E-books in the Sciences: Gauging Faculty and Graduate Students Needs: SLA 2009 Paper

Canadian Universities are diverting an increasing amount of their budget to acquire e-books. E-books in pure and applied sciences are available from different content providers and publishers. The academic community at York University, Toronto has access to an ever increasing number of e-books that provide different value-added features to search and manipulate content inside these e-books. These additional features may have a bearing on the usage and promotion of e-books. Results from Steacie Science Engineering library’s online e-books survey, conducted in fall 2008, gives us an indication of the reading habits of faculty members and graduate students. Graduate students are more aware of subscribed e-books than faculty members and both groups use the library catalogue to find e-books. Both groups were surprised by the number of e-books available from the libraries website. Students also commented that they wanted more textbooks and solutions manuals in electronic format.