Some students still read books in the 21st century: A study of user preferences for print and electronic libraries

Some students still read books in the 21st century: A study of user preferences for print and electronic libraries

• Bodomo, Adams Dept. of Linguistics, University of Hong Kong
• Lam, Mei Ling
• Lee, Carmen Dept. of Linguistics, University of Hong Kong

Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, 3(3), 34-49, 2003

Bentham open

2003

• N Students & Student Services
  • NM Student Life & Leisure Activities, Summer Activities; Peer Groups

Electronic Books Digital Libraries Electronic Publishing Library Users Hong Kong China

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

• View Full Text 全文連結

With a rise in the technology for the production of electronic or digital materials, funders and administrators of libraries are increasingly leaning towards providing digital reading materials to users. In crowded cities like Hong Kong where space is a scarce commodity, the save-space feature of digital libraries is an even more attractive reason why users of library facilities in academic and public libraries are being encouraged to read electronic versions of publications. In this article we show that, however laudable the advantages of electronic books may be over physical print books, user preferences in every situation must be carefully analyzed before a paradigm shift from print to digital library resources can be successfully effected. The data for this paper come mainly from a survey of user preferences among students of the University of Hong Kong, which shows that an overwhelming majority (77%) of the respondents prefers print to digital materials. We conclude that the success or otherwise of the paradigm shift from print to digital libraries would depend on measures taken to encourage a positive attitude of users for digital library resources.
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• English

Journal Articles

• 1533242X

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/cd12a46a

2010-11-24