Ohio State libraries are conducting a study on the popularity of electronic books among library patrons.
“Preliminary statistics show that our users are more likely to use an item electronically, rather than wait a few days,” said Marsha Hamilton, associate professor at OSU, who is overseeing this study.
The overarching goal of this study is to make resources as available as necessary at the lowest cost.
Hamilton said that the library is changing and needs to meet the needs of professional, graduate and undergraduate students.
“Undergraduate students are in their comfort zone when reading electronically rather than waiting or walking to a library to pick it up,” Hamilton said.
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This study is being conducted by adding 43,000 e-books to the 10,000 e-books already in the library system. These e-books were added to the system Jan. 18 and will be in the system until Feb. 24. If these new e-books get enough interactions, it will trigger that resource for potential purchase.
This test is being implemented through the e-book vendor ebrary.com. They wanted to see what books are popularly being used by OSU library patrons. This study is for research purposes only and OSU will not be purchasing books at this time.
OSU did a pilot test like this previously, adding 16,000 e-books to their inventory for 37 days. Out of those 16,000, 450 books were triggered for purchase.
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