E-textbook use, information seeking behaviour and its impact: Case study business and management

This paper evaluates the e-book usage and information seeking and reading behaviour of thousands of business and management students. Comparisons are made with students in other subjects. The data largely come from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)-funded National e-Books Observatory (NeBO) project as well as the JISC User Behaviour Observational Study. The main sources of data were: a) transactional logs obtained from the MyiLibrary platform regarding 127 UK universities; b) questionnaire data for more than 5000 students and staff at these universities; c) hard-copy library circulation and retail sales data; and d) focus groups held with 50 staff and students from selected universities. The main findings were that e-textbooks can prove to be extremely popular and widely used, mainly for obtaining snippets of information and for fact finding. The main reason for using e-textbooks was ease of access and convenience.