Students in the UK who recently participated in ebrary’s Global Student E-book Survey reported a greater preference for digital over printed books and higher usage than their global counterparts in a similar survey conducted in 2011. When asked how often they would choose e-books over printed books, 58 percent of UK students stated they would ‘very often’ to ‘often’ choose the digital version if it were available compared to 48 percent of global respondents.
Over 85 percent of UK students indicated they use e-books up to 10 hours per week and only 10 percent stated that they never use e-books. In contrast, 52 percent of global participants indicated they use e-books up to 10 hours per week, and another 46 percent stated they never use e-books. About 5 percent of UK students indicated they use e-books more than 10 hours per week compared to 2 percent of global respondents.
Additionally, more than 80 percent of UK students reported that their awareness of digital resources is good to excellent, compared to less than 69 percent of global participants. Only 6 percent of UK students indicated they did not know their libraries offered e-books compared to 38 percent of global respondents.
The 2011 Global Student E-book Survey was created by librarians and sponsored by ebrary, a ProQuest business. More than 6,300 students from academic institutions around the world participated in the informal study. Additional data will be forthcoming from approximately two hundred students who recently completed the survey in The University of Nottingham, University of Portsmouth, Coventry University, and The University of Central Lancashire.
ebrary will be presenting the UK-specific results and how they compare to the 2011 findings as well as a similar survey conducted in 2008 at the UCL E-Books and E-Content event on May 10. Anyone may register to receive a complimentary copy of the presentation by registering at http://www.tfaforms.com/243949. The 2011 Global Student E-book Survey and other studies sponsored by ebrary are available at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/surveys.
