The document presents a comparative analysis of the usage of electronic and print books at Duke University over several years, focusing on challenges with cataloging, data collection, and usage statistics. Key findings indicate that while print books are used more frequently than e-books, instances of dual format usage reveal interesting patterns suggesting that both formats can influence each other positively. The study highlights significant data discrepancies and supports the need for better standardization when cataloging and reporting e-book and print book use.

1. E or P? A Comparative Analysis of
Electronic and Print Book Usage
Electronic Resources & Libraries
Austin
March 19, 2013
Michael Levine-Clark
Christopher C. Brown

2. Methodology

3. Duke University Press eBooks
• Added October 2008
• Loaded MARC records December 2008
• Purchase all e/p
• 1,480 e-books
– Frontlist approximately 120 per year
– Backlist
• 2,416 p-books
• Many predate the e-book collection
• 1,150 in both formats

4. The Data
• Gathered circ data
– Through December 2008
– Each subsequent December (2009-2012)
– Cumulative
• Compiled e-book use data
– At end of each year, 2009-2012
– For each year

5. Apples and Oranges
• pBook checkouts
– Undergrad: 3 weeks
– Grad: 10 weeks
– Faculty: 1 year
– Potentially many uses per checkout, and some
when deciding to checkout
• eBook use
– One time in the book is one use

6. About Discovery and Data
• Discovery through catalog records
• Data merger issues:
– Title variations
– ISBN complexities
– Multi-volume issues

7. E and P Typically Pattern Together in
Results
Classic
Catalog
Encore (next-gen)
Catalog

8. Data Difficulties: Title Variations
Catalog Record Vendor Record
Series used with title The Sri Lanka reader : World Readers : Sri
history, culture, Lanka Reader : History,
politics / John Clifford Culture, Politics
Holt, ed.
Series used with title Julia Child's The French Spin Offs : Julia Child's
chef / Dana Polan. The French Chef
Word renderings Present tense : rock & Present Tense : Rock
roll and culture and Roll and Culture
Spaces Percussion : drumming, Percussion: Drumming,
beating, striking Beating, Striking
Vendors and catalogers don’t necessarily agree on title formation.
This makes matching on title impossible.

9. More Title Variations
Catalog Record Vendor Record
Gremlin characters Affective communities : Affective communities:
(diacritics) anticolonial thought, fin-de-anticolonial thought, Fin-De-
si├ ¿cle radicalism, and the SiFcle radicalism, and the
politics of friendship politics of friendship
Presence/Absence of The life and traditions of the
Life and Traditions of the Red
Subtitles Red man Man : A rediscovered
treasure of Native American
Literature
Title Discrepencies A coincidence of desires : Coincidence of Desire :
anthropology, queer studies, Anthropology, Queer
Indonesia Studies, Indonesia
Translated Titles Desencuentros de la Divergent Modernities :
modernidad en América Culture and Politics in
Latina. English, Divergent Nineteenth-Century Latin
modernities : culture and America
politics in nineteenth-
century Latin America

10. Data Difficulties: Multiple ISBNs

11. Data Difficulties: ISBN 10? ISBN 13?

12. Data Difficulties: ISBN Irregularities
Note the ISBN10 with ISBN 13, the parentheses, and the
multiple ISBNs.

13. Data Solution: Create an ISBN 9
ISBN 9 eliminates the ISBN 13 – 978 prefix
and the final check-digit, creating a useable
match-point, in cases where the electronic
and print versions agree on base ISBN.

14. Data Difficulties: Too Many
Sources
• Usage reports include only titles that are
actually used
– Needed to pull in unused titles from elsewhere
• Different formats

15. Data Methodology using Microsoft Access
• Get annual use stats of e-books from vendor
• Get master list of e-titles from vendor.
• Derive ISBN9 for each list for proper overlay
• Overlay annual use stats onto master list of e-books
• Get circ stats for print books from ILS
• Derive master list of all print titles from ILS
• Derive ISBN 9 for each p title.
• Overlay annual circ stats onto master list of p-books
• Merge circ and use data together

16. Summary of Data Issues
Vendor’s idea of title
Cataloger’s idea of title ISBN Differences
Vendor records may
Catalog records contain Title Differences: contain ISBN 10 or
multiple ISBNs, 10 or “and” vs “&”, etc. ISBN 13
13 digit
Print Books
Print Books E-Books
E-Books
Circulation stats purged Can we compare What does an e-usage
after a time a print circ with an mean?
What does a e-use?
“circulation” mean?

