This document summarizes research from a study that investigated how college students use e-books and other reading technologies for academic and leisure reading. The study used focus groups, a Twitter-based diary study, and interviews. Key findings include: - Students' reading choices depend on needs, environment, ability to annotate and share. - Digital formats are preferred for quick tasks while print is preferred for annotating. - Reading is nonlinear, using multiple strategies like deep reading digitally and surface reading with print. - Use of formats varies by academic task, with digital preferred overall, especially for early research stages.

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Exploring the Use of E-Books:
An Investigation of
Reading Habits and
Practices in Academia
QQML 2014: 6th Qualitative
and Quantitative Methods
in Libraries International
Conference

2. +
Lisa Peet, Dan Nishimoto,
Josephine Evans, and Irene
Lopatovska
Pratt Institute
SWOT Analysis of
Emerging
Technology: The Case
of E-books

3. +
E-books in Academia
■ E-books have been around for decades resulting in a
flood of publications on this topic
■ recent 2012 article lists 1457 publications on e-books

4. +
SWOT
■ To ease navigation through vast amount of e-book
information, we summarized the major themes using the
SWOT technique (used in strategic planning)
■ Strengths
■ Weaknesses
■ Opportunities
■ Threats

5. +
E-book Strengths
■ Increased accessibility, and portability of collections
■ Semi-permanency, physical resiliency, and durability
■ Interactivity and availability of keyword searching,
annotation, and hyperlinked navigable text features
■ Support for interactive and contextual learning
■ Catalog synchronization
■ Intra- and interuniversity consortial programs that
increase content offerings at low cost

6. +
E-book Weaknesses
■ Limited content accessibility related to
a. e-book/e-reader functionality and
b. licensing and copyright issues
■ Costs associated with e-book pricing, licensing, and
processing

7. +
Opportunities Created by E-books
■ Increased collaboration and partnership
■ Enhanced content
■ Empowered library workforce
■ Enriched distance education
■ Platform innovation

8. +
Threats to E-books
■ Culture of print book readership
■ Usability and awareness of e-books
■ Lack of diverse e-book offerings
■ Lack of viable business models

9. +
Summary
SWOT
■ Helped to identify the embedded features of e-book
technology that make it desirable or undesirable for
academic libraries and their users
■ Outlined external factors (reading culture, legal and
business realities) affecting the current and future uses of
this technology

10. + Project Introduction: E-Reading in the
Academy
LIS 608: Human-Information Behavior
LIS 630: Information Science Research
Investigating Relationship of media choices to reading
practices in academia
Partner Institutions Research Samples collected from:
Barnard College at Columbia University
Brooklyn College
Teacher’s College
Pratt Institute SILS
Funding American Library Association (ALA) Carroll
Preston Barber Research Grant
Two
Classes

11. +
M. Christina Pattuelli,
Elizabeth Kaufer, Gina
Shelton, and Storey Sitwala
Pratt Institute
Real-time Reading:
A Twitter-based
Diary Study of
College Students

12. +
PROBLEM STATEMENT
■ What everyday life circumstances contribute to decisions
around reading experiences?
■ How is the nature of reading changing in the digital age?
■ How do readers make decisions about reading format?

13. +
Methods & Participants
Methods
■ Focus groups
■ Real-time diary using Twitter
■ Semi-structured interviews
Participants
■ 11 participants (5 from Barnard, 6 from Pratt)
■ 7 completed all three phases of the study

14. +
Diary-study using Twitter (1 of 5)
Diary method is used to collect person-level, spontaneous data in a
natural environment
Twitter as a diary method appears to be unique amongst studies
utilizing this tool

15. +
Diary-study using Twitter (2 of 5)
Study details:
■ Week-long
■ Event-contingent
■ Assigned protocol of tweet content
■ At least one photo of reading environment per day

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Diary-study using Twitter (3 of 5)
Advantages
■ Perceived as quick & easy
■ Promoted real-time responses
in natural environment
■ Easy to prompt in real-time
■ Twitter archive for data
analysis
■ Photos provided rich data
Disadvantages
■ Limited responses
■ Participants no following
protocol
■ Set-up of accounts was
laborious

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Diary-study using Twitter (4 of 5)
Reading formats by material types:

18. +
Diary-study using Twitter (5 of 5)
Format for academic & pleasure reading:

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Summary of Results
Needs, wants and expectations influence people’s choice of reading
strategies, environment and the type of interaction they have with reading
material. These factors interact to varying degrees depending on the
reader and their everyday life experiences at the time of reading.

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Theme 1: Environment
■ Physical environment
■ Tools
■ Cultural environment

21. +
Theme 2: Interactions
■ Annotations
■ Modifying texts
■ Sharing

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Theme 3: Reading Strategies
■ Receptive-Immersive:
“getting lost in a story”
■ Receptive-Inspectional:
Digital reading is easier to
“skim,” search within
documents”, but harder to
create a cognitive map (e.g.,
“don’t know what 53% means)
■ Responsive-Analytical:
“it (online reading) was slower to
read… and to remember what I was
doing”
■ Responsive- Exploratory:
About clicking on characters in e-book
to learn more,, “fabulous… but
a different type of reading
experience”
■ Responsive-Syntopical: “various (5-10) online articles
and blogs in prep for LIS info professionals blog I'm writing”

23. +
Deanna Sessions and
Storey Sitwala
Pratt Institute
A model of reading
in academia:
Relationships
among academic
tasks, information-seeking
stages and
reading strategies

24. +
Research Questions
■ Does academic task impact reading strategies and
information-seeking tactics?
■ Do task-related reading strategies and information-seeking
tactics influence selection of source and medium?

