New findings from a study on e-book usage landed in my inbox earlier this week. Conducted by e-content providers, ebrary the study has been attempting to measure the changing perceptions and patterns of e-book usage among students. It is now in its third run through.
Working with 150 Higher Education librarians throughout the world to design the survey, nearly 6,500 students took part. Such a cross section of academic respondents is certainly respectable. While there is an obvious North American slant to the findings, generally half of the participants were based elsewhere in the world. Around 400 academic institutions took part say ebrary and admittedly the patterns between the US and elsewhere show similar results. So even if there is little in the way of UK eBook habits, the results are revealing all the same.
From ebrary's release, I have taken the following summary:
2008 Global Student E-book Survey key findings
• On research or class assignments, e-book usage is on par with print books, with almost equal numbers of students using each type.
• Fifty-one percent of students would "very often or often" opt to use electronic versions of books over print versions, compared to 32% who "sometimes" prefer e-books and 17% who always use the print version.
• E-books rank among the top resources students consider trustworthy, along with print materials such as books, textbooks, reference (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, maps), and journals.
• Google and other search engines are indicated by the highest number of students for use in research or class assignments. Other top resources include e-books, print books, e-reference resources such as online dictionaries, encyclopaedias and maps, and Wikipedia.
• Fifty-seven percent of students view instruction in information literacy as very important, compared with 38% who consider it somewhat important and only 5% who find it not important.
While the obvious trend for the 'Google generation' is to trust and use online sources and eBooks as source material. The use of traditional print works is still of value to the scholars. I also find it encouraging that while 38% of students believed information literacy as only 'somewhat important' the vast majority at 57% of those surveyed consider it as 'very important'. Perhaps the message about the value of information literacy from academics and information professionals is getting through.
Further reading
For further details on the study click on the links (registration is required)
2008 Global Student E-book Survey
Due later this summer is a version of the survey 200 librarians completed - will be interesting to see how the two compare: Click here to reserve a copy
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