Use of E-books among the Users of the Engineering Colleges of Mumbai

Abstract

The usage of e-books in the academic environment is escalating with the
technological advancements and changing reading habits of users. This study
highlights different motivating features and challenges related to access and
usage of e-books by the users of engineering college libraries of Mumbai.
The survey was conducted by using a questionnaire as a data collection tool.
The objectives of the study were to discover the motivating factors and challenges
related to access and usage of e-books and purposes of using e-books. Preparing
notes, updating knowledge and writing an article or paper, were a few
important purposes behind the usage of e-books, as reported by most of the
participants. Findings further revealed that online availability and easy to search
features motivates the users most to use e-books. The challenging factors
reported by maximum participants of the survey were: preference for printed
text for prolonged reading, inconvenience with the screen and DRM technologies.
The present study is the part of a major research on the same topic.