The use of electronic books in midwifery education: the student perspective

copy Health Libraries Group 2004 Health Information and Libraries Journal 21 pp245ndash252 245

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The use of electronic books in midwifery education the student perspectiveLeo Appleton Learning Resources Manager Hugh Baird College of Further Education Liverpool UK

Abstract

The objectives of this paper are (i) to illustrate the use of e-books by healthstudies students at a college of higher education (ii) to provide a demonstrationof how e-books may be facilitated by library and information services staffworking across the health and academic sectors (iii) to comment upon theexperiences of health studies students in using e-books A focus group of 10student midwives was used to gain insight into how e-books may be used inan academic context for health professionals The findings of the studentmidwivesrsquo focus group are reported and discussed In this instance the studentmidwives were encouraged to use e-books as part of a structured information skillsprogramme The paper concentrates on how the e-books were used within thiscontext and addresses the potential benefits and disadvantages from a studentperspective The results provide evidence of a largely positive experience of usinge-books as an electronic information resource The focus group reveals manybenefits and advantages in the facilitation and use of e-books as well as address-ing areas for development It is concluded that e-books have a place in healthlibrary and information resources but further development of e-books and e-bookcollections is required and subsequent investigation into their most effective use

Introduction

Using electronic information resources to supporthealth studies students in higher education hasbeen common practice for a number of years nowEducators are increasingly aware of the need andconcomitant demand for nursing graduates tohave skills to access the information to enablethem to continue learning throughout their careers1

Both during their studies and within the workplacea demand for safe and effective healthcare requiresnurses to develop the necessary skills in orderto incorporate research findings into practice2

Nowadays health studies and nursing curriculademand that students embrace evidence andresearch-based practice This in turn places demand

on health and nursing library and informationservices to provide easy access to such evidenceand research-based information Such informationis increasingly being made available electronicallyvia hybrid library services Hybrid library servicesallow remote access to many electronic informationresources as they are essentially library servicesin which the balance of print and digital meta-information leans increasingly towards the digital3

Due to extremely full curricula and frequentand intensive clinical placements health studieseducation relies heavily on remote access to learn-ing and teaching and such hybrid library facilitiesare essential to its success Library and infor-mation support systems and mechanisms are con-tinuously striving for seamless remote access toacademic health and nursing content to be avail-able to health studies students at the point of needAs a result use of health-related online databasessuch as BNI and the Cochrane LibraryDatabase and increasing use of electronic journals

Correspondence Leo Appleton Learning Resources ManagerHugh Baird College of Further Education Balliol Road LiverpoolL20 7EW UK E-mail appletlhughbairdacukThe author was formerly Academic Liaison Adviser (Health Studies) atEdge Hill College Liverpool UK

E-books for midwives Leo Appleton

copy Health Libraries Group 2004 Health Information and Libraries Journal 21 pp245ndash252

246

by students is now accepted as fundamental tohealth studies education and teaching staff expectstudents to use such resources Library and infor-mation staff supporting this student group haveintentionally marketed such resources at them

Recently the emergence of electronic books(e-books) has provided opportunities to integrateanother electronic resource into existing hybridlibrary facilities There are differing definitions ofthe term lsquoelectronic bookrsquo4 The broadest defini-tion of e-book is lsquoa text analogous to a book thatis in digital form to be displayed on a computerscreenrsquo5 However this could also refer to textavailable on CD-ROMs diskettes and freely avail-able web pages A more suitable definition for thisparticular context is to use the term lsquoe-bookrsquo torepresent content that has been made availabledigitally and electronically via an Internet connec-tion displayed on a computer screen and allowingpages to be printed and downloaded locally6

The success of other forms of electronicacademic content (eg e-journals) has providedthe opportunity for current e-book developmentsPublishers have observed increases in both useand popularity of e-journals which has promptedindividual publishers to consider making theirscholarly and academic texts available to usersonline One trend in particular has been forindividual publishers to digitize particularcollections within their own available titles fordirect sale to users and libraries However librariesrequire the ability to customise collections by dis-cipline and make use of more than one publisherThis has allowed the emergence of the e-booksupplier such as NetLibrary and Ebrary

This paper will look at how e-books in particularhave been used in support of midwifery educationat the Faculty of Health within Edge Hill Collegeof Higher Education Edge Hill College of HigherEducation is a multi-site institution throughoutthe north-west of England Its Faculty of Healthexists on three geographically disparate campuses(Liverpool Stockport Ormskirk) and teaching andlearning takes place on each of these sites Learn-ing Services (a converged service comprising ofcomputing library and media services) endeavoursto support students remotely by facilitatingeffective hybrid-library services to all studentsE-books have been integrated into midwifery

studentsrsquo studies through a programme of infor-mation literacy training and evidence has beengathered as to how much impact e-books have hadon studentsrsquo study experiences

