e-books - essentials or extras: The University of Auckland Library

experience

Ksenija ObradovicLIANZA Conference 2004

Overview

experience of the University of Auckland Library in implementing e-books into the learning environment

perception of e-books by staff and students

Definition of e-book

“e-book” - monographic piece of text made available electronically, regardless of size and composition

no difference between digitized vs. born digital; parallel published vs. born-digital; linear text vs. hypertext; straight text vs. value added text

Access

Data Bases LEARN Course pages Voyager Library catalogue

e-books holdings added per year

2004 51582003 767992002 44042001 52582000 291999 31998 279

Total e-book holdings: 91930This data for this report was created 8/31/2004

Sources of bibliographic records buy records from vendors add 856 to existing hard copy

record create record for e-book

Access from Voyager

purchased e-books (e.g. netLibrary, ebrary, Oxford Reference Online)

free fulltext electronic versions of monographs

electronic information supplementary to the printed book

Links are not added to:

any e-versions which are available free for a limited period only

pages which have links to Word or zipped files

Tables of Contents, Publishers' web sites, Overviews of the book (but not deleted any from imported records)

Some issues related to managing e-books

no bibliographical control vendor does not inform us when e-

books are no longer available receipt of e-books and

bibliographical records does not necessarily coincide

netLibrary and ebrary

total of 6,794 netLibrary titles and 11,915 ebrary titles

two different models

netLibrary user sessions

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2004

ebrary user sessions

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netLibrary user sessions by topic for July

Business & Economics 938 Computers 697 Social Sciences 77 Education 33 Medicine 31 Language & linguistics 30 Literature 28 Arts 25 Political Science 22

ebrary usage by topic for July

User Sessions Pages viewed 

Computers 428 7840 Business & Economics 376 4938 History 114 1272 Science 109 787 Medical 96 1144 Social Science 79 900 Language arts 62 716 Literary criticism 49 282

Targeted groups

Library staff Students enrolled in the e-book

course Students based in the North Shore

campus

Methods of accessing

Staff – mostly use Voyager North Shore based students prefer

LEARN course pages E-book course group are divided:

the North Shore based respondents prefer LEARN course pages, while the others show preference to Voyager catalogue

Print vs. electronic

all three groups prefer print to electronic version

ratios of preference vary: two thirds of staff and e-book course students prefer print version; however among North Shore students, print version is preferred by a small margin

In all three groups some participants indicated that they do not have a preference, and the choice would depend on the situation

Reasons to choose print:

Easier to read More familiar No time limit Can mark important lines Can read on the bus Too long to download big bits of books E-books too slow Easier to look through Getting out of the house

Reasons to choose electronic:

Availability A few people can access it at the

same time I don’t have to carry the books

around

Importance of the e-book features Access anytime, anywhere is regarded as

very important by majority of course students, and by almost all staff

Access to key reference materials and definitions as one reads the e-book is valued more by library staff than by course and North Shore students

All three groups assume that elements such as animation or video are of little importance. However, students find them more useful than library staff

Importance of the e-book features, 2

Ability to print content is regarded as very important by majority of students and staff

All three groups are polarised in their preference for electronic version resembling printed – some really like it, some do not care at all

Almost all library staff rate access to searchable content as very important. Some students agree, but not all.

Copyright restrictions

all staff aware about one third of students not

aware

Frequency of use

Staff - more often than the other two groups

North Shore based students and Course students - usually once a month or less than that. Only a few respondents said that they use e-books more than once a week

However, asked if they would like more e-books in their subject areas, majority of all three groups answered yes

Other comments:

e-books are great for quick facts but a real pain to read page after page

e-books are incredibly useful for titles that are in high-usage

e-books enable searching across the whole collection, not just one book

Other comments, 2:

e-books instead of Short Loan copies

e-books give students a good start if recommended text not available

A few students commented that thanks to the questionnaire their awarenes of e-books had been raised

The general impression

printed and e-book have their place in academic libraries

in many instances print is desirable format - users often browse e-book to see if it is useful, and then get printed copy for a more substantial reading

e-books provide another level of library service

Future

use of e-books relies on Subject Librarians incorporating them into their collections

also relies on publishers providing more recommended texts and further exploring the possibilities that electronic text could offer to libraries