The rise of social ereading : interactive ebook platforms and the development of online reading communities : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Ebooks have caused a revolution in how people read fiction. Ereading devices and apps now integrate interactive features which have led to the development of digital reading communities populated by millions of readers from around the world, with a resurgence of social reading practices in new forms. Two of the biggest social reading communities in existence today are hosted by Amazon’s Kindle and Wattpad. This thesis offers an analysis of how these platforms’ readers are using the interactive technology within the pages of their ebooks to participate in these online reading communities. Original research into popular texts on Wattpad reveals that while only a small percentage of users are actively engaging with the ebooks and other readers during the process of reading, all active and passive interactions have a significant influence on the reading experience. Thus, the infrastructure of such communities ‘rewards’ serialised books which encourage higher levels of reader interactivity with greater recognition within the community, but this reward is short-lived. The application of Genette’s paratextual theory to the interactive features of these ereading platforms reveals new processes of authorisation and readers-as-writers. New paths for the evolution of digital paratextual theory see paratexts developing from ‘thresholds’ into ‘vectors’. The statistical notations of reader interactions are now informational paratexts attached to each ebook, and these online reading communities may be considered paratexts themselves, operating through the new paratextual phenomenon of digital marginalia. Furthermore, the existence of these reading communities on free platforms such as Wattpad is supported by commercial paratexts found within the ebook pages. These new paratexts are iii having a significant impact on social ereading and reading communities - such as how they operate and judge the ‘value’ of ebooks - but historical precedents suggest these paratexts will be readily accepted by most readers, leading to an increase in the incidence and influence of such digital paratexts. These new interactive technologies and paratexts will potentially lead to significant changes in how fiction is read. Exactly how these technologies may develop, and how public, industrial, and academic stakeholders might take advantage of these opportunities, requires further research

E-book with Integrated Social Features

Users read e-books on different devices that may connect to a network. The techniques of this disclosure utilize information from a user’s social network to determine reviews and feedback from the user’s friends, media content, and trending topics on the social network that are related to an e-book that a user is reading. Such information is presented to the user on an e-book display device in the form of an overlay. The techniques augment ebooks with related content from the web thus providing an enhanced reading experience

eBooks für Fachwissenschaftler. Ein Testbericht zu aktuellen E-Readern

eBooks werden auch im wissenschaftlichen Bereich immer wichtiger. Verkaufszahlen, Erhebungen wie die des JISC oder der Bibliotheken bestätigen das Interesse der Nutzer an der direkten und ubiquitären Verfügbarkeit digitaler Publikationen. Entlang eines Fragenkatalogs wurden drei dedizierte E-Reader sowie das vielfach auch als Tablet-Computer bezeichnete iPad von Studierenden der Sozialwissenschaften daraufhin getestet, wie tauglich sie für den akademischen Arbeitsalltag sind. EBooks werden - so ein Ergebnis - in deutlicher Mehrheit nicht zum intensiven Lesen am Bildschirm genutzt, sondern dienen primär dem schnellen Nachschlagen von Informationen. Wichtige Basisfunktionen für die Arbeit mit dem Text werden bei den EReadern wenig benutzerfreundlich eingeschätzt, weiterverarbeitende Features vermisst. (Autorenreferat)eBooks are gaining ground in the academic world. According to the expanding growth of eBook sale figures as well as the surveys conducted by JISC or university libraries, we noticed that users expect direct and ubiquitous access to digital publications. Our user test investigates how eBooks performance on portable reading devices fit into academic workflow of aggregating and processing information. With detailed questionnaire dedicated E-Readers and iPad are tested by social science students. Finally based on the presented results of the user test, we take a look at the problems and challenges associated with the fields of the eBook publication. (author's abstract

“To Reveal the Humble Immigrant Parents to Their Own Children” Immigrant Women, Their American Daughters, and the Hull-House Labor Museum

This essay explores how Jane Addams used her Labor Museum to attempt to connect immigrant adolescents with their parents

A log analysis study of 10 years of ebook consumption in academic library collections

Even though libraries have been offering eBooks for more than a decade, very little is known about eBook access and consumption in academic library collections. This paper addresses this gap with a log analysis study of eBook access at the library of the University of Waikato. This in-depth analysis covers a period spanning 10 years of eBook use at this university. We draw conclusions about the use of eBooks at this institution and compare the results with other published studies of eBook usage at tertiary institutes

Assessing the impact of reading for blind and partially sighted adults

RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) has amassed a body of qualitative evidence on the value and impact of reading for blind and partially sighted people, but this was lacking in quantitative support, and could not be compared with the developing evidence base relating to the impact of reading on the wider population. RNIB commissioned LISU and The Reading Agency to undertake independent research to address these issues, the key findings of which are outlined in this report

Are e-readers suitable tools for scholarly work?

This paper aims to offer insights into the usability, acceptance and limitations of e-readers with regard to the specific requirements of scholarly text work. To fit into the academic workflow non-linear reading, bookmarking, commenting, extracting text or the integration of non-textual elements must be supported. A group of social science students were questioned about their experiences with electronic publications for study purposes. This same group executed several text-related tasks with the digitized material presented to them in two different file formats on four different e-readers. Their performances were subsequently evaluated by means of frequency analyses in detail. Findings - e-Publications have made advances in the academic world; however e-readers do not yet fit seamlessly into the established chain of scholarly text-processing focusing on how readers use material during and after reading. Our tests revealed major deficiencies in these techniques. With a small number of participants (n=26) qualitative insights can be obtained, not representative results. Further testing with participants from various disciplines and of varying academic status is required to arrive at more broadly applicable results. Practical implications - Our test results help to optimize file conversion routines for scholarly texts. We evaluated our data on the basis of descriptive statistics and abstained from any statistical significance test. The usability test of e-readers in a scientific context aligns with both studies on the prevalence of e-books in the sciences and technical test reports of portable reading devices. Still, it takes a distinctive angle in focusing on the characteristics and procedures of textual work in the social sciences and measures the usability of e-readers and file-features against these standards.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Online Information Revie

Instant fulfilment: the successful use of patron driven acquisitions to satisfy interlibrary loans

No description supplie

Book selection behavior in the physical library: implications for ebook collections

Little is known about how readers select books, whether they be print books or ebooks. In this paper we present a study of how people select physical books from academic library shelves. We use the insights gained into book selection behavior to make suggestions for the design of ebook-based digital libraries in order to better facilitate book selection behavior