Background

Having achieved successful implementation pro-motion and embedding of other electronic resourceswithin teaching and learning throughout EdgeHill College the next logical step for LearningServices appeared to be involvement with e-booksA specific student user group e-book collectionand e-book supplier all had to be identified InMarch 2002 Learning Services decided that atarget pilot group for e-books should be a usergroup that studied on a multi-site basis and hada critical mass of part-timedistance users Auser group that met these criteria was the Facultyof Health students Similarly remote resourcesare required for these students as they spendsignificant amounts of time away from campuswhilst on clinical placements At this time themajor multi-disciplinary e-book suppliers toacademic libraries were NetLibrary and EbraryMore specialist e-book suppliers such as Safariand Books 24 times 7 were acknowledged but onfurther scrutiny of appropriate health medicaland nursing subject material the shortlist consistedof only NetLibrary and Ebrary NetLibrary waseventually chosen as the supplier as they wereable to provide e-books within a library settingThat is to say from an acquisitions and circulationperspective individual titles may be made avail-able to library users The NetLibrary model at thetime suited Learning Servicesrsquo requirements Eache-book could be circulated in the same manneras its print equivalent An individual e-book couldbe checked out to one user at a time meaningthat if multiple simultaneous use was requiredthen multiple copies had to be purchased EachNetLibrary e-book could be checked out to a userwho then had sole access to this particular e-bookfor a pre-determined circulation period (it shouldbe noted that since this initial implementation ofe-books NetLibrary have allowed multiple accessto titles purchased by the NoWAL consortium)

A successful pilot project concerned withpromoting the use of e-books was completed in



247

October 20027 This project involved promoting theuse of e-books through strategic targeted market-ing of the resource to health and nursing students

Use of electronic resources such as e-books canbe promoted through information literacy skillstraining A curriculum-based approach to infor-mation literacy skills means that the relevance ofinformation is demonstrated through integrationof learning activities assessment tasks subjectcontent and course objectives8 Studies such asthe EBONI project9 and the detailed findings ofthe University of Rochesterrsquos lsquoNetLibrary e-booksusagersquo project10 also provide much evidence ofuser opinion and perceived advantages and dis-advantages of e-book collections

The above projects have focused upon technicaland logistical issues surrounding e-books asopposed to a concentrated investigation intohow e-books are used in teaching and learningTechnical cost and access issues all have a sub-stantial impact upon the overall way in which e-books are used If a user has a negative experienceusing an e-book because they cannot have simul-taneous access or because their network is slowthen they may perceive e-books to be an ineffectiveresource The Edge Hill College midwifery studentswere no exception and had similar perceptionsOne particular method of encouraging andpromoting the use of electronic resources is byembedding them into Virtual Learning Environ-ments (VLEs) There is much evidence to suggestthat health and nursing education has benefitedfrom online teaching and learning Initiativessuch as Huddersfield Universityrsquos INHALE projectdemonstrates how effective the placement andembedding of electronic information resourcesinto VLEs can be11 The Edge Hill student mid-wives had access to a health information tutorialwithin their VLE which facilitates access to cus-tomised health information resources Access toNetLibrary and their health studies e-books col-lection was facilitated in this way

Method

In April 2003 Learning Services staff at EdgeHill College were approached by the Faculty ofHealth midwifery tutors to integrate evidence-based information skills training into the midwifery

curriculum The students to be taught were all ontheir first year of a Higher Education Diploma inMidwifery They had all had a substantial intro-duction to Learning Services and the infor-mation resources available to them This initiativeto deliver further more advanced training allowedLearning Services staff to develop a customisedmidwifery information literacy programme whichsystematically instructed student midwives howto use the various information resources availableto them The programme was delivered over three2 hour workshops and covered the use of resourcessuch as British Nursing Index and theCochrane Library as well as follow-up accessto electronic journals and use of the Edge HillLibrary catalogue During the second workshopstudents were asked to look at NetLibrary as apotential academic information resource

