Purpose -This article is an edited version of a report commissioned by the British Library and JISC to identify how the specialist researchers of the future (those born after 1993) are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years' time. The purpose is to investigate the impact of digital transition on the information behaviour of the Google Generation and to guide library and information services to anticipate and react to any new or emerging behaviours in the most effective way. Design/methodology/approach -The study was virtually longitudinal and is based on a number of extensive reviews of related literature, survey data mining and a deep log analysis of a British Library and a JISC web site intended for younger people. Findings -The study shows that much of the impact of ICTs on the young has been overestimated. The study claims that although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web. Originality/value -The paper reports on a study that overturns the common assumption that the "Google generation" is the most web-literate.

ABSTRACT. The paper reports on a major

This article reports on a large-scale survey of nearly two thousand faculty and students at one institution, University College London, and profiles their use and perceptions of ebooks. The context for the study is an action research project, CIBER's SuperBook, that will further investigate the issues raised in this initial benchmarking survey using deep log analysis and qualitative methods. The survey findings point to various ways in which user uptake and acceptance of e-books may be encouraged. Book discovery behaviour, a key issue for publishers and librarians in both print and electronic environments, emerges as a critical focus for service delivery and enhancement. Context for the researchUntil very recently, research into how digital resources are used within the academy has focused primarily on journals. Considerable steps have been made by CIBER in understanding journal user behaviour, through groundbreaking studies of Emerald, Blackwell Synergy, OhioLINK, and Oxford Open journal platforms. These studies led on the analysis of the digital "fingerprints" left by the users of electronic journals. However, the virtual scholar uses a much wider range of digitally delivered content to achieve their research, teaching and learning goals. As a first step towards a more rounded picture of how digital resources are used, we are now subjecting e-books, the new kid on the block, to the same robust approach that we have previously reserved for journals.There is much talk about the market potential for e-books, especially in a higher education context, but few robust user studies. This is worrying because e-books have, arguably, greater potential to change the information landscape than journals. We are addressing this issue through SuperBook, an action research study, funded by Wiley, Emerald and CIBER, which involves 'dropping' about three thousand carefully selected e-texts into the UCL community and then

Background: Breaches of publication ethics such as plagiarism, data fabrication and redundant publication are recognised as forms of research misconduct that can undermine the scientific literature. We surveyed journal editors to determine their views about a range of publication ethics issues.

This article reports on a large‐scale international survey of authors' perception and experience of the journals system conducted by ciber in association with National Opinion Polls (NOP). It explores the factors that inform authors' decisions where to publish and, in particular, which groups of readers they perceive to be most important. It probes readership behaviour and the values that underlie authors' attitudes towards copyright and emerging business models, notably open access. It is concluded that many aspects of author behaviour are highly conservative and that a significant shift towards open access is, in the short to medium term, highly unlikely.

PurposeThis JISC funded UK National E‐Books Observatory study is a benchmarking survey of e‐book usage and perceptions in more than 120 participating universities. The paper aims to present the results that investigated: use of e‐books in general (methods of obtaining e‐books, reasons for using, viewing/reading behaviour in connection with e‐books); use of e‐books provided by the library; use of JISC collection texts (use and awareness); use of the library and print material in general.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on an online survey which was conducted between 18 January and 1 March 2008, over which period 22,437 full or partial responses were received.FindingsThe study shows that e‐book penetration is very strong (61.8 per cent of all students are already using them in connection with their scholarly work, as teachers or students), so the e‐book revolution has already happened but clearly it has some way to go.Originality/valueThe paper presents the results of the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted, which represents a huge advance in one's knowledge of e‐book use on a national scale.

No abstract

This paper evaluates the e-book usage and information seeking and reading behaviour of thousands of business and management students. Comparisons are made with students in other subjects. The data largely come from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)-funded National e-Books Observatory (NeBO) project as well as the JISC User Behaviour Observational Study. The main sources of data were: a) transactional logs obtained from the MyiLibrary platform regarding 127 UK universities; b) questionnaire data for more than 5000 students and staff at these universities; c) hard-copy library circulation and retail sales data; and d) focus groups held with 50 staff and students from selected universities. The main findings were that e-textbooks can prove to be extremely popular and widely used, mainly for obtaining snippets of information and for fact finding. The main reason for using e-textbooks was ease of access and convenience.