Group items tagged

"Springer has released eBook Use and Acceptance in an Undergraduate Institution. Here's an excerpt : The survey finds high use of eBooks at Wellesley College, with 70% of the respondents indicating they have used eBooks. Other recent international surveys of eBook use have shown 52-64% of students or faculty responding that they have used eBooks (Figure 10). Within the general U.S. population 21% of adults reported having used eBooks in 2011. Some eBook use by Wellesley students and faculty may be non-academic, leisure reading, but half of Wellesley's eBook users report having used eBooks from the Wellesley College Library's collection."

"Senior campus IT officers remain bullish on the future of eBooks. Nine-tenths (90.1 percent) of the survey participants agree or strongly agree that "eBook content will be an important source for instructional resources in five years," up from 86.5 percent in 2010 and 76.3 percent in 2009. Additionally, more than four-fifths (81.7 percent, compared to 78.6 percent in 2010 and 66.0 percent in 2009) agree/strongly agree that "eBook readers (hardware) will be important platforms for instructional content in five years.""

"The Association of American Publishers released a report today that shows that ebooks have beaten hardcover revenues for the first time. Ebook revenues topped out at $282.3 million YTD while hardcovers hit $229.6. "

"Brad Miller and David Ranum have opened up their eBook for general use at their new http://interactivepython.org site. This is the book whose use we have been studying for the last year as part of our CSLearning4U effort. It's a great alternative to the Udacity/Coursera model of distance education, to make a book more like a course, rather than capture the course in video. "

"Australia, India, the U.K. and the U.S. lead the world in e-book adoption rates, according to Bowker Market Research's Global eBook Monitor, released on March 27. In each of those countries, more than 20 percent of respondents report purchasing e-books in the six months before the survey, and about a third of respondents in the U.K. and U.S. say they have plans to purchase an e-book soon."

"This is an open proposal to the CUNY community. Take action to drastically reduce the cost of textbooks and create a CUNY-wide eBook program. "

"One in 10 college students said they have bought an electronic book in the past three months, and 56 percent of those who had purchased an eBook said it was for educational purposes, according to a study released last month by the National Association of College Stores (NACS) OnCampus Research Division." (2010)

Given that ebooks cannot be loaned, does the shift toward them increase the "digital divide"?

Good, deep question. A few thoughts: -device-specific ebooks certainly are a problem, esp when costs rise -Kindle books can be loaned -American racial minorities tend to make more use of phones (feature) than whites

Addresses concerns about long term access to ebooks. Suggests ePUB as the least bad option, although DRM is an issue.

Very nice discussion. I'm glad he understands how segmented the market is.

"The Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore College Libraries have significantly expanded their collection of academic ebooks through the addition of more than 40,000 titles issued since 2006 by Cambridge University Press, the University of Chicago Press, Princeton University Press, Palgrave, and many other scholarly publishers. The books are available in Tripod, and new books will be added each week as publishers issue them."

That's a big move.

Very good, condensed overview of ebook issues.

Swarthmore embraces ebooks

Lots of cool stuff there, including Miro and 3d printing.Are ebooks going to be associated with better-endowed schools?

"Daytona State, a 35,000-student institution and a former community college, has been moving toward a "100 percent" eBook campus since 2009, using electronic texts in English, computer science, and economics courses, said Rand Spiwak, Daytona's chief financial officer and executive vice president."

"The wait is over for readers eager to download Kindle books from their local library. Some 11,000 libraries are now offering books for Amazon's ebook platform."

JISC publication.

stats on ebook reading & more from Pew study on future of libraries

"The mass market paperback is dead. It just doesn't know it yet. Ailing for months, its demise is now all but assured by Amazon's recent bold announcement. Not the over-analyzed, over-iPad-compared Kindle Fire announcement. Rather, by the far less interesting news - to the gadgetphiles - that the least expensive, wonderfully readable and portable Kindle is now $79, a price point matched over the Black Friday holiday by Barnes & Noble for its Nook Simple Touch Limited Edition."

"This past fall fully 90 percent percent of the CIOs who participated in the annual Campus Computing Survey agreed that "eBook content will be an important source for instructional resources in five years," up from 76 percent in fall 2009. Campus IT leaders were also bullish, if slightly less so, on the rising role of eReaders as a "platform for instructional content" (82 percent agreed in fall 2011, compared to 66 percent in 2009)."