E-book readers in higher education

Ebook readers have received a mixed press, with some hailing them as the future of reading and others believing that they will never be popular. The study outlined here aims to understand the attitudes of, and issues of importance to, lecturers in UK academia, with a view to improving the design of ebook readers for education in the future. An evaluation of five portable devices is presented, in which lecturers were given the opportunity to read an ebook and provide feedback via a questionnaire. Results are compared with concerns arising from other experiments in the same field, and recommendations are made for successful ebook design

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

Top Notch Support for eBooks

Come learn tips and tricks for delivering top notch technical support for eBooks. Library staff are the front line technical support for a growing number of patrons with diverse technical abilities wanting to access eBooks. We’ll share VPL’s unique team approach and innovative techniques for delivering technical support for your eBook collection. In this session, participants will learn: How to apply reference interview skills to technical support. How to create effective tools to use with patrons, including templates and on-the-spot screencasts. How to build an effective ebook-support team in your reference departmen

You Can Check It Out But It Will Never Leave: Characterising Ebook Borrowing Patterns

What does it mean for a reader to borrow an ebook? Ebook technology means that borrowing can take different forms, for example printing and reading. We do not know, though, which of these options readers actually use. Ebook technology generates logs that allow us to understand ebook borrowing patterns over time, both by individual readers and in aggregate. Despite the ready availability of ebook logs, this area remains under-researched. In this paper we present an exploratory log analysis of ebook borrowing, comparing printing and reading, discovery patterns, single- and multiple-book sessions and identifying specific borrowing patterns

A modular methodology for converting large, complex books into usable, accessible and standards-compliant ebooks

This report describes the methodology used for ebook creation for the Glasgow Digital Library (GDL), and provides detailed instructions on how the same methodology could be used elsewhere. The document includes a description and explanation of the processes for ebook creation followed by a tutorial

Selected reading from Treatise on Friendship

Course reading ebook, adapted by Ian D. Dunkle from Project Gutenberg’s Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, by Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by E.S. Shuckburgh: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2808Cicero describes the necessary features, the value, and the limits of friendship through a short dialogue

Judging a book by its cover: interface elements that affect reader selection of ebooks

Digital library research has demonstrated the impact of content presentation on both search and reading behaviours. In this paper, we scrutinise the influence of ebook presentation on user behaviour, focussing on document thumbnails and the first page view. We demonstrate that flaws in presentation increase the volume of short time-span reading, and reduce the likelihood of long-span reading when compared to other documents. This reflects other patterns of information seeking behaviour that demonstrate increased short-term reading when information content is uncertain, and suggests an ineffective use of reader time on less useful content

Psychology in Education and Health- Proceedings of the II Leipzig-Évora Scientific Meeting in Psychology

This ebook contains several papers on the application applied psychology in education, health and well-being, personality,family interactions and emotional and epistemological development.The aim of this volume is to inform the scientific community on the research on Psychology mainly made at Évora and Leipzig Universities, but also in other contexts like Mexico or Brazil.FC

An exploration of ebook selection behavior in academic library collections

Academic libraries have offered ebooks for some time, however little is known about how readers interact with them while making relevance decisions. In this paper we seek to address that gap by analyzing ebook transaction logs for books in a university library