Having completed the workshops the studentswere asked to submit a piece of work for assess-ment by both Learning Services staff and mid-wifery tutors The students were assessed ontheir use and development of a search strategyand their retrieval of a number of informationresources which demonstrated evidence-basedpractice applied to particular midwifery topicsStudents were encouraged to use as wide aresource base as possible including NetLibrarye-books There are distinct ways in which e-bookscan be used and there is evidence to suggest that e-books are being used in similar ways to e-journalsthat is in randomly accessed segments ratherthan being read sequentially Users of e-books donot read them linearly for hours at a time12 Theinformation skills training which the midwivesreceived reflected this and recommended thate-books be used in such a way

This activity presented an opportunity to assessand evaluate the use of e-books in a real teachingand learning environment Therefore during July2003 upon the completion of their assessed worka focus group was held with the group of mid-wifery students who had been actively encouragedto use NetLibrary e-books The focus groupconsisted of the 10 midwifery students who hadparticipated in the evidence-based information skillstraining and was led by the academic liaisonadvisor for health studies who had developedand delivered the training It must be taken into



248

account that this particular group of studentmidwives had been actively encouraged to useNetLibrary e-books in order to fulfil assessmentcriteria for their evidence-based information retrievalexercise The Edge Hill College NetLibrary collec-tion was keyword searched as an entire collectionTherefore students were approaching the e-bookcontent in a similar way they would the contentsof an e-journals collection There is evidence tosuggest that usage of e-books can be significantlyincreased by their inclusion on library catalogues13

and while this is also common practice withinEdge Hill Learning Services regard a customisedand targeted collection based approach to be themost effective method

The focus group was used to further ascertainmidwifery student perspectives of e-books Therewas particular focus on how students use e-booksand the potential impact that they can have onstudentsrsquo learning experience

Results

Several areas of e-book access and use were coveredand sample responses received from midwiferystudents are illustrated below1 What do you consider to be the advantages and

disadvantages of e-books over printed books

Advantages

lsquoAs busy student midwives with demandingcollege and domestic responsibilities home accessto e-books is very much an advantagersquolsquoHaving a specific and limited collection of e-booksallows a more focused search and you are lesslikely to retrieve irrelevant materialrsquolsquoThey allow you to view books at home beforedeciding that you want to read the full printedversionrsquolsquoA useful resource with a lot of potentialrsquo

Disadvantages

lsquoFar more time-consuming than using printedbooksrsquolsquoPrefer to be able to scan read printed booksNetLibrary doesnrsquot allow you to do this I find thecontent far more difficult to managersquo

lsquoBecause only one user can access an e-book wehave limited accessrsquolsquoI find NetLibrary very hard to navigatersquolsquoThe limited number of titles in the NetLibrarycollection provides us with a limited number ofhitsrsquolsquoThe search facilities often lead to irrelevantinformation Would like to be able to use similarsearch strategies as databases or electronic journalsrsquo

2 Some e-books are lsquoview onlyrsquo others allow youto print out and download at a charge What areyour reactions to this

lsquoItrsquos not fair to charge students for resourcesIf libraries are going to promote e-books theyshould make them available If there is a chargethen they shouldnrsquot make them availablersquolsquoThere shouldnrsquot be any charges for accessinginformationrsquolsquoI wouldnrsquot mind paying if it was a reasonablecharge but it would be too expensive for studentsfor large sections of textrsquolsquoStudents would have to make a decision aboutwhich was most cost effective at homemdashstayingonline or printing off the informationrsquo

3 What are the limitations of accessing e-bookswhen you live off campus

lsquoSharing one PC at home with the rest of myfamily means that I only have limited time to useinformation resources Have found myself givingup on NetLibrary as it is sometimes very slow todownload pages and other members of my familyare queuing to use the PCrsquolsquoSometimes NetLibrary is very slow on my PC athomersquo

4 What functions and features would you like tosee in e-books that are not currently available inyour NetLibrary collection

lsquoThere should be more illustrative material inNetLibrary books particularly in health nursingand midwifery titlesrsquolsquoI would like to see more pictures and diagramsrsquolsquoInteractive 3-D anatomy pictures would be veryuseful in midwiferyrsquo



249

lsquoE-books could include video clips of clinicalproceduresrsquolsquoI would like to be able to search the e-books in thesame way I can with e-journals and still getrelevant and specific resultsrsquolsquoWe would all like to be able to access the samee-books at the same timersquolsquoA lot of the text and evidence comes from theUSA More UK published nursing books wouldmake the collection more relevant and usefulrsquo

