E-Books Go to College

Electronic books—particularly those delivered via handheld devices—have had a checkered history. Since 1998 the e-book movement has been in a state of flux, experiencing equally intense positive and negative hype. On the positive side, claims are made that e-books will replace p-books, revolutionize reading, and revamp the publishing industry. On the negative side, the bankruptcy and sale of netLibrary, the scaling back or shutting down of other e-book and e-publishing ventures, and disappointing sales of devices and content have led some to declare the e-book movement moribund. Beyond the hype, however, pilot projects and quiet adoption of various e-book systems have been occurring throughout higher education and the health professions, among other arenas.

This is a brief report of a field study of the use of e-book devices by college students, professors, and librarians. The devices were introduced into actual undergraduate courses that had been previously taught many times. No attempt was made to alter other facets of the classes. The reading list, enrollment, pedagogical goals, and other variables were not modified to accommodate the devices. In essence, the e-book devices were released into the "wild," while the project team watched and listened to see how they fared.

For an eight-week period in September and October 2001, lower-division undergraduate students enrolled in English courses used handheld e-book devices to read literary works assigned as part of their course reading. The 22 students in Jan Hardy's English class at Spoon River College, a public two-year community college, read Kate Chopin's The Awakening on the Franklin eBookMan 911. Twelve students in Loren Logsdon's English class at Eureka College, a private four-year college, read Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio on the Gemstar/RCA REB 1100.

The RCA REB 1100, a slightly redesigned version of the earlier Rocket eBook, had a solid reputation and a core readership, although it is used primarily in public libraries. It is known for its ease of use, its size (approximately that of a printed book), its ability to hold multiple texts, and the reader's ability to view it in the dark with a backlight, change font sizes, search text, add notes, and operate the built-in dictionary. The REB 1100 is a dedicated reading device with a long-lasting, rechargeable battery, yet no PDA functionalities.

The Franklin eBookMan (the students quickly renamed it the eBookPerson), new on the market in spring 2001, was selected because it was the first e-book reading device to incorporate some PDA functionality. Additionally, the eBookMan can play audio e-books, store and play MP3 files, and offer personal information management tools, e.g., a calendar, calculator, and audio recorder.

Although it was smaller and had little content available at the time, the eBookMan appeared to have more functionality than the REB 1100. Unfortunately, The Awakening was not available in the Franklin format but instead in plain text format, so the students did not experience the full reader software functionality on the Franklin device. Finding a desired e-text in a format appropriate for the technology available is a fundamental problem that has plagued the e-book era, despite the existence of the Open E-Book standard.

The first phase of the project focused on student experiences and opinions of using the devices to read the assigned works. An overwhelming majority of the students enjoyed reading on these devices, despite some technological and functional limitations.

In our study—one of many underway in higher education—none of the devices was lost, damaged, or stolen, although a few styli were misplaced for a few days. Both devices functioned better during out-of-class reading and review sessions than during in-class group discussions, where the lack of page numbers in the e-texts compounded the challenge of moving quickly through the text.

Overall, the REB 1100 performed much better than the eBookMan 911. Fewer of the REB 1100 devices experienced hardware and software problems, and the rechargeable battery was more efficient than the replaceable batteries. However, the two devices were designed to provide different functionalities, and, because an optimally formatted version of the assigned text could not be located, the associated reader software functionality (e.g., highlighting and attaching notes) could not be used by the Spoon River students. The students quickly realized that the eBookMan really was a mediocre PDA being packaged and sold as an e-book reading device with PDA functionality. They liked the idea but not necessarily the execution.

For those students who had access to reading-related functionalities, many were impressed with the imbedded dictionary look-up feature, the ability to underline passages, and note-taking. For those students who had access to PDA-related functions, the various audio input and output features, the calculator, and the separate notepad were most appreciated. Both professors concluded that, overall, the use of e-books did not seriously hinder their pedagogical goals for the two courses. In some ways, the e-books may have improved student performance: several reluctant readers reported enjoying e-reading more than p-reading, and several others said they used the embedded dictionary look-up feature to increase their vocabularies and comprehension.

