The LA Times has an interesting article on college students’ preference for print books over electronic ones. The story reports findings from a four-year study of college students from 420 campuses originally reported in Naomi Baron’s Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World. The research shows that 92% of students prefer print books to their electronic equivalents.
Here at Langsdale, we collect a mix between print and electronic titles; we are part of a pilot e-book project with the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions library consortium and we subscribe to a number of reference materials online. But we take studies like these seriously, and we consider student preferences in our collection decisions.
We’d love to hear your preferences for print or e-books and why you prefer one over the other – send in your comments!