Use of e-books : perceptions of the academic staff in the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa

Abstract

The University of South Africa’s 2015 strategic plan foregrounds the need for technology-enhanced learner support and the university of South Africa (Unisa) Library spends approximately 17 million rand per year on purchasing electronic resources, including e-books, in order to be in line with the strategic plan (Unisa 2012). Academic staff play a major role in collection development in that the Unisa Library Collection Developers liaise with them in developing the collection. Academics are therefore expected to show a high usage rate of these resources but the Unisa Library’s January - December 2012 E-book Collections usage statistics report indicates the opposite. Academic staff from the College of Human Sciences are expected to show high usage rate because their disciplines mostly rely on books as opposed to other types of information materials. There is a perception that academic staff are not making optimum use of e-books as expected. The aim of this study was to establish the perceptions of academics in the College of Human Sciences on the use of e-books, especially in their core business of teaching and research in order to inform a well-directed strategy e-book collection in the future. The study employed quantitative methodological approach by means of a questionnaire to collect data from 452 academic staff. With a 37%, response rate the quantitative data was descriptively analysed using SPSS while the open-ended questions were summarised and quantified. The study revealed that even though a majority of academic staff were aware about the availability of e-books at the Unisa Library, only a few academic staff used them often and there were still some who never used them. The majority of academic staff found e-books more useful for research when searching for relevant specific content only as opposed to teaching and preparing coursework. The study further revealed some of the reasons for low usage of which shortage of titles in the e-format is the main reason. The study recommends that academics should collaborate with the Library to identify gaps in the e-books collection and recommend titles that should be added in order fill those gaps.