As a means of aiding students who struggle with the high cost of textbooks, some libraries now leverage their ebook subscription packages to provide etextbooks for courses. In this institution, the engineering librarians routinely offer ebook versions of engineering textbooks whenever possible. Although this institution has been following this principle for the past ten years, it has done so with little direct knowledge of students’ preferences regarding their options for print versus ebook format for their textbooks, and some studies have shown that students expressed a preference for using their textbooks in print format. To assess the usefulness of the service of providing etextbooks, the librarians in this institution have developed and plan to send a survey to engineering graduate and undergraduate students whose textbooks are available as etextbooks. The survey seeks to learn about students’ use of the ebooks and their opinions about etextbooks. As a follow up to the survey, a focus group that will provide more qualitative information is planned. Survey and focus group results may inform not only changes to the service of providing etextbooks, but also can be shared with publishers to potentially inform improvements to ebook platforms. This paper reports on the results of the survey and focus group and implications for the future.
Leena Lalwani is an Assistant Director, Engineering & Coordinator for Engineering & Science collections at the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library (AAEL) at the University of Michigan. She is also the liaison Librarian for Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and Entrepreneurship. Leena has been a librarian at University of Michigan since 1995 in various ranks. Prior to joining University of Michigan, Leena has worked as Librarian at Gelman Sciences and American Tobacco Company. Leena has a M.L.S. degree from Catholic University of America and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Mumbai.
Paul Grochowski is an engineering librarian at the University of Michigan. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a MLIS degree from Wayne State University.
Engineering Librarian
Computer Science, Nuclear Energy, Climate & Space Science
University of Michigan — Ann Arbor
I received a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and then trained as a postdoc in the Harvard and University of Michigan psychology departments. I have conducted institutional research at the University of Michigan, and I started my current work as the Assessment Specialist in the U-M Library in the spring of 2018.
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