An Exploration of ebook Selection Behavior in Academic Library Collections

Abstract

Abstract. Academic libraries have offered ebooks for some time, however little is known about how readers interact with them while making relevance decisions. In this paper we seek to address that gap by analyzing ebook transaction logs for books in a university library.Keywords: ebooks, log analysis, book selection, HCI, information behavior IntroductionConsider the process of borrowing a book from a library (digital or physical): the reader searches or browses the collection to identify candidate books that are potentially relevant; they each candidate book to assess its actual relevance; and they borrow those books deemed relevant to explore them more depth at a later date. Of course, finding a useful book is rarely so straightforward: these stages may be sequential or interleaved. In this paper, we consider a specific aspect of this process: the examination of a candidate book after the candidate has been identified in the library collection; we focus specifically on ebooks. How a reader explores physical books when making relevance decisions-which parts of books are viewed, how quickly, in what orderhas been relatively neglected [8], likely because such a study in a physical domain would be intrusive and 'creepy' [16]. To our knowledge this aspect of ebook selection has also not been explored, surprisingly, given that the availability of ebook transaction logs allows such a study to be conducted post hoc so as to avoid disturbing the experience of those using an ebook collection. This paper describes exactly such a study based on the transaction logs of a university library ebook collection.In Section 2 of this paper we explore the previous research on ebook usage and book selection (both physical and electronic); in Section 3 we describe the ebook collection on which our study is based and gives details of the log sample we analyzed. Section 4 presents the results of our analysis, including which parts of the

A Log Analysis Study of 10 Years of eBook Consumption in Academic Library Collections

“…Even though a number of studies on eBook collections have been reported [1,27,21,22], Tucker observes that due to the rapidly and constantly evolving nature of this field, the conclusions from works published as recently as five years previously may or may not be applicable to the current environment [32]. Furthermore, the variation in data made available complicates comparative analyses [8,9,26,29].…”

“…Transaction log analysis is also commonly used in studies to understand user behaviour and information seeking in online library catalogues [5,4] and digital libraries [19,24]. Using transaction log analysis can help to provide insight into aspects of the reading process that may not be easily observed otherwise [25,22]. Previous studies using the Ebrary system have looked into user penetration as a tool for librarians improving their services, e.g., [26].…”

“…Other studies have looked into subject-related acceptance of eBooks, and publisher market share, e.g., finding that eBooks in health sciences and hotel had highest usage [32]. Overall, the lack of recent data on eBook selection is widely acknowledged [28,22,14], and an awareness for the frequency with which patrons abandon their search [23] indicates a need for further research. The patrons' difficulties with digital systems for eBook search and selection likely result in lost sales (in online bookshops) or unwarranted paid use (in libraries, where readers perceive books as "free" [13]).…”

“…The eCollections surveyed in this study are Ebrary and EBL. While the selection and consumption of physical books has been comprehensively studied (e.g, [14,30,31]), the library patrons' habits in accessing eBooks have been less well explored (e.g., [22] studied how patrons make relevancy decisions when selecting eBooks). In the current paper, we explore the consumption of eBooks, in particular the use of patron-driven acquisition, eBook acceptance and usage, and the handling of eBooks in an academic library.…”

Tyranny of Distance: Understanding Academic Library Browsing by Refining the Neighbour Effect

“…This paper refines the neighbour effect by examining day-of-week variance, the distance between relatively nearby books borrowed on the same day (co-borrowed books), the impact of topic boundaries, and the distance between co-borrowed books in search results. Given the prevalence of complaints about digital library browsing systems [1,6,12], developing a better understanding of browsing in is a vital step to improving users' experience of DLs. This paper thus aims to increase and improve our understanding of browsing.…”