A Comparison of E-book and Print Book Discovery, Preferences and Usage by Science and Engineering Faculty and Graduate Students at the University of Kansas
Issue Date
2014-04-01Author
Waters, Julie
Roach, Jennifer
Emde, Judith
McEathron, Scott R.
Russell, Keith
Publisher
Science & Technology Section, Association of College & Research Libraries
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
This Open Access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The availability of science and technology e-books through the University of Kansas Libraries is growing rapidly through approval plans, e-book packages, and electronic demand-driven acquisitions. Based on informal conversations with faculty, questions still lingered as to the acceptance of books in the electronic format by faculty and graduate students in the STEM disciplines. To learn more about book format preferences, a survey was distributed via e-mail to 1,898 faculty and graduate students in science and technology at the University of Kansas. The survey included questions focused on print book use, e-book use, format preferences, and demographics. A majority of the 357 respondents indicated a preference for print books indicating many of the oft-repeated comments about the disadvantages of reading books on a computer. Patrons using tablets were more inclined to access e-books. The survey indicated a continuing need to purchase books in both print and electronic formats, and to market the availability of e-books to University of Kansas patrons.
Description
See below for the accompanying dataset and the survey instrument used to collect the data.
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Citation
Waters, Julie, Jennifer Roach, Judith Emde, Scott McEathron, and Keith Russell. 2014. A Comparison of E-book and Print Book Discovery, Preferences, and Usage by Science and Engineering Faculty and Graduate Students at the University of Kansas. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship [Internet], Winter 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.5062/F48G8HN5
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