This grant-funded field study provided useful, real-life knowledge of how handheld e-book devices could be integrated into higher education environments. Librarians need to continue what they always have done well: look beyond the positive and negative hype, consider the possibilities of reading and interacting with texts on handheld devices, examine how and why people actually adopt or reject new information technologies, and plan accordingly to deliver library content and services that maximize the usefulness of e-books for our users.

The e-book movement presents libraries of all types with at least three fundamental challenges. First, information appliances are becoming more diverse and complex. Users want to download library content onto PCs, laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs, dedicated reading devices, and cell phones. They want library services delivered via these devices, too. Second, users want to integrate library content with other types of content. Third, many users want to interact with information content in increasingly complex ways.

The various features available on the two e-book devices in this study and the thoughtful comments offered by the participants suggest that such features are in demand in higher education. In her recent dissertation on the use of e-reading devices by adult readers, Miriam Schcolnik encourages us to look past the rapidly changing device technology and examine signs for possible changes in human reading behavior (A Study of Reading with Dedicated E-Readers, Nova Southeastern Univ.; 12.108.175.91/images/ebookweb/ survey.miriam.schcolnik.pdf). "If the new medium of e-readers becomes commonplace, it will be necessary to understand what new reading possibilities it offers and how these can be best exploited," she says.

Librarians face several practical and theoretical challenges in managing e-texts and reading devices and integrating them into the collection and service programs of academic libraries. In Colorado Libraries, Jennifer McCarty (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder Libs.) notes that "many librarians are justifiably concerned about the possible need to amass all different kinds of readers to support the electronic books we add to our collections, not to mention the challenge of teaching patrons to use all the different readers" ("Why Your Patrons Will Love E-Books [and You Should Too"], Fall 2001, p. 46–48).

Loading the texts onto the devices and in general preparing the devices for use was time-consuming. The current initiation operations are too complex to scale well. Providing ongoing technical and troubleshooting support for the devices also proved to be challenging for librarians.

The librarians developed policies and guidelines for the devices that articulated circulation periods, acceptable use, responsibility for loss or damage, accompanying items that circulate with it (e.g., case, cradle, stylus, AC adapter), how to review and "scrub" the devices upon their return, and how to select and load new content—perhaps with direct user input into the selection process.

Challenges arose at various points. First, supplier services were designed for individuals who find the device on a web site, pay by credit card, and receive the device in the mail. The Spoon River College purchasing department had extensive dealings with both suppliers in order to obtain the devices in the traditional library fashion via a purchase order and check. Although the purchase transaction rigmarole between libraries and e-book hardware vendors has improved somewhat in 2002, the industry as a whole remains focused on individual buyers. However, since the study period, more vendors are developing policies and methods (e.g., accepting POs) that facilitate purchases by institutional customers. Still, there's a long way to go.

The process of registering, purchasing, and loading Winesburg, Ohio took approximately one hour for each REB 1100 device. First, the e-book itself must be registered via built-in modem. Then the content for that particular device had to be purchased and downloaded. The built-in rechargeable battery and the operating system and other help files available on the REB 1100 were useful.

Registering the Franklin eBookMan and loading The Awakening on the 25 devices turned out to be even more time-consuming and frustrating. The eBookMan devices were shipped with nonrechargeable batteries and no preloaded operating system. The project coordinator had to visit the Franklin web site and register each device, then download the operating system. The process of loading, registering, and generally preparing these devices for use within the overall service program of a library continues to be far too cumbersome.

Each vendor has designed a new set of hoops to jump through. Although the PDA platform seems to be settling on two main contenders (Palm OS and Pocket PC), the field of competing PDA reader software remains crowded. In order to provide access to a variety of content, libraries may need to provide more than one type of reader software on the same device—a disservice to those doing the reading.

The problems of downloading the OS and the dead battery issues are well documented on the Franklin web site (www.franklin.com/ebookman). When the company was contacted regarding possible replacement of the devices, its user support staff quickly suggested that students use the AC adapter. Of course, this somewhat deflected one goal of the project—to provide students with portable e-reading devices. During the field test, seven students were affected by dead batteries. In fall 2001, Franklin released a new version of the OS for these devices.

