shifting patterns of user engagement with ebooks

Los Angeles | London | New DelhiSingapore | Washington DC

Shifting Patterns of User Engagement with Ebooks

Martha Sedgwick Senior Manager Online Products, SAGE@coffeepot

SAGE Online Products Los Angeles | London | New DelhiSingapore | Washington DC

2011 – Kindle Fire tablet released by

Amazon

2011 – Google eBookstore launches

2011 – Oxford Scholarship Online Re-

launch

2011 – iPad 2 Released by Apple

2010 – Cambridge Books Online

launches

2010 – iPad released by

Apple

2009 – Barnes & Noble release the Nook

2007 – Amazon releases

the Kindle

2004 – Google Books launches

2004 – first ink e-book reader

released, the Sony Libre

2003 – Oxford

Scholarship Online

launches

1997 – Palm releases first

PDA

1971 Project Gutenberg

kicks off and the ebook is

invented

2000 – T&F

ebook collection launches

Ebook availability amongst academic vendors has increased rapidly over the last decade

2011 – Proquest acquires Ebrary

2010 – EBSCO

acquires NetLibrary

1999 – NetLibrary

launches with 40 publishers

2006 – Springer launches ebook

collection with 10K titles

2006 – MyiLibrary acquired by

Ingram Digital

2003 - Google Books site Launched


Libraries are the prime purchasers of ebooks for the academic market

Liverpool University =

200,000+

University of Stockholm =

200,000

Penn State University =

203,000

Duke University = 553,698

However, despite the high volume of purchases, studies have found that there is

still relatively low awareness of the existence of ebooks.


Emergence of mobile reading devices


● “I might use a mobile for reading a journal article if I’m running late. I’ve thought about getting a Kindle, but haven’t taken the plunge yet.”

● “I don’t use a mobile phone for academic purposes – I have an old-school phone and don’t have enough money to upgrade it.”

● “I use my cell phone just for personal, not for my research.”● “I have an iPhone and a couple of times I’ve bought stuff on

my iPhone for my work when I’ve been desperate.”● “I have an iPhone but I don’t use it for research, mostly for

email”● “I have an iPhone and an iPad and I’ve looked at journal

websites and articles on these devices, but I don’t actively use them for research, per se.”

Despite this growth, the proportion of use on mobile for academic purposes is still low


So, what is the impact of all of this on our users?


Friday 10.04am -

Living roomEbook: Family relationships

in middle childhood

Monday 9.45am -

Dining tableBook: How

children develop

Saturday 3.08pm -

Dining tableBook: How

children develop

Saturday 3.10pm -

Dining tableBook:

Cognitive psychology

Saturday 5.54pm -

Living roomBook: An

introduction to brain and

behavior

Sunday 9.50pm –

TrainBook:

Cognitive Psychology

Sun 9.40_Train

stationBook:

Cognitive psychology

Thursday 5.33 -

Living roomBook: The

memory keeper's daughter

Tuesday 2.30pm -

LibraryBook:

Cognitive Psychology

Tuesday 5.30 -

Library cafeBook: The

memory keeper's daughter

Tuesday 6.30 -

Living roomBook: How

children develop

Wednesday 1.24pm

Living roomBook:An

introdcution to brain

and behavior


Give us one word that you would use to describe ebooks


Handy

Practical

Search

QuickMiss Out

Annoying

Easier

Less

Useful

Convenient

Easy

Heresy

Scope User-Unfriendly

Frustrating Accessibl

e

Preconceptions

Cold

Unknown

Skip


Core use of ebooks is for quick look ups and reference, or discovery purposes

● Abdullah & Gibb (2008) – 2 most popular reasons for using ebooks are: finding relative content and selective reading

● In our interviews, terms we hear associated to the use of ebooks include: “SKIM”, “PREVIEW”, “RE-READ”, “REFERENCE CHECKING”


0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

90.00%

Search facility Links through toother materials

that arereferenced in a

text

Keyword andrelated linksearching

Accessopportunities from

multiplegeographic

locations at anytime of the day

Useful to browseand discover

small samples ofcontent to read

Easy to printmaterials

Easy to link intoVirtual LearningEnvironments

(e.g. Blackboard,WebCT, Moodle)

Easy to read longtexts

Other

% s

ele

cti

on

Academic Researchers

Postgraduates

Undergraduates

What features do you value most in online academic products? (2008 survey)


“I always read on paper. I’ve got a Mac and so when I find a paper I’m interested in I save the PDF within a project folder and then I’ll print it off and read it later.”Daniel, Lecturer, De Paul University, USA, 2008

“I use them to check references – I’ll type in a quote on Google and sometimes it throws up chapters of a book… If I want to buy a book [in print] I will always browse for a preview online.”Nina (PhD student, Education) 2011

“Ebooks are a bit like an added feature of print books. You can use them to search and find things, but then you ultimately want the print book to

read.”James, PhD student, University of York, 2011


Printing and downloading is key


Survey (2011)


Therefore, tight DRM is a pain

“I hate one of the ebook sites because of the DRM restrictions to printing, and I don’t like reading on screen. The interface is very clunky and regularly crashes my browser.”James, PhD student, University of York, 2008


There is a shift towards more comfort with online reading

“I use PDF downloads of ebooks constantly. We have copiers at AU that send PDFs to my email so I’m contantly scanning sections and chapters of books and then I search

through the PDFs. I read the PDFs online, I rarely print them.”

Kit, History, PhD, American University, 2011

‘A couple of times I’ve asked the library to buy a book and they’ve bought the eBook version… I read them at home… I can imagine a scenario where I might use my iPhone if I needed to… but my worry is that you would lose the book”Paul (PhD student, History) 2011

“I use PDF downloads of ebooks constantly. We have copiers at AU that send PDFs to my email so I’m contantly scanning sections and chapters of books and then I search

through the PDFs. I read the PDFs online, I rarely print them.”

Kit, History, PhD, American University, 2011


Slide on publisher sites

The design of publisher ebook interfaces is adapting to these user needs


Supporting search and discovery through semantic linking

Source: Temis


Concluding thoughts….


Thank you!

Martha Sedgwick, Senior Manager, Online Products

Email: [email protected]: @coffeepot