5 Do you think it would be useful to have chaptersand excerpts from e-books embedded withinyour WebCT environment

lsquoHaving all our key readings in one place wouldbe usefulrsquolsquoIt would cut down on all the paper we have tocarry aroundrsquolsquoIt is useful having print copies of all ourrecommended set readings especially when youneed to spread them all out and refer to particularchapters paragraphs sentences and refer tonotes you have made in the margin You need tospread all your readings out over a big table Iwould probably still print them all out fromWebCT because I donrsquot think that you get thesame learning experience from electronic textsrsquo

6 Are there attributes of e-books andor printbooks which you really appreciate and whichyou feel cannot be replicated in print format ore-format

lsquoBeing able to search keywords in e-books is veryuseful if not sometimes very frustrating Youcanrsquot do this with printed booksrsquolsquoHaving all the words in the index and knowingwhich chapters to look at for specific words is veryusefulrsquolsquoYou donrsquot have the same access problems withprinted books as you do with e-books Printedbooks may be on loan when you get to the libraryrsquolsquoE-books can be read by more people as they tendnot be loaned and used in the same way as theirprinted equivalentsrsquolsquoPrinted books are easier to use because you do notget the technical problems which we get with e-bookssuch as slow and tedious downloading problemsrsquo

7 Who should promote printed and electronicbooks to students librarians booksellers andpublishers

lsquoLibrary support staff should do all the trainingand promote use of the e-booksrsquolsquoTraining on e-books should be early on in theacademic programme so students can use themthrough out their studiesrsquolsquoTutors and academic staff should do a lot more topromote e-books within their reading lists Theyexpect us to use all these electronic resources butthey donrsquot seem to know about whatrsquos availablethemselvesrsquolsquoWe would probably use more e-books if thetutors told us to read them Instead they justphotocopy what they want us to read and handthem outrsquo

Discussion

Interestingly the group found more disadvantagesthan advantages On the launch of Edge Hillrsquoselectronic books collection Learning Services hadevaluated the new service with staff and studentusers As an innovative resource the majority ofusers had spoken enthusiastically of the potentialand the advantages of electronic books Howeverthe discussions of this student midwives focusgroup would suggest that once being used in anassessment-driven academic context studentsare less likely to see the potential of a resourcewhich takes time to search and navigate effectivelywhen they are familiar with using alternativeprinted formats For many readers the printedbook is a perfect technology but there remainsa persistent demand on all sides for electronicfull text14

The midwifery student group were stillregarding e-books as alternatives to printedbooks but in actual fact they should be seen ascompletely different resource and used in differentcontexts E-books by their very nature need tobe used as a remote electronic resource and theweb environment in which they can be indexedand functionally searched needs to realize its fullpotential These particular findings from the focusgroup show that students in this case midwiferystudents need to alter their perceptions of e-books



250

and NetLibrary in order to make full use of themThis can be done by increased support and promo-tion of e-books to students by librarians e-learningfacilitators and tutors alike As the demand forremotely accessible full-text books increaseswriters and publishers are now creating specifice-texts That is books which have been created toexist and made available exclusively within a web-based setting15 Such activity must be embraced byall academic disciplines and not just by healthstudies and nursing Encouraging library users touse e-books within a web setting has a significantlydifferent impact in terms of usage and user beha-viour than merely referring to individual electronictitles16 The emergence of e-books is necessary toensure that books have a presence in the webworld and a presence to studentsrsquo emerging researchbehaviours Upon further reflection the studentsunderstood that this was the case and the majoritysaid that they would use e-books when workingremotely or within their Virtual Learning Environ-ments but would prefer to consult recommendedprinted books when on campus or in the libraryBooks that you consult or read in short sectionsare more suitable as e-books than those thatyou read at length The technical limitations andinconveniences of e-books are tolerable when youare only reading a few pages Thus texts manualsand reference books which you use rather thanread work best as e-books17

Within this particular focus group studentsthought the idea of paying for electronic bookswas completely unfair and unethical This is theperspective of one particular group of studentsand something that libraries and e-book suppliersneed to consider However the University of Surreyin similar circumstances found that reaction toEbrary was positive Many of the students com-mented that having such a service available wouldenable them to avoid spending a lot of money on abook which was then only useful for the contentsof one chapter They did not see having to pay forprinting pages was any barrier6

All the students agreed that in theory hand-heldreaders containing lots of recommended text-books were a good idea All said that they woulduse them if they were made available by the collegeor the library to help them with their studies Allthought that it was absurd that they should be

expected to pay for their own hand-held readers(in the same way they thought that they shouldnrsquotbe expected to pay for information) This is indic-ative of studentsrsquo financial situations