Melick Library at Eureka College took the lead on developing policies and procedures. After the initial grant project was completed, the library staff prepared policies for incorporating the devices into their collections and services. Two guiding principles were behind the policy development: 1) the e-books should serve the mission of the library, and 2) the e-books should be used, not just sit on the shelf.

Because much of the content currently available for e-books is not typical academic fare and because the library's selection policy specifies the acquisition of materials to support the academic mission, Melick Library made a decision to place its primary emphasis on supplying e-books for course readings. Only six e-books were placed in circulation to individual users, with loan periods of three weeks, the same as for p-books. Demand for the devices continues for classes but has flagged for general circulation.

This spring (2002), the devices are in use in an interdisciplinary course that includes eight sf books; Frankenstein and The Time Machine are being read on the REB 1100. Students in an honors course are reading Richard Strozzi Heckler's In Search of the Warrior Spirit. Honors courses are elective and designed to challenge students with topics not covered in the general curriculum. Both courses have readings that were easy to locate in the Gemstar e-format. However, other faculty members who teach more traditional courses are having difficulty locating appropriate content. The subject areas best suited to this format are literature and history. The faculty's continuing interest in using the e-books depends on students being intrigued with the devices and therefore motivated to read their assignments when delivered in this format.

To encourage use of the e-books, Melick Library made an exception to its normal circulation policy concerning damaged and lost items. Because costs to replace these devices would be prohibitive to most patrons, the library chose to assign a standard replacement fee of $50. So far the e-books have been very sturdy.

After much debate, Melick Library staff decided not to place the e-book content holdings into the OPAC—they could change too often to make the technical processing of each item worth the effort. The staff elected instead to barcode and circulate each device by temporary conversion on their automated system without regard to content. A listing of the content loaded on the six general-circulation e-books is available at the Circulation Desk, where the devices are shelved.

One obvious problem when working with these devices is that they all look alike. Unlike p-books, they don't line up neatly on a shelf where spine labels give clues to the content. At present, Melick Library has each circulating device lying on a shelf with the content category label visible.

Student enthusiasm in general for dedicated reading devices and PDAs with reader software bodes well for the industry. Although the dedicated reading device may not survive the competition with multifunctional PDAs, some sort of portable information device—to replace backpacks—probably will become common in higher education.

During the study period the project team developed several recommendations, based on their own observations as well as on feedback and suggestions from the students. Color, enhanced audio recording and playback features, and animation were the most frequently mentioned features desired by the students, along with a more immersive interaction with college-level content. The students wanted all course-related content (e.g., purchased e-texts, professor-created content, and, to a lesser degree, students' notes and papers) to be easily loadable on these devices. When notes are added to an e-text, they should be easily collocated and downloaded. The dictionary lookup functionality could be improved by including more words and possibly by offering discipline-specific dictionaries. The students using the Franklin device liked its multitasking, multifunctional nature. A mainstream PDA with a reader software program could achieve the same result.

As personal management information tools become more common in higher education, the library will not need to purchase these devices in large quantities. As prices fall, most students and faculty will purchase a wide variety of devices on their own, while the library will revert to its traditional role of providing intellectual and physical access to content and related services. Libraries need to explore the most cost-effective and efficient ways to bring course materials, readings, textbooks, and other content to a variety of personal information/communications devices.

Students, professors, librarians, publishers, bookstore managers, and the e-book industry face a happy prospect: the confluence of purchased and library and locally created content onto integrated portable reading and computing devices that facilitate both traditional and new ways of reading and interacting with texts.

Separate retrieval points, policies, and procedures for the course syllabus, purchased texts, library reserve material, and personally created documents may become unnecessary. Collectively, readers of all types could have equal functionality for what is owned and borrowed. In a wonderful paradigm shift, librarians will be able to encourage library users to underline, highlight, write in the margins, and create pointers to other texts rather than fine them for doing so. Perhaps e-books could fundamentally transform library collections and services, reading, teaching, and learning. Let's not enable—through our own negligence and lack of foresight—e-books to flunk out of college.