Electronic books: viewpoints from users and potential users

Abstract

A questionnaire survey was distributed among 27 students at a library and information science school in the USA to find out what users and potential users think about e‐books in this transition period, when the US economy has experienced downtime, and the e‐book world cannot see profitability in its business as predicted. Among the 27 survey participants, a third of them have used e‐books in the past, mostly reading computer‐based e‐books without special readers. “Available around the clock” and “searchable” are both chosen and ranked as the most important reasons. Those who have never used e‐books mainly think that ebooks are “hard to read and browse” or “need special equipment”. However, about half of the non‐users of e‐books plan to examine some e‐book titles in the future.