Is E-Book a Good Choice for Academic Reading?

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Overall, the data from this survey show a trend towards using e-books in academic environment. Firstly, all the participants, who are in master programs with lots of research works, have the reading devices which are personal and portable like laptop, smart phone and tablet to help them easily get access to the e-books they need. Secondly, even though there are only two of the participants think that e-books are more favorable than printed ones, most of them (four out of five) are choosing electronic version for their textbooks. The reasons they give for the discomfort in using e-books are that they cause eye strain and also slow the reading speed. However, despite that fact, they tend to go for e-books when purchasing because of the cheaper price and the mobility they offer. Another interesting thing in this survey is that the more a student did research, the more useful he/she found the digital book system in the library was. Last but not least, the majority of participants agreed on developing e-books for academic purposes.

Conclusion

Appearing to be an inevitable reading trend, e-books themselves also contain their pros and cons. Studies show that using e-books can cause stress and difficult memorizing because of screen's size, the lack of spatial association, and sense of control. Nevertheless, the advantage of e-books in cost-efficiency and in their main supporting role in researching overcomes those disadvantages, and brings e-books closer to meet the expectation of the speed- and convenience-oriented age. This research is limited by the fact that it was not based on updated data and it only studied a small number of people from a specific background. However, to some extent, the study indicates that e-books are likely to become a good choice for academic reading.

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Works Cited

Li Chan, et al. “UC libraries academic e-book usage survey.” Springer e-Book pilot project publication 2011: 11

Snowhill, Lucia. “E-books and their future in academic libraries.” D-Lib Magazine 2001: 1

Gibbons, Susan. “E-books: Some concerns and surprises.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 2001: 2

Marcum, Emily. “The Cognitive Disadvantages of E-books.” AALL Spectrum Magazine 2012: 2-3

Anderson, Richard. “E-book revolution: Breaking through in the digital age.” BBC News Aug. 2013