Purpose – This paper aims to make a substantial contribution to the ongoing debate about the potential of open access publishing and institutional repositories to reform the scholarly communication system. It presents the views of senior authors on these issues and contextualises them within...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to report on a large‐scale survey that was carried out to assess academic users' awareness, perceptions and existing levels of use of e‐books. The survey also seeks to find out about the purposes to which electronic books were put, and to obtain an...

Purpose – This article aims to focus on usage data in respect to full‐text downloads of journal articles, which is considered an important usage (satisfaction) metric by librarians and publishers. The purpose is to evaluate the evidence regarding full‐text viewing by pooling together data...

Purpose – This article is an edited version of a report commissioned by the British Library and JISC to identify how the specialist researchers of the future (those born after 1993) are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years' time. The purpose is to...

Purpose – This JISC funded UK National E‐Books Observatory study is a benchmarking survey of e‐book usage and perceptions in more than 120 participating universities. The paper aims to present the results that investigated: use of e‐books in general (methods of obtaining e‐books,...

Purpose – This study, a part of JISC‐funded UK National E‐Books Observatory, aims to find out about the perspective of students and academics, the main e‐book users, on e‐books. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an analysis of two open‐ended questions about...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a project undertaken at University College London (UCL) examining the role and value of the academic monograph – considering continuing decline in sales and usage – and its possible survival in the digital age. Design/methodology/approach...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarise and evaluate the literature on digital consumer behaviour and attitudes towards digital piracy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a review and synthesis of the academic literature on the subject, using the authors' unique...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on continuing research undertaken on the way the Google Generation behave on the internet and to compare this with an earlier highly publicised study by the paper's authors. Design/methodology/approach – This research use a televised practical...