25. +
Model of Reading in Academia
We hypothesized
that preference
for reading
medium is not
universal but
instead is
influenced by the
context in which
that reading is
taking place,
particularly in
regards to
academic
reading.

26. +
Academic Tasks
Across all tasks:
- More deep reading
- Later info-seeking stages
- Use of scholarly articles,
databases, and search
- preference for digital
formats
- Most pronounced differences
on Presentation/Design
- Most reported percentages of
deep reading and digital
content

27. +
Reading Strategies and Styles
■ Variation exists by task for reading
strategy and medium preference
■ Reading is non-linear and multiple
strategies are used
■ Deep reading preference for
digital formats
■ Surface reading behaviors were
frequently reported, though always in
conjunction with deep reading

28. +
Information-Seeking Tactics
Tactics and format preferences vary by task and stage:
■ Strong preference for digital over
print resources at the early
initiation/
formulation and exploration stages
of
information-seeking
■ More balanced use of media as
students move into extraction/
finishing stages

29. +
Source and Medium
■ Unlike findings from other research (Daniel, 2013), more
than twice as many survey respondents indicated that
they used digital resources (69% digital; 31% print).
■ Preference for digital over print across academic task,
reading styles, and information-seeking tactics.

30. +
Recommendations
■ Academic librarians working in an environment where
students are frequently assigned art and design tasks
should remember students overwhelming preference for
digital.
■ The deep reading/digital preference indicates academic
librarians should consider providing digital content that
supports deep reading behaviors, such as re-reading,
note-taking, annotation, highlighting, and working with
multiple documents.
■ Features that assist with surface reading, such as search
functionality and pagination, which supports flipping
behaviors, may not be as crucial to digital collection
development decisions.

31. +
Peter Nicholas Otis and
Ashley Kelleher
Pratt Institute
Dimensions of
Control: Use of
Electronic Text and
Print Resources in
Academic Work

32. Problem Set
Q: How often do students simultaneously use multiple
reading technologies in a single workspace?
Q: Why do students integrate multiple reading technologies
within a single workspace?
Q: Do students feel a greater sense of control when
simultaneously commanding multiple reading resources
or technologies?
tronic Text and Print Resources in Academic Work

33. METHODOLOGY
Online Questionnaire (Survey Instrument I)
■ Remains the predominant form of qualitative research in the LIS field
Distribution, Term and Respondents
■ Disseminated via email to Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, Teachers College
Columbia University, and Barnard College, Columbia University
■ Open from September 09, 2013 to November 07, 2013
■ 83 Total Responses collected over two months returned from 30 graduate students, 4
undergraduates, 1 full time non-degree student, and 48 undeclared.of Electronic
Text and Print Resources in Academic Work

34. +
FINDINGS
Q: How often do students simultaneously use multiple
reading technologies in a single workspace?
■ A: 71% of respondents reported solely using one type of
reading technology.
■ A: 13% reported using one or more digital devices in
conjunction with printed ones.

35. FINDINGS

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FINDINGS
Q: Why do students integrate multiple reading technologies
within a single workspace?
■ A: Prominent trends in existing field literature affirmed:
■ Digital devices are best suited to quick information finding and gathering
■ Students prefer the print medium to annotate, highlight, and cognitively map
ideas
■ Users may prefer to engage resources on multiple monitors or digital surfaces
for subjective applications
■ Here, qualitative data proved fruitful:
■ “I like using paper printouts to read articles because notetaking is easier. I'm using two
computers at the moment because I want Gmail available on two monitors…one
computer with two separate monitors like graphic designers use would be nice.”

37. +
FINDINGS
Q: Do students feel a greater sense of control when
simultaneously commanding multiple reading resources
or technologies?
■ “The laptop is excellent for browsing through and saving articles...I also keep
a Word document open and type in notes or paste in sections I may quote in a
paper. However, when doing readings for class, I prefer to print because I
can highlight and add notes more easily, and having a stack of paper that I've
finished reading gives me more of a feeling of accomplishment.”

38. +
Irene Lopatovska, Pratt
Institute
Mariana Regalado, Brooklyn College, Library
Department
Regalado@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Eat, Rest, Work: A
Case Study of Four
Academic Libraries

39. +
Study of academic library spaces
■ RQ1: Are academic library spaces used?
■ RQ2: If so, how?
■ During one week in November 2013, we observed four
partner libraries:
■ Barnard College
■ Brooklyn College
■ Pratt Institute
■ Teacher’s College

40. +
Libraries are booming!
■ Most students engaged in
“academic” activities:
■ Writing (26)
■ Reading (24)
■ Annotating (14)
■ Browsing (11)
■ Working with multiple
documents (10)
■ Drawing (6) in Pratt
Institute, large Art and
Design depts

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Dominance of Digital Tools

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Social behavior was also observed
■ Talking (13)
■ Eating/drinking (12)
■ Headphones (6)
■ Staring (5)
■ Sleeping (1)

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Conclusion
■ Academic culture coexists with social; digital media with
print
■ Analysis indicated similar patterns in students behavior
across the four partner libraries
■ Pratt students used the library for art projects and
drawing - relates to the parent institute focus on Art
and Design education

44. +
Main lesson for libraries...
■ Get more power outlets!