The revolution of e-books among libraries and readers (Source: Tienda Libre 2010)
The demand for Electronic Books (e-books) has increase significantly despite making up 6-7% of the book market in US and Britain as they changes the way of reading normal book among readers. Connoway (2003, pp.16-17) agreed that e-books have become more popular among publishers, librarians and vendors due to the number of e-book initiatives. However, their popularity depends on the subject areas. (Rowlands, Nicholas, Jamali & Huntington 2007) Judging by these trends, they must adapt to it as the printed books sales might not be as great as before for the years to come.
Publishers' involvement in E-books
Publishers nowadays start to be more involved in digital book forms in order to survive in the new environment. Connoway (2003, p.14) stressed that e-books create new opportunities for publishers to revive the scholarly monograph and sustain a competitive edge in the market position. Internet is a vast media and publishers should take advantage of it by using e-books as their main platform in publishing their books online.
The author added on by saying that the emergence of e-books has provided publishers new ways of serving customers. As there is a drastic increase in Internet users, publishers should identify the importance of publishing their works through e-books to reach out for these users.
Benefits of E-books towards general readers
E-books offer 24/7 availability , remote access outside physical library, full-text searching and copying/pasting text and images among readers (Littman & Connaway 2004, p.256)Unlike printed books which can only be read , e-books has a better advantage in terms of convenience and customization which would benefit readers.
Moreover, the content of e-books would provide better understanding and reading satisfaction among readers with the combination of text, audio, video, dictionary and thesauri. (Connnoway 2003, p.14) Walsh(2006) defined these combination as multimodal, which incorporates more than one element in a text. Multimodal text in e-books would develop good interest among readers with these good features that a normal book cannot do.
E-books' influence towards libraries
In libraries, e-books are reliable as they can be taken out at any time and automatically disappear off the screen once the loan is up with no late charges due to no overdue books policy. Littman & Connaway (2004, p.256) mentioned that for e-books, library do not require shelf space or re-shelving and no lost, damages and stolen books. This shows that most libraries are starting to adapt to the significant changes of reader habits by offering digital books that can be borrowed directly outside the library.
Conclusion
The emergence of e-books would eventually change the way readers perceive books as reading materials in the coming future.
Reference List:
Connoway L.S. 2003, 'Electronic Books(e Books): Current Trends and Future Directions', DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, vol.23, no.1, pp.13-18, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://www.drdo.com/pub/dbit/jan03/LYNN.pdf
Littman J. & Connoway L.S 2004, 'A Circulation Analysis of Print Books and E-Books in an Academic Research Library', Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, vol.48, no.4, pp.235-312, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.3789&rep=rep1&type=pdf#page=26
Rowlands I., Nicholas D., Jamali H.R. & Huntington P. 2007, 'What do faculty and students really think about e-books?', Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol.59. no.6, pp.489-511, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2760590601.html
Walsh, M. 2006,” ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37.
Publishers' involvement in E-books
Publishers nowadays start to be more involved in digital book forms in order to survive in the new environment. Connoway (2003, p.14) stressed that e-books create new opportunities for publishers to revive the scholarly monograph and sustain a competitive edge in the market position. Internet is a vast media and publishers should take advantage of it by using e-books as their main platform in publishing their books online.
The author added on by saying that the emergence of e-books has provided publishers new ways of serving customers. As there is a drastic increase in Internet users, publishers should identify the importance of publishing their works through e-books to reach out for these users.
Benefits of E-books towards general readers
E-books offer 24/7 availability , remote access outside physical library, full-text searching and copying/pasting text and images among readers (Littman & Connaway 2004, p.256)Unlike printed books which can only be read , e-books has a better advantage in terms of convenience and customization which would benefit readers.
Moreover, the content of e-books would provide better understanding and reading satisfaction among readers with the combination of text, audio, video, dictionary and thesauri. (Connnoway 2003, p.14) Walsh(2006) defined these combination as multimodal, which incorporates more than one element in a text. Multimodal text in e-books would develop good interest among readers with these good features that a normal book cannot do.
E-books' influence towards libraries
In libraries, e-books are reliable as they can be taken out at any time and automatically disappear off the screen once the loan is up with no late charges due to no overdue books policy. Littman & Connaway (2004, p.256) mentioned that for e-books, library do not require shelf space or re-shelving and no lost, damages and stolen books. This shows that most libraries are starting to adapt to the significant changes of reader habits by offering digital books that can be borrowed directly outside the library.
Conclusion
The emergence of e-books would eventually change the way readers perceive books as reading materials in the coming future.
Reference List:
Connoway L.S. 2003, 'Electronic Books(e Books): Current Trends and Future Directions', DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, vol.23, no.1, pp.13-18, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://www.drdo.com/pub/dbit/jan03/LYNN.pdf
Littman J. & Connoway L.S 2004, 'A Circulation Analysis of Print Books and E-Books in an Academic Research Library', Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, vol.48, no.4, pp.235-312, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.3789&rep=rep1&type=pdf#page=26
Rowlands I., Nicholas D., Jamali H.R. & Huntington P. 2007, 'What do faculty and students really think about e-books?', Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol.59. no.6, pp.489-511, viewed 25th May 2010,
http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2760590601.html
Walsh, M. 2006,” ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37.
No comments:
Post a Comment