CASE STUDY OF E-BOOK USE 8
further, how these themes could be indicative of technology adoption more generally. While
this case study does not intend to provide generalizable theories pertaining to e-book use,
valuable information might be derived from this study when combined with other similar
studies and applied to other contexts.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to explore experiences with e-book technology within
an academic library. These encounters will be described in two major ways. First, an
understanding of the use and perception of e-books by students, faculty, and librarians will
be developed. Secondly, how these groups interact with each other and how students become
aware of and communicate about library resources will be described. This study is relevant
to the study of communication because it examines the adoption of and communication
about a new communication technology. For the purpose of this study, the University of
Ottawa will be examined as a case.
Definition of Terms
Many definitions of the term ‘e-book’ have been presented previously. Landoni,
Wilson, and Gibb (2000) stated: “The definition of what an electronic book is, or has to be,
is quite loose and unfortunately this is unavoidable because of the nature of the object and
the difficulty in defining something with so many aspects and functionalities” (p. 415). The
current study will utilize a broad definition of e-books. Specifically, the term e-book will be
used to describe “a general term for the use of book content in electronic form” (Bell, 2009,
p. 18). The term e-book will be used mainly to refer to the electronic text, rather than the
specific device used for reading the documents. Furthermore, the term ‘e-book’ will be used
interchangeably with the term electronic book, ebook and digital book. The prefix ‘e-’ or