The overall feeling from the focus group sug-gests that the student midwives donrsquot regard infor-mation resources as something that they should beexpected to pay for Interestingly nine out of 10 ofthe student midwives had access to a PC in theirown homes but their comments suggest that theydo not regard them as investments in access toacademic information resources

The discussion around the potential of e-booksfocused on suggestions of features which thestudent midwives may find useful While they hadpreviously retrieved textual information from theirNetLibrary collection they had not thought aboutthe potential that e-books have in enhancing theirstudies and learning activities The focus groupsetting provided the opportunity for the studentsto think about this and subsequently suggestionsregarding graphics illustrations and further UK-based content were put forward This discussionallowed the student midwives to see the develop-mental potential of e-books and it was very inter-esting to see their comparisons of e-books withe-journals These midwifery students would like tobe able to type in their keywords into an e-bookscollection interface and retrieve relevant chaptersof text instantly in the same way that they retrieverelevant e-journal articles These findings draw upona comparison with the studentsrsquo experiences of e-journals collections which were covered in the sameseries of workshops as their introduction to e-books

Significant implications arise out of encourag-ing greater uptake and structured use of e-booksfor example the way they are accessed throughlibrary web pages and the information skillsprogrammes currently offered18 The student mid-wives who are the subjects of the above focus groupclearly value their online learning environmentand have benefited from their e-books collectionbeing made accessible to them through this plat-form As an integrated approach to learning tech-nology and resources Learning Services at EdgeHill have actively tried to embed e-books intoVLEs The placement and embedding of e-booksinto the midwifery health information VLE hasbeen one such case study19



251

Conclusion

The focus group findings provide an interestinginsight into the perceptions attitudes and usage ofe-books by this particular group of students Thestudents who formed the focus group had all pre-viously actively used NetLibrary and successfullysubmitted and passed course assessments in whichthey were required to use NetLibrary e-booksThe assessment criteria had asked the midwiferystudents to investigate a series of electronic infor-mation resources including the CochraneLibrary and NetLibrary e-books Search strategieswere applied to each resource and evidence wasobtained from each for inclusion in the assessedportfolio While the students appeared motivatedand enthusiastic in their use of e-books duringtheir assessment period many negative feelingscame out during the focus group The studentshad had an opportunity for non-assessment drivenreflection upon the use of e-books and this hadallowed opportunities for the students to com-pare the e-books resource with other informationresources available to them

The focus group also allowed an opportunityfor the students to reflect upon how useful theyhad found the electronic resource during theirassessment but their instinctive reactions werethat e-books were not as effective a learning mate-rial as printed books or even electronic journalsMany library services in particular health libraryservices do now promote targeted e-journalcollections (eg Proquest etc) as a very effectiveresearch tool The functionality allowed by fulltext searching and the choice of publicationsoffered in an e-journals collection could be trans-ferred to similar e-book collections This wouldallow students to realize the potential of e-bookscollections E-book providers such as NetLibraryare already taking such considerations into accountand are making different models of e-book collec-tions available

The reasons for the reaction of the student mid-wives are numerous and appear in the above focusgroup findings but are a mixture of ease of usenavigation getting used to e-resources cost access-ibility quality of content interface speed of usepromotion and encouragement of use There arealso many positive points to come from the focus

group in that the midwifery students did come torealize the functionality and potential of e-booksand would continue to make use of them in certaincontexts (ie VLEs and remotely) if facilitatedand promoted to them in appropriate ways Thestudents were not convinced that a collection ofe-books provided them with a useful evidence-based resource However the focus group revealsother potential uses of e-books as a midwiferyresource (ie as a graphical tool to convey diagramsvideo etc) and that inclusion within a structuredweb-based environment (eg a VLE) can allowfor optimum potential of e-books as an academicinformation resource

Studentsrsquo use of e-book collections will be oneof the key indicators as to how this electronicresource can best be developed to enhance teach-ing and learning This focus group has allowed asmall study into how one particular group of stu-dents has used an e-books collection within theirstudies Larger-scale studies focusing upon multi-disciplinary use of e-books collections need to becarried out in order to further examine how theycan impact upon academic studies

References

1 Cheek J amp Doskatsch I Information literacy a resource for nurses as lifelong learners Nurse Education Today 1998 18 243ndash50

2 Horten A Wallace M C amp Crookes P A Developing information literacy a key to evidence-based nursing International Nursing Review 2001 48 86ndash92

