Since their introduction in the 1990s, academic e-books have been a growing part of library collections, both in their total number and as a proportion of those collections. Research over the previous 20 years has consistently shown that students prefer to use physical books when studying, yet library e-book collections continue to grow. This bachelor’s thesis presents the results of a study into how students use academic e-books and which format (if any) they prefer to use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six students at varying levels of their studies and the results analysed using a qualitative thematic approach. The theoretical frameworks used to discuss the results are cognitive psychology (how to read e-books) and reading theory (the best approach to adopt when reading books). The key findings are that students still prefer to use physical books when reading for learning (deep reading) but that they appreciate the affordances that most e-books offer when skimming and dipping for informational reading. The students’ level of academic study did not affect their views on academic e-books.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-26756 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Bendall, Paul |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Borås, Akademin för bibliotek, information, pedagogik och IT |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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