Who is conducting the Student E-book Survey?

ebrary is facilitating the informal survey; however the questionnaire and subjects covered were developed by approximately 150 librarians around the world.

What is the purpose of the Student E-book Survey?

The goal of the survey is to better understand students’ usage, needs, and perceptions with regards to e-books.

Additionally, to determine if and how librarians' perceptions of how students are using e-books differ from what students are indicating, we have cloned the survey and are making it available to librarians to take separately as if they were students.

How was the survey developed?

Prior to developing the questionnaire, ebrary solicited input from librarians in higher education who are on our newsletter distribution list, which includes approximately 12,000 contacts representing approximately 2,100 individual institutions. Approximately half of the institutions are located in North America, the other half in the rest of the world.

More than 150 librarians provided input on the types of questions and subjects that the survey should cover.

Susan Gibbons, Vice Provost, Andrew H. & Janet Dayton Neilly Dean, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester and Allen Mckiel, Dean of Library and Media Services, Western Oregon University have been project advisors for ebrary throughout the survey process.

How long will the survey take to complete?

Our goal is to keep the survey under 15-20 minutes. Note that none of the questions are mandatory other than a few in the demographics section.

How long will the survey be open?

Both the student and librarian versions of the survey will remain open through April 11, 2008.

How do students take the survey?

The student version of the survey is available here.

Librarians may take the cloned survey here.

How is ebrary promoting the survey?

ebrary is seeking support from librarians to push out the survey to students. We do not intend to contact students directly, except when they are referred by other students.

If ebrary receives a low response, we may consider unobtrusive programs such as advertising on Facebook.

How does ebrary handle students' information?

ebrary respects the privacy of participants. We currently do not market our products directly to students. In terms of this survey, we intend to use the email addresses to announce the results and award prizes to winners. Additionally, email addresses will not be shared outside of ebrary and will not be included in the survey results, which will be publicly available in June.

What tools are available to help me promote the survey?

ebrary offers an email template, which we encourage you to send to students, as well as flyers that you may print and post in your library. You may download the email template from here, and the flyers from here.

How will you compile and share the results?

The results will be analyzed with the help of the library community, and we welcome any papers to include along with the results.

Once the results are finalized, we will make them publicly available along with relevant white papers via the ebrary website and other venues.

When will you have the results?

Our goal is to make the results publicly available in late June.

Are there any incentives for taking the survey?

Yes.

For students, all participants will be entered into a drawing for a free iPod in their choice of model, size and color. Additionally, every 25th respondent will receive a free T-shirt.

For librarians, ebrary will provide institution-specific results upon request.

What other surveys has ebrary sponsored?

In 2007 we facilitated two worldwide e-book surveys.

To receive ebrary's 2007 Global Faculty E-book Survey, please register here.

For our first Global E-book Survey, please sign up here.

What is ebrary?

ebrary provides an e-content platform that libraries use in a number of different capacities. Libraries can subscribe to e-book databases, purchase individual titles, and distribute their own digital content online using a single interface. For more information visit www.ebrary.com.