Colldv-l readers,
What I heard about ebooks last week at the Charleston Conference:
Sessions from cd and acq perspective talked about
ebook implemention, e-preferred for approval, consortial ebook buying,
etc. Sessions from a public service
perspective (using student focus group/usability observations),
indicated user preference for paper books over academic ebooks (not
considering Kindle/Nook here); student befuddlement with ebook
interfaces; student inability to recognize an ebook vs. pbook
record in the opac; student use of ebooks to determine which pbook to
check out; student frustration when ILL
won't borrow a pbook when their library owed the ebook, etc.
Has the library ebook train left the station without most students
on-board? Is this research representative of other
experiences with user acceptance? Use data is unconvincing unless it
show time-in-the-book and number
of pages examined? Is resistance (if any) related to the current
state-of the-art in ebooks? Will libraries be
stuck with the current ebook formats when the next and the next ebook
format or interface innovation
arrives and therefore need to buy all the content again? Are ebooks
the New Coke we are selling?
Wondering,
John
--
John P. Abbott, MS MSLS
Associate Professor & Coordinator, Collection Management
University Library
Appalachian State University
ASU Box 32026
218 College Street
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-2821 (vox)
828-262-2773 (fax)
abbottJP_at_appstate.edu
Received on Fri Nov 16 2012 - 09:33:24 EST