17. Data Conclusions
• Microsoft Access for overlays; Microsoft Excel
for analysis
• Overlay on title is nearly impossible
• Better standards are needed – a single ISBN,
please!
• Deriving an “ISBN9” was the only way to get
anywhere, but even this was far from perfect

18. Usage

19. eBooks
• User Sessions
– 588 titles used (39.7%)
– 5,149 sessions
• 8.8 per title used
• 3.5 per title in the
collection
– 892 titles not used
• Pages Viewed
– Total pages: 35,236
– Average (for books
used): 59.9
– Highest: 2,861

20. eBooks
• Pages Printed
– 68 titles
– Total pages: 3,244
– Average: 47.7 pages
– Highest: 380
• Pages Copied
– 54 titles
– Total pages: 640
– Average: 11.9 pages
– Highest: 64

21. pBooks
• 1,528 titles used (63.2%)
• 903 titles used since Dec
2008 (37.4%)
• 4,611 checkouts (2,930
before Dec 2008)
– 3.0 per title used
– 1.9 per title
– 1.1 per title (post 2008
use)
– 0.7 per title (post 2008)

22. Most Used eBooks, User Sessions
• Women and Gender Equity in Development
Theory and Practice (2006)
– 1,821 user sessions (1,706 in 2012)
– 2,861 pages viewed (2,765 in 2012)
– 380 pages printed (all in 2012)
– 8 checkouts (6 since 2008)
• Date Which Will Live (2003)
– 399 User Sessions (all in 2011-2012)
– 494 pages viewed
– 93 pages printed
– 3 checkouts (1 each in 2009, 2011, 2012)

23. Most Used pBooks
• The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and
Planning (1993)
– 37 checkouts (36 before Dec 2008)
– 2 user sessions, 0 pages printed
• Displacing Whiteness: Essays In Social and
Cultural Criticism (1997)
– 24 checkouts (22 before Dec 2008)
– 3 user sessions, 0 pages printed

24. Most Used pBooks Since 2008
• Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema
(2000)
– 19 checkouts (12 since 2008)
– No eBook
• The Cinema of Naruse Mikio (2008)
– 11 checkouts (all since 2008)
– 6 user sessions, 45 pages viewed
• Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things
(2010)
– 11 checkouts (all since 2010)
– 7 user sessions, 205 pages viewed

25. Dual Format Availability: A
Preference for Print
• 1,150 titles available in both formats
• Print Use
– 619 titles checked out since Dec 2008 (53.8%)
– 825 titles checked out (including before Dec 2008)
(71.7%)
• Electronic Use
– 451 titles with user sessions (39.2%)

26. Dual Format Use
• 394 titles used in both formats
– 4,221 user sessions (2,400 without the 1,821 use
title)
• 10.7 per title used (6.1)
– 1,524 p-book checkouts (801 before Dec 2008)
• 3.9 per title used (1.8 for uses since 2008)
– 54 titles with pages printed (out of 68)
• 7.4 pages per title used
– 68.4 pages viewed on average

27. Dual Format Use post-2008
• 332 titles used in both formats
– 3981 user sessions (2,160 without the 1,821 use
title)
• 12.3 per title used (6.7)
– 712 p-book checkouts
• 2.2 per title used
– 48 titles with pages printed (out of 68)
• 8.3 pages per title used
– 72.0 pages viewed on average

28. P Used, E Not
• 431 titles
– 1,004 checkouts
• 2.3 per title used
– 297 titles with
checkouts since 2008
• 479 checkouts
– 1.6 per title used

29. E Used, P Not
• 57 titles
• 246 user sessions
– 4.3 per title
• 906 pages viewed
– 15.9 per title
• 3 titles with pages
printed

30. eBook Use

31. eBook Use

32. Print Use

33. How Closely Are P/E Usage
Linked?

34. Increased Checkouts, 2008-2012
• For titles available at the start of the project
(Dec 2008), how many more checkouts were
there by Dec 2012?
• Was that increase linked in any way to e-
usage?
• Was it linked in any way to type of e-usage?

