Ebooks
Ebooks help tackle information mountain
Ebooks are becoming an established and integrated part of research for many people but questions remain about formats and devices, writes Siân Harris
‘I use ebooks for work and leisure; I like them as I can carry a lot of books while travelling, but still feel awkward using them after 60 years of reading books on paper.’ This succinct response to questions
about ebooks from one reader of our email newsletter, RINewsline, sums up how many researchers feel about these resources and the devices they are read on. Researchers like the compact, lightweight nature of ebook readers (one researcher, for example,
commented that he buys ebooks primarily instead of titles he would have bought as hardbacks), the long battery lives, being able to read the screens on sunny or windy days and the ability to change the size of the text. ‘The quality of reading from the screen is as good as any book and you can change the font size, which makes it better than some paperbacks that have very small font size,’ was another remark. Speed of access and availability were other attractions of ebooks for users. ‘The other day I needed a book urgently and discovered that there wasn’t a copy available in our library but I was able to obtain it straight away as an ebook,’ commented one academic. Another noted: ‘I was on a Scottish island last week and wanted to read a book that I own (in print) but didn’t have with me. Incredibly it was available as an ebook so I bought it again and read it all on my Kindle while I was there.’ However, availability can be a limitation
too. As one researcher said: ‘I think my wish to own books in ebook format might be held back by the publisher not having published them yet as ebooks.’ There were some other criticisms from users. Although e-readers are primarily marketed as devices for reading ebooks, a common complaint from academics was about reading journal articles in PDF format using them. Users wanted their e-readers to be able to handle journal
papers in the same way as they do ebooks: being able to change the type face or having it read aloud to them, for example. The print-style, two-column format of journal PDFs was another barrier to ease of use on the small screens of e-readers. Then there are still some limitations
with the device technology. As one person explained, ‘I don’t like the annoying flicker as it updates between pages and you can’t quickly thumb back to find a fact or figure you remember appeared earlier in the book in the same way you can with a print book.’ In addition, use of ebooks in academia,
both from researchers and from students, is still fairly small. As one academic joked: ‘One of the things I like about my e-reader is that no one else has got one.’ This was also highlighted in a recent
study of North American students (see news story, page 4), which found that only 13 per cent of college students had purchased an electronic book of any kind during the previous three months. Of these students only 19 per cent read them on a dedicated ebook reader; most read ebooks on laptops or desktop computers.
Content available Despite the drawbacks and the uptake still being fairly low, the researchers who use ebooks and e-readers are generally enthusiastic about them. And there have been dramatic increases in both uptake of ebooks and the number of titles available over the past few years. A study of scholarly publishers and their book practices, carried out last year by Laura Cox on behalf of ALPSP, revealed that 63 per cent of all the responding publishers publish ebooks and 67 per cent of publishers have also retro-digitised their backlist. In addition, 69 per cent of publishers saw an increase in ebook revenue over the two years leading up to the study. Christopher Kenneally, director of business
development for Copyright Clearance Center, which licenses a wide range of electronic
22 Research Information December 2010/January 2011
www.researchinformation.info
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