A tale of three surveys: How librarians, faculty and students perceive and use electronic resources

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A tale of three surveysHow librarians, faculty
and students perceive and use electronic
resourcesOctober 2008
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Overview of ebrary e-book surveys
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Purchase drivers
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Purchase drivers for librarians

• The 4 top factors are interrelated
• Optimizing access
• Price
• Access model
• Curriculum relevance
• Subject
• Currency

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Adoption of e-books
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Adoption of e-books

• A year and a half ago 88 of the surveyed
  librarians reported having access to e-books
• 45 reported access to over 10,000 e-books
• 78 of the librarians described e-book usage at
  their libraries as good to excellent, if you
  interpret fair as fairly good
• If you interpret fair as not so good, 59 of
  librarians found e-book usage as not so good to
  poor
• The more recent surveys report on usage from the
  faculty and student perspective

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Adoption of e-books (cont)

• 89 of the faculty surveyed said they use
  electronic resources for research, class
  preparation or instruction
• 89 websites - .edu, .gov, .org
• 86 e-journals
• 76 databases
• 54 e-books
• 54 of the faculty reported using e-books and of
  those
• 64 integrate e-books into their courses
• 43 encourage students to use e-books in their
  research
• 29 use e-books for required course readings
• 52 of the students surveyed said they used
  e-books
• For those who never use e-books, the most common
  reason was that they did not know where to find
  e-books

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Drivers of e-book usage
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Drivers of e-book usage

• Students look to faculty, librarians and the
  catalog
• Librarians are a bit self-deprecating in their
  responses if they equated marketing campaigns and
  materials with their efforts.
• Library instruction efforts were not a choice in
  the survey, which librarians may have ranked
  higher.

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Electronic resources used for academic purposes
by students
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Electronic resources used for academic purposes
by students

• Keep in mind that this is the 52 of the students
  that continued with the survey.
• 48 of students reported never using e-books
• About 25 did not know where to find them
• About 20 preferred to use print i.e. hard to
  use or read
• About 5 other i.e. professor said not to use
  them
• The good news for e-books is that students mostly
  like them once they have found them and learn how
  to use them. E-books are just slightly behind
  search engines.
• Google is king.
• E-journals are in 7th place after textbooks.

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Electronic resources used for academic purposes
by faculty
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Electronic resources used for academic purposes
by faculty

• Just like the students, faculty rank websites
  1st.
• Unlike students, faculty rank e-journals 2nd
  instead of 7th.
• And unlike students, faculty rank e-books 6th
  instead of 2nd.
• Again keep in mind that only students who use
  e-books (52) and continued in the survey are
  being compared to all faculty usage

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Electronic vs. print resource preference by
students
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Electronic vs. print resource preference by
faculty
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Electronic vs. print resource preference

• 83 of students who said they used e-books find
  them preferable often or very often over a print
  version
• Sometimes (32)
• Often or very often (51).
• 82 of faculty find electronic resources as
  useful as print or preferable to print
• Equally useful (32)
• Preferable (50)

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Advantages of e-books - faculty

• What do faculty say are the advantages of
  electronic resources for their research or
  instruction?
• More accessible
• Anytime, anywhere
• Multi-user access
• More usable
• Easy to search and access
• Easy to share
• Ability to manipulate, use in Blackboard or other
  CMS
• Ability to highlight, annotate, bookmark, etc.
• Easy to print/download
• Easy to save and archive
• Less expensive
• Saves shelf space
• Cost-effective
• Good for environment

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Advantages of e-books - students

• What are the top statements students indicate as
  true for e-books?
• Basically more accessible and more useable
• Environmentally friendly
• Anytime, anywhere access
• Easy to search and find info
• Easy to share
• Easy to store
• Good for quick reference
• Easy to browse
• Easy to use multiple documents at once
• Easy to organize
• Information is current
• Easy to print or photocopy
• Easy to cite
• Easy to use
• Clear graphics and images

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Features of e-books

• Which e-book features do students rate as very
  important?
• Searching 87
• Anytime access 86
• Off-campus access 82
• Multi-user access 81
• Downloading to laptop 80
• Copying and pasting 75
• Printing 75
• Zoom and scale 65
• Highlighting 62
• Automatic citations 56

• Ability to email text 55
• Book reviews 45
• Multimedia 44
• Ability to share notes 44
• Downloading to hand held device 42
• Collaborative tools 40
• Personal bookshelves 38
• Shared bookshelves 30
• Students selected very important, somewhat
  important, or not important for each item.

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Perceived advantages of e-books

• When asked about the advantages of e-books, both
  students and faculty indicated that e-books were
• More accessible,
• Easier to search
• Easier to use online
• When asked about the advantages of print books,
  students indicated that they were
• Easier to read
• Easier to take notes to highlight
• Wide selection
• When asked about the advantages of print books,
  faculty indicated that they were
• Easier to read more portable
• Easier to use for my research
• Easier to access for my research

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Purchase drivers for librarians

• The panaceamake everything availablewell pay
  for what we use
• Faculty accounts established through
  institutional budgeting processes
• Faculty research and instruction usage defines
  acquisition
• Online tools are available for accessing,
  organizing, integrating, and presenting
  information resources

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Q A and contact details

• To request complimentary copies of the results,
  please go to www.ebrary.com and look under
  ebrary Spotlight.
• Allen McKiel
• Dean of Hamersly Library
• Western Oregon University
• Email mckiela_at_wou.edu
• Tel [phone]