ATG Special Report--ProQuest's 2016 Global Student and Researcher eBook Survey

Against the Grain Volume 28 | Issue 5 Article 22 2016 ATG Special Report--ProQuest's 2016 Global Student and Researcher eBook Survey Allen McKiel Western Oregon University, Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation McKiel, Allen (2016) "ATG Special Report--ProQuest's 2016 Global Student and Researcher eBook Survey," Against the Grain: Vol. 28: Iss. 5, Article 22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.7519 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact for additional information. ATG Special Report — ProQuest’s 2016 Global Student and Researcher eBook Survey by Allen McKiel (Dean of Library Services, Western Oregon University) <> T his year ProQuest, which includes ebrary, EBL, and Ebook Central platforms, initiated another global student and researcher survey on their use of eBooks. Over 2,000 students and researchers, from a reasonably representative sampling of subject disciplines, from over 600 colleges and universities took the survey. Undergraduates comprised 48%, graduates 23%, PhD candidates 10%, librarians 10%, and staff 5%. The survey contained similar questions contained in the first two global student surveys that ebrary conducted in 2008 and 2011 concerning the perceived strengths and weaknesses of eBooks as well as preferences and attitudes about them. The following article compares the responses from the three surveys. Student Rating of Resource Usefulness Questions 7 (1561 responses) and 8 (1533 responses) of the 2016 survey asked students how important electronic and print resources (respectively) were to completing research/class assignments. The ebrary surveys from 2008 and 2011, had similar questions for student use of resources for academic assignments and asked students to select those that they used from a list of nearly the same options. The values used in Table 1 for the 2008 and 2011 surveys are the percentages of students who selected the resources. The 2016 survey asked students to rate the resources extreme, very, moderately, slightly, not at all useful or no opinion. I have rank ordered the responses as a percentage of the students who rated the resource “extremely” or “very useful.” Although the questions report different types of responses, the percentages can be preference ordered by their rankings. “Google and other search engines” has held the top rank all three years as the most useful resource for students. eBooks have fallen from second and third places for 2008 and 2011 respectively to sixth place in 2016. Conversely, e-journals have ascended from sixth and seventh place from 2008 and 2011 respectively to second place in 2016; and printed textbooks have ascended from seventh place in 2008 to third place in 2016. E-textbooks moved from eleventh and twelfth in 2008 and 2011 respectively to eighth in 2016. Print books moved from third (2008) to second (2011) and then to fourth place (2016). E-reference moved from fourth (2008) to fifth (2011 and 2016). Table 1 – Student Resource Academic Usage Comparison between 2016, 2011 and 2008 Surveys Preference for eBook or Print Book In the 2008 and 2011 surveys, students were asked if they had an option for print or online, would they choose eBooks. The options were “very often or often,” “sometimes,” “rarely or never.” Preferences for using eBook versions of a book were nearly the same in 2008 and 2011. Both surveys show (See Table 2) a skew toward eBooks with 51% and 48% (respectively) selecting “very often or often” and 32% selecting “sometimes” for both years. In 2016, the survey asked students a differently phrased question — to select a preference for eBooks, print, or no preference. The responses cannot be directly compared to the 2008 and 2011 survey questions but the responses suggest a similar preference for eBooks in 2016 with 44% of students who say they “prefer eBook.” The preference for using eBooks makes sense in an academic environment that relies heavily on online resources. As reported in an earlier question, search engines and e-journals are their primary information resources. Students are using online resources and tools. They use at least email, MS Word, and PowerPoint as authoring and communicating tools. They also use search terms within text for navigation. The fact that the preference is marginal is more unexpected. The reasons for using or not using eBooks are addressed next. Table 2 – Preferences for eBooks over Print Books Using eBooks Questions 10 and 19 are very similar. Question 10 reads, “What are the situations where you find eBooks particularly useful for research/class assignments?” And Question 19 asks, “What are some of the features you like most about eBooks?” They are both open ended questions and as you would expect, the questions and responses were very similar so I have combined examples in order of descending frequency of the most used terms. The top words in question 10 responses were library, find, search, access, research, carry, and useful. Those for question 19 were search, carry, find, access, easier, and anywhere. Posting comments from the responses under the most common terms provides an impression of the breadth of responses. Desirable Features of and Fortuitous Situations for eBook Use Library When the library does not have a print copy When I’m too lazy to go to the library Don’t have time to go to the library Grouped in subjects on the library shelves Can access everything and there are more options than compared to our library When the library is closed Find, search When I conduct theme-related assignments When I am trying to find a particular phrase or key term Access, easier, and useful Google Scholar When I don’t have time to go to the library Mobility, on the go, away from home continued on page 74 Against the Grain / November 2016 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> 73 Global Student and Researcher eBook Survey from page 73 Lighter than a book Doesn’t take up space Always and immediately available Costs less than the print Copy paste Collaboration online Researching public domain in older texts eBook Features Table 3 contains the comparative results of the 2008, 2011, and 2016 survey questions concerning eBook features. The 2008 and 2011 feature lists were the same. The 2016 list had eight features in common with them. The top 10 features from 2016 are included in the comparison even though two of the features do not have 2008 and 2011 counterparts. The percentage scores can’t be directly compared between the earlier surveys and the 2016 survey, though they are similar. The question in the earlier surveys asked students to choose between three options very, somewhat, and not important. The question in 2016 provided six options extremely, very, moderately, slightly, not at all important, and no opinion. In both cases the rank was calcul (...truncated)