Submitted by Jean Gudenas,
Health Sciences Library, Loyola University, Chicago, IL
As the second part of a continuing analysis evaluating the digital content needs of the Loyola University medical community, this project explores the results of an electronic book (e-book) survey created during the summer of 2008 that was emailed to the students, faculty and staff of the Loyola University Medical Center, Stritch School of Medicine and Neihoff School of Nursing.
The goal of that survey was to identify patron satisfaction with electronic resources (specifically e-books), and the results indicated that many patrons either were not aware of an e-book collection or could not distinguish between the electronic book and journal collections. Thus, the promotion of e-books seemed to be essential to ensure awareness of e-book availability, which ultimately would increase patron use of the e-book collection.
This project started with an examination of literature published between 2000-2009 concerning the promotion, development and use of electronic books within an academic and health sciences environment. I had recently redesigned the library website, which provided an opportunity for me to apply several methods for e-book promotion. I strategically placed information, tutorials and database accessibility throughout the website to encourage the patrons to use, learn and perhaps recognize the advantages of e-books. In addition to website promotion, I sent several emails to new and returning graduate, medical and nursing students. These emails highlighted the e-book collection and linked to e-book tutorials I created.
Something I found interesting from my research was that some academic library communities still believe that there is little or no demand for e-books. I feel this lack of demand is probably a consequence of unawareness about the capabilities and availability of e-books. Also problematic is that there is a variety of terms and concepts that illustrates the difficulty in defining the term e-book. So, it seems that for electronic books to be widely accepted, they must be designed with a goal of transforming the way students interact with the e-book to significantly enhance student learning. I had hoped that by promoting the resources, students would start using e-books.
Of my three chosen methods of promotion, the most successful was email. Sending the email resulted with immediate increase in e-book activity. The least successful were the online tutorials; however, five of the seven people who had looked through the tutorials felt that they were very helpful.
After digesting the survey results, one of my concerns is that electronic textbooks seem to focus more on replicating the physical book experience instead of highlighting the advantages of e-books. This dependence on a book analogy may become increasingly untenable as the nature of print books and e-books diverge.
In the comments section from the survey, the most common complaint was the usability of the interface. Most interfaces do not have the option to do anything more than read text on the screen and occasionally follow a link. However, until e-book interfaces become less like a physical book and offer advantages that only an electronic resource can offer, there is only so much promotion that I can do. I have made the Loyola community aware of our e-book resources, so at this point I know the best path is to continue to highlight what we have available and not focus on the inadequacies of the interface.