"well, of course students will love them!" an ethnographic study of undergraduates and...
TRANSCRIPT
"Well, Of Course Students Will Love Them!"
An Ethnographic Study of
Undergraduates and eBooks
Lorri Huddy, CTW Library Consortium
Kathy Gehring, Connecticut College
Rob Walsh, Trinity College
Diane Klare, Wesleyan University
ACRL New England Annual Conference
May 18, 2012
The CTW Library Consortium
Connecticut College Wesleyan University
Trinity College
CTW’s Collaborative Collection Development Projects
Collection analysis of print holdings
CTW CCD Funds for unique titles
Shared eBook project with PDA
Gov Doc (FDLP) profile review
Shared eBook Pilot: Usage of Titles
Across the CTW Campuses
3%
Used by 3
eBook User Sessions by Campus
CTW's Top 25 (most viewed) MiL Titles
Why a Study about
eBooks & Students?
Collection Decisions
Space Needs
Discovery Layers
eBook Readers
The Ethnographic Process
• Locally driven
• Variety of techniques
• Data gathering and transcriptions
• Rich and qualitative data
The Study's Mechanics
• Interviews with same open-ended questions
• IRB approval process
• Student solicitation; Letter of informed consent
• Recorded voice and computer screens
• Amazon giftcards
• Transcriptions afterwards
...You need eBooks for a class assignment.
Where will you start? How will you find them?
What's an ebook?
Have you used
any? How often?
If you wanted only
ebooks, how
would you change
your search?
Can you identify the ebooks in your results?
Are you aware
of the library's
ebooks?
What platform
features do you like
...or wish to change?
What devices do you use?
What else do you want to use?
How do you open
the ebook now
that you found it?
Which do you prefer: P or E? ...Why?
Which ebook platform did
you like better? Why??
What do you
wish you could
do with that
ebook?
"What?! You want me
to find ebooks?"
Image Source: http://theebooksale.com/authors/
The Discovery Process
Finding e-Books:
The Devil is in the Details
•• What is an e-book anyway?
• Setting the stage
• So many places to look
o The library catalog...
Typical Catalog Search Results (from Wesleyan University)
Keyword search "childhood obesity prevention"
Alternative Discovery Methods
Finding eBooks:
The Devil is in the Details
• Why Google?
• Rationales strategies beyond
• What?! Ask a librarian?
"I can't get over the
stupidity of this layout
...but I really like
the Bookshelf."
Students' Use of Specific Image Source: https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights
Students' Use of eBooks: In Theory
• Convenient
• Good for the Environment
• Fast Access
• Cheaper than textbooks?
Student use of ebooks: In Practice
• Frustrating
• Still not comfortable reading large amounts of
text on a screen
• Difficulty interpreting icons and language used
• Liked the ability to "search within the book"
• Most skimmed TOC and abstract to judge
appropriateness
Examples of Platform IssuesNew download feature
since the study
No scroll bar. Students
prefer scrolling to clicking
an icon
"infoTools"
not intuitive
Magnifying glass icons stumped most students. They logically thought it
would increase text size, not move through search results.
"Search within the book" was very popular, though several
confused this with the simple search feature. The chapter
rankings were also popular.
Pros & Cons to ebrary's Copy/Paste
Notes require users to set up
an account - not popular.
Students
associated
"Ref Tools"
with citations
not
dictionaries
Several students tried to
search-within-the-book here.
It's a chapter pulldown menu.
Scroll Bars!!
Relevancy?
Search within the book was popular. Students liked seeing
search terms in context but were perplexed by the order of the
results.
Once discovered, MiL citation options were very popular!
Buried under 2 clicks!
Overall...
• Platforms are not intuitive
• Most were not particularly enthusiastic about
features like highlighting and annotating*
• The ability to search within the book was
consistently popular
• Limits on printing and downloading were
confusing
• Confusion between browser functions and
"I kinda like it ...except for the
fact it's online and I have to
look at it on the computer."
What We Learned:Assumptions
vs. RealityImage Source:
http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project
What We Learned...
• How do students’ definitions of eBooks
differ from our definition?
• How do students use eBooks?
• What do students think eBooks will look
like in 5 years?
Are We Speaking the Same Language?
• While students can define an eBook,
there are deficiencies in their ability to
recognize, access and use eBooks
o What makes sense to us doesn't necessarily
have the same meaning for students.
A Few More Observations About
Student Use of eBooks
• Academic vs. Leisure
• Skim, then find print version
• Print or download and read later
What do you
think eBooks will
be like in 5
years...or what
do you hope
they'll be like?
Photo by Todd Martin http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmartin/32010732/
The Future: (Prematurely)
Mourning the Death of Print
I think print will become obsolete and am upset
about it - really sad about the idea of losing print
(love getting newspaper print on my fingers and
the smell of a library book). Everything is going
to be online, and I'm really sad about it.
We are heading towards more electronic books,
which is why I ditched my plans to go into the
publishing business.
Future of eBooks:
Some Common Themes
Students’ “wish lists”
• More tactile
• More collaborative
• Integration of knowledge-enhancing
resources
• More intuitive/attractive interface
• Text-to-voice functionality (Siri for eBooks)
• Offline access
Future of eBooks:
Some Considerations
• Facilitate student interest
• Put pressure on vendors
• Keep in mind: students don’t view
information the same way librarians do
Thanks!
Lorri Huddy, CTW Librarian, [email protected]
Kathy Gehring, Connecticut College, [email protected]
Rob Walsh, Trinity College, [email protected]
Diane Klare, Wesleyan University, [email protected]