35. Increased Checkouts 2008-2012
• 686 titles with increased checkouts
– Measuring titles available prior to Dec 2008
• 408 available in both formats
• 235 also had e-use
– 15.5 user sessions per title
– 81.2 pages viewed per title

36. Observations
• Use of E may lead to use of P
• Use of P doesn’t seem to lead to use of E
• If both formats are used,
– they are both used at a higher rate than average
– They have greater meaningful use as e-books
• Pages viewed
• User sessions

37. Thoughts
• If dual format usage is higher by all measures,
does this mean that people’s preference is for
good content, not format?
BUT
• When both formats are available, print is
more likely to be used (53.8% vs 39.2%).
– Does e-discovery drive p-use?

38. Does Subject Impact Use?

39. LC Class Example: B – Philosophy,
Psychology, Religion
• 148 titles in print (6.1% • 1.9 checkouts per title
of all Duke print titles) used (all print) (+0.8)
– 64 titles checked out • 2.3 checkouts per title
since 2008 (7.1%) (both formats used)
• 102 e-books (6.9%) (+0.5)
– 49 e-books used (8.3%) • 5.1 user sessions per title
• 79 titles available in (both formats used) (-1.0)
both formats (6.9%)
– 48 titles checked out
(7.8%)
– 40 e-books used (8.9%)

40. LC Class – Best & Worst in Print
(Difference Between % of Collection
and % of Checkouts – post 2008)
• P – Lang & Lit (n=579): • M – Music (63): +2.4%
-4.6% • F – Hist of Americas
• H – Soc Sci (515): -1.1% (183): +1.5%
• J – Poli Sci (178): -0.8% • G – Geog, Anth, Rec
• Q – Science (38): -0.7% (82): +1.3%
• T – Technology (44): • E – Hist of Americas
-0.5% (140): +1.2%
• B – Phil, Psych, Rel
(148): +1.0%

41. LC Class – Best & Worst eBooks
(Difference Between % of Collection
and % of Titles with User Session)
• P – Lang & Lit (n=285): • B – Phil, Psych, Rel
-3.3% (102): +1.4%
• Q – Science (23): -0.5% • F – Hist of Americas
• M – Music (64): -0.4% (158): +0.9%
• T – Technology (22): • N – Art (42): +0.7%
-0.3% • D – History (107): +0.4%
• K – Law (40): -0.2% • E – Hist of Americas
(98): +0.4%

42. LC Class – Best & Worst E &P
(Difference Between % of Collection
and % of Titles Used – Both Available)
• P – Lang & Lit (n=231): • E – Hist of Americas
-3.9% P, -3.9% E (81): +1.0% P, +0.9% E
• Q – Science (18): -0.6% • B – Phil, Psych, Rel (79):
P, -0.7% E +1.4% P, +2.0% E
• T – Technology (19): • H - Soc Sci (260): +0.4%
-0.5% P, -0.5% E P, 0.0% E
• G – Geog, Anth, Rec • D – History (87): +0.4%
(52): -0.3% P, +2.0% E P, -0.2% E

43. Two Oddities – E&P Available
• J – Poli Sci (54): +1.0% P, -0.5% E
• M – Music (48): +1.3% P, -0.8% E

44. Observations
• Some of the subject and format differences
have to do with publication date
– Lots of old social science material in print
• Some differences are surely local
• The sample size for most LC Classes is too
small to be meaningful

45. Further Questions
• How does discovery play in?
• What might ILL/resource sharing tell us about
demand for P when E is available?

46. Thank You