held at University Central London, 8th May 2007
University of Central London (UCL) is working in conjuction with the library, students, faculty and publishers, to use it’s facilities as a laboratory to investigate e-books.It is focusing on different methods of e-book promotion, publishing models and how it is used.
The study is utilising benchmarking techniques to measure awareness & perceptions of e-books at the start and end of the study. Deep log analysis is being applied to gain an insight on how the content is accessed. This collects data on users latitude and longitude, by what route they found it, how long it was accessed for, print outs, number of visits, how deeply was the site explored.
Findings to date:
- Users are typically undergraduate, male and use Google.
- The catalogue is the strongest method of locating the e-book at 38% over Google 21%
- Usage was concentrated on a few high demand titles
- Large difference in take up between the disciplines
Growth points for e-books:
- Unblocks hardcopy bottlenecks
- Reaches out to new library users
- Takes traffic from e-journals
- More searchable than books
- Builds user confidence if 'walled gardens' are used
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