Perceptions and E-book Use Behavior of University Students

In recent years, e-books have gained tremendous popularity due to many advantages associated with them. The main objective of this study was to investigate students' perceptions of e-books and their use behavior. The data was collected through an online questionnaire and 152 students from three public universities in Singapore participated in this study. Data analysis revealed that a majority of the students (73.7%) preferred using print books for their studies. However, a split response was recorded for research and leisure reading, where around 52% of the students preferred reading ebooks. The major advantages of e-books, as perceived by the students, were: the ability to store many e-books in personal devices, convenience of using e-books, and no need to go to a physical library. Some disadvantages associated with ebooks were: eye strain, poor quality of scanned ebooks, and small screen size of smartphones. Data analysis also revealed that many students were using e-books because no other choice was available to them. The finding of this study will be useful to academic libraries in developing more balanced and suitable library resources.