par Algoet, Christophe ;Lerinckx, Dominique ;Vandooren, Françoise
Référence LIBER 40th Annual Conference (29 June - 2 July 2011: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain)
Publication Non publié, 2011-06-30
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : This paper presents an experiment led at the Library of Université libre de Bruxelles whose objectives were to identify the users’ reading strategies in the hybrid print and electronic environment, to establish the advantages and disadvantages of eReaders and Netbooks as mobile reading devices for eBooks, and to study the behaviour of students and teachers with these devices. The ULB Library is continuously increasing its collection of eBooks and is therefore willing to know how students and teachers are using them compared to printed books, which reading devices they are using and what their added value is, and what type of licenses and usage should be negotiated to meet the users’ needs. In order to investigate these issues, the Library led an experiment in 2010, in collaboration with professors of chemistry for BA3 students. The library bought specific eBooks and uploaded them, together with other electronic resources, onto eReaders and Netbooks which were lent to the participating students and teachers; a survey questionnaire was to be filled in before and after the experiment. The Library faced the publishers’ reluctance to collaborate in this experiment for copyright reasons (problems of file format, protection, type of usage allowed, etc.). Finally, two publishers, De Boeck and Elsevier, agreed to contribute to the experiment. The results of the survey reveal the types of information resources used by students, their reading strategies, and the advantages and disadvantages of the 3 types of reading support (print, eReader, Netbook) for various uses: quick overview of the content, set the context, handle several books simultaneously, underline text and share comments, search the text, locate, have access to and transport books… The conclusions highlight that eBooks provide many enhanced usage opportunities: search and browse facilities, facet classification, sharing notes, compiling tailor-made textbooks, semantic linking across resources… Although the eReader offers some interesting functionalities such as touch screen, bookmarks, annotation, text search and highlight, and is transportable, light and affordable, it still needs to be improved as it is not adapted for graphs, tables and diagrams, it is slow to browse, and there are not enough textbooks available for eReaders. The Netbook appears more attractive for its connectivity, sharing and applications facilities.