What do faculty and students really think about e‐books?

The purpose of this article is to report on a large‐scale survey that was carried out to assess academic users' awareness, perceptions and existing levels of use of e‐books. The survey also seeks to find out about the purposes to which electronic books were put, and to obtain an understanding of the most effective library marketing and communication channels.

An e‐mail invitation to participate in the survey was distributed to all UCL staff and students (approximately 27,000) in November 2006, and 1,818 completions were received, an effective response rate of at least 6.7 per cent. Statistical analyses were carried out on the data using Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

The survey findings point to various ways in which user uptake and acceptance of e‐books may be encouraged. Book discovery behaviour, a key issue for publishers and librarians in both print and electronic environments, emerges as a critical focus for service delivery and enhancement.

The survey is part of an action research project, CIBER's SuperBook, that will further investigate the issues raised in this initial benchmarking survey using deep log analysis and qualitative methods. The paper partly fills the gap in the literature on e‐books which has mainly focused on usage and not the users.