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