Survey Shows Increasing Use of E-Books As Research Tool Among Students

by Craig Morgan Teicher -- Publishers Weekly, 6/25/2008 7:00:00 AM

Ebrary, the Palo Alto-based digital content service and delivery company that is a leading supplier of e-books and other materials to libraries, announced the results of its 2008 Global Student E-book Survey Tuesday. The survey was completed by almost 6,500 students at around 400 institutions across the globe. While the survey does indicate some skepticism and ignorance about e-books in institutional libraries, it also clearly shows that students are increasingly using e-books and other digital reference sources for research and other assignments.

For research purposes, the survey shows that digital resources are used as often, if not more often, than print books. Respondents say they use Google and other search engines as well as e-books more than print books for research assignments; online encyclopedias and Wikipedia are only slightly less used than print books, according to the survey. Print books, however, are deemed the most trustworthy sources, as well as far better for cover-to-cover reading. 

Among the qualities the survey inquires about—including anytime-access to books and cut-and-paste features—searchability is deemed the most important feature of e-books. The most popular means of accessing e-books is through a library Web site, followed by Google. A lack of e-books in a student’s area of interest is cited as the major factor for not using the format. 

Ebrary enlisted the help of 150 college and university librarians from many countries to compile the survey, which, according to ebrary, is meant to explore “students’ usage and perceptions of e-books.” The greatest number of survey respondents was from the U.S. and Italy, followed by Canada and Hong Kong. Engineering is the course of study with the most respondents, by a very large margin.

The results of Ebrary’s survey are, in some cases, surprising, especially in terms of how frequently students do use e-books, and also confirm what the publishing industry already knows: that tech-savvy readers (like engineering students) are the most likely early adopters, and more e-book titles published means more e-book readers. Ebrary plans to repeat the survey periodically.