there are variations in usage by geographic region as well as by subject. The study examines usage in relation to availability of titles, different types of usage per session, usage of the top ten percent of titles, and intensive and extensive use. These patterns can be used for benchmarking and as a model for local e-book studies.

The Library Is Our Lab: The Case For Print Books In An Academic Library, Fran Gray, Peggy Ellis

Western Libraries Presentations

Humanities researchers consider the library to be their laboratory, and its print collections their essential research equipment. In spite of anecdotal evidence that both students and faculty in the Humanities prefer print materials over e-books, academic libraries are allocating a steadily increasing proportion of their acquisitions budgets toward the purchase of e-books across all disciplines. What is the impact of this trend on the work of these researchers? At Western University in London, Ontario, we surveyed faculty members and graduate students in the Arts and Humanities faculty and those in the History department to gain a better understanding of their …

The Case Of The Disappearing E-Book: Academic Libraries And Subscription Packages, Helen Georgas

Publications and Research

One of the standard models for e-book licensing in academic libraries is the subscription package. This study is a one-year analysis of "disappeared" titles from ebrary's Academic Complete™ collection. During 2013, 3462 titles were deleted. Deleted titles were mainly recent publications (published within the last ten years), with a high number of deletions within the broad subject areas of the social sciences (H), language and literature (P), and history (C, D, E, F). Deleted titles were evenly divided between monographs published by popular presses, and monographs published by scholarly or university presses. It is recommended that deleted titles be closely …

E-Book Adoption In Academic And Research Libraries, Pervaiz Ahmad

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Electronic books (e-books) have grown in importance in Academic and Research Libraries (ARLs). Some ARLs are now spending more on e-book acquisitions than hardcopy books. Whether this investment in e-book provision is justified by adoption outcomes is often the subject of simplistic, rather than rigorous research. This research has attempted to rigorously explore the phenomenon of e-book adoption in a case study ARL, namely, Edith Cowan University (ECU) Library.

The study population consisted of ECU academics, students and non-academic staff. The research had three aims. First, by employing a theoretical framework based on technology adoption and information behaviour theory, the …