Research Article: Book Lovers, Technophiles, Pragmatists, and Printers: The Social and Demographic Structure of User Attitudes Toward e-Books”

The September 2012 issue of College and Research Libraries was released online today.

Here’s a direct link to the complete table of contents. We plan to highlight a few of the articles during the next few days. Let’s begin with the article below that we first shared as a preprint a year ago.

Title

Book Lovers, Technophiles, Pragmatists, and Printers: The Social and Demographic Structure of User Attitudes Toward e-Books

Authors

Andy Revelle
Social Sciences Librarian
Miami University

Kevin Messner
Life Sciences Librarian
Miami University

Aaron Shrimplin
Assistant Dean for Reference and Collection Services
Miami University

Susan Hurst
Business Librarian
Miami University

Source

College and Research Libraries
September 2012
Vol. 73 No. 5

Abstract

Q-methodology was used to identify clusters of opinions about e-books at Miami University. The research identified four distinct opinion types among those investigated: Book Lovers, Technophiles, Pragmatists, and Printers. The initial Q-methodology study results were then used as a basis for a large-n survey of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty so that we could have a more complete picture of the demographic and social makeup of the campus population. Results from that survey indicate that academic discipline is strongly associated with the respondents’ opinion types. Gender and educational status are also associated with respondents’ opinion types.

Direct to Full Text (11 pages; PDF)