Library Reports Growing Ebook Usage

The use of ebooks is increasing steadily at the Cheng Library.

Last fall, the Cheng Library announced that it had subscribed to a major collection of academic ebooks from the vendor, Ebrary.  The collection, Academic Complete, includes more than 70,000 titles and covers all subject areas.  Over the course of the year, usage of the collection has followed the pattern of a typical academic calendar with the highest use registered during the middle of the spring and fall semesters.  During the month of October, 550 ebooks were viewed and nearly 900 sessions initiated.  These numbers fell slightly during November possibly due to power outages associated with Hurricane Sandy.  The statistics for November reported 460 ebooks viewed and nearly 700 sessions initiated.

Many faculty have reported finding valuable but unexpected titles in this collection.  The ebook titles include publications from most major publishers and many university presses including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, Rutgers and other.  Subject areas include anthropology, art, business, education, history, humanities, language, life sciences, nursing, psychology and sociology as well as philosophy, religion and classics.  Librarians working at the Reference Desk are often able to refer a caller seeking assistance to an ebook for immediate remote access.  The collection also supports distance education students and the users of Chat (online) reference.

To date, three of the most popular titles (based on use) are Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication (82 users), Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective (67 users) and Building Social Business (46 users).

The Ebrary subscription allows for unlimited use of the titles and permits multiple, simultaneous users.  We invite you to browse the collection and encourage you to create a personal account.  Individual accounts in Ebrary allow users to highlight portions of the text and to make notations.  To introduce users to the features of the Ebrary platform, workshops will be scheduled during the spring semester.   The entire Academic Complete collection may be accessed using the following link site.ebrary.com/lib/wpunj/home.action.  Users may also find ebook titles by searching the online catalog using the word “ebrary” and a subject. 

For additional information about Academic Complete or Ebrary, please contact Pamela Theus at 973-720-2160 or by email at theusp@wpunj.edu.

December 04, 2012