JISC Collections 19 April 2023 | Project Board Meeting | Slide 1

JISC Collections

JISC NATIONAL E-BOOK OBSERVATORY PROJECT:

KEY FINDINGS & FURTHER RESEARCH

Hazel Woodward, JISC and Cranfield University, UK

ICOLC, Paris, 26 – 28 October 2009

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The largest study of its kind!

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– 36 course text e-books freely available to all UK HE

– Over 52,000 responses to benchmarking surveys carried out in January 2008 and in January 2009

– Raw server logs have been analysed to see exactly how users discover, navigate and use the e-books

– Case studies including focus groups held at eight universities

– Library circulation and print sales data has been analysed

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Key findings

E-books are now part of the academic mainstream: nearly 65% of both teaching staff and students have used an e-book to support their work or study or for leisure purposes

CIBER’s deep log analysis found much variation in the ways that users in different subjects use e-books. More research is needed to understand these differences and their practical implications

The university library is, and will continue to be, the central provider of course text e-books to staff and students. Libraries are a key market for course e-books and the supply chain must develop to foster the market

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Key findings

Demand for short loan/ reserve collection print titles far exceeds their supply: nearly a quarter of students reported being ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘very dissatisfied’ with library provision, and around half of teaching staff said their students regularly complained about this

For librarians, e-books offer a valuable back-up for hard pressed short loan collections, a ‘safety valve’ at times of peak demand, rather than a direct substitution for hard copy

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Key findings

Within the limited time frame of the observatory project, no conclusive negative impact on UK print sales was evident. This is consistent with a range of evidence that print and e-versions of important course texts are complementary, not substitutes for one another

Sales in the UK textbook market are relatively flat and continuing pressures on student disposable income means this is likely to continue. Between 2004 and 2008 student spending on textbooks fell by nearly one-fifth. The pressures to find viable and sustainable business models will intensify for publishers and librarians alike

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Key findings

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8000

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Course text e-books use is highly variable during the academic year, often varying by more than 50% month-on-month, and linked very specifically to the teaching and assessment calendar

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Key findings

Use of e-books appears to be based on convenience and the advantages they offer, such as enabling students and staff to fit work and study more easily into their busy life-styles: almost a third of pages are viewed off campus and at all hours of the day and night

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Where is the use coming from?

31% of off campus use illustrates how important e-books are for home study – so we have got to get the access right

Students told us in the survey the most important benefit of the e-book is 24/7 access

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Key findings

Behavioural evidence from the observatory study strongly suggests that course text e-books are currently used for grazing information (quick fact extraction and brief dip in and out viewing) rather than for continuous reading, which may conflict with assumptions made by publishers

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An overview

761,352 pages of the JISC e-books were viewed

65,000 sessions viewed the JISC e-books

81% of JISC e-book sessions viewed just one e-book

13 minute sessions, 8 pages per session

Page view time of 22.8 seconds

85% of users spending less than 1 minute on a page

9% used the search facility

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Key findings

Although users value the flexibility and convenience of course text e-books, this may be compromised by technical and other barriers to their effective use. These included limitations on printing and downloading, and slow speeds

It is clear from the study that users expect e-books to offer an interactive experience to enhance their learning and the tasks required of them; this is not currently being delivered

Interfaces to e-books need to be developed around principles of user-centred design; they are currently far from ideal

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Key findings

The two user surveys show a preference for viewing e-book content online, at least for short session, and it is inevitable (and already occurring) that users will want to be able to download library-licensed e-books onto their readers and other portable or mobile devices (including iPods and iPhones)

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Self reported user behaviour

How did you read the

contents?

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Self reported user behaviour

How much of that e-book did you read online?

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Key findings

The library catalogue and links from library web pages are the major routes by which users discover e-book content. Technical means of discovery need to be supported by other forms of promotion to ensure equality of access to course text across the whole institution

The number of students in the JISC disciples who said they had used a library provided e-book rose by nearly a factor of four between the CIBER 2008 and 2009 user surveys, suggesting that library promotion may have a real impact on behaviour

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“Further research is needed”

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Business Model Trials

Aim is to create realistic, simple and sustainable business models using real data from a range of access models

Reviewed the current e-textbook business model landscape

Selected a variety a trials following consultation with a range of stakeholders

Will include the ‘crown jewel’ e-textbooks

The trials will take place over a full academic year

The impacts on print sales, time and resource will be measured

Devise accurate pricing based on actual use

A study on the management and economic impact of e-textbook business models on publishers, e-book

aggregators and universities

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Mobile devices

Users are already walking into libraries with their e-readers and asking librarians what they can download

NetLibrary has announced the launch of five new e-book collections developed specifically for the Sony Reader (http://library.netlibrary.com/Home.aspx) and it is anticipated that other publishers and aggregators will follow with similar initiatives.

Future work:

JISC e-books working group – Possible study into mobile technology and licensing

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Discovery and access

Future work:

Action: JISC e-books working group – Possible study to understanding how users find and access e-books on the library website, what tools do they use? Google Scholar?

What is the library catalogue of the future?

Based on this, what metadata is the most useful and will fit with the publishers ONIX flows?

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The snazzy e-book

VLE integration of modules, customised textbooks,

Highly interactive

The future of the e-book

What do behaviours suggest for the future?

Future work:

Action: The future of the e-book research based on deep log analysis results

Action: E-books working group - Study on the impact of interactivity on learning processes

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Licensing

“… its very complex…you spend a lot of time trying to work out exactly what you are being offered and what the terms and conditions would be and working out what would be the advantage to you, and the relative costs – so that takes up a lot of time”

Future work: All of these have a major impact on the licensing for e-books!

Work to get licensing standardised

Create new licensing around new models

Create new licensing for mobile devices

Develop new standards to be incorporated into e-books licensing – accessibility, plagiarism, COUNTER code release 2, metadata, interactivity, derivatives, statistics, preservation, archiving….

Develop new licensing around Open Access model?

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Thank you

www.jiscebooksproject.org