3 Breaks M Building the hybrid library a review of UK activities Learned Publishing 2002 15 99ndash107

4 Hyatt S amp Silipigni Connaway L Utilizing E-books to enhance digital library offerings Ariadne 2002 33 Available from httpwwwariadneacukissue33netlibraryintrohtml

5 Feather J amp Sturges P International Encyclopaedia of Information and Library Science 2nd edn London Routledge 2003

6 University of Surrey Testing the Viability of the Introduction of Electronic Books at UNIS final report 2004 Available from httpwwwsurreyacukLibraryeBook_Project_pdf

7 Appleton L amp Roberts S E-texts a targeted approach Serials 2003 16 83ndash7

8 Wallace M C Shorten A C amp Patrick A Teaching information literacy skills an evaluation Nurse Education Today 2000 20 485ndash9

9 EBONI Project Eboni overview 2002 Available from httpebonicdlrstrathacuk

10 University of Rochester Netlibrary Ebook Usage at the



252

University of Rochester Libraries 2003 Available from httpwwwlibrochesteredumainebooksstudiesanalysispdf

11 Brook J Weaver M Pattern D amp Anderson S The INHALE project (Information for Nursing and Health in a Learning Environment) the first year VINE 2002 32 24ndash34

12 Lynch C The battle to define the future of the book in the digital world FirstMonday 2001 6 Available from httpwwwfirstmondayorg issuesissue6minus6 lynch

13 Dillon D E-books the University of Texas experience part 2 Library Hi-Tech 2001 19 350ndash62

14 CEO Ebrary Ebrary building bridges between islands of information an E-mail interview with Christopher Warnock CEO Ebrary VINE 2002 32 52ndash4

15 Cobas Perez R amp Alamon X Creating e-books in a distributed and collaborative way Electronic Library 2002 20 288ndash95

16 Silipigni Connaway L A Web-based electronic book (e-book) library the netLibrary model Library Hi Tech 2001 19 340ndash9

17 Lonsdale R amp Armstrong C Electronic books challenges for academic libraries Library Hi Tech 2001 19 332ndash9

18 OrsquoLeary M E-books Scenarios Updated 2003 Available from httpwwwinfotodaycomonlinesep03olearyshtml

19 Appleton L Embedding and promoting electronic books as a virtual learning resource In EUNIS 2003 Conference Beyond the NetworkmdashInnovative IT Services Proceedings Book Amsterdam UVA Informatiseringscentrum 2003 175ndash8

Key Messages

Implications for Policy

bull e-book collections should be developed and facilitated in order to provide enhanced electronicinformation resources for library users pursuing academic study

bull e-book collections need to be developed with particular user groups in mind (eg health studiesstudents medical practitioners)

bull e-book collections need to be promoted to particular user groups through targeted and structuredstrategies

Implications for Practice

bull Health studies students find remote access to electronic information resources effective due to theirfull curricula and need to fulfil numerous clinical placements

bull Effective use of e-books can be achieved through library and information professionals incorporat-ing their use into structured information skills programmes



246

by students is now accepted as fundamental tohealth studies education and teaching staff expectstudents to use such resources Library and infor-mation staff supporting this student group haveintentionally marketed such resources at them

Recently the emergence of electronic books(e-books) has provided opportunities to integrateanother electronic resource into existing hybridlibrary facilities There are differing definitions ofthe term lsquoelectronic bookrsquo4 The broadest defini-tion of e-book is lsquoa text analogous to a book thatis in digital form to be displayed on a computerscreenrsquo5 However this could also refer to textavailable on CD-ROMs diskettes and freely avail-able web pages A more suitable definition for thisparticular context is to use the term lsquoe-bookrsquo torepresent content that has been made availabledigitally and electronically via an Internet connec-tion displayed on a computer screen and allowingpages to be printed and downloaded locally6

The success of other forms of electronicacademic content (eg e-journals) has providedthe opportunity for current e-book developmentsPublishers have observed increases in both useand popularity of e-journals which has promptedindividual publishers to consider making theirscholarly and academic texts available to usersonline One trend in particular has been forindividual publishers to digitize particularcollections within their own available titles fordirect sale to users and libraries However librariesrequire the ability to customise collections by dis-cipline and make use of more than one publisherThis has allowed the emergence of the e-booksupplier such as NetLibrary and Ebrary

This paper will look at how e-books in particularhave been used in support of midwifery educationat the Faculty of Health within Edge Hill Collegeof Higher Education Edge Hill College of HigherEducation is a multi-site institution throughoutthe north-west of England Its Faculty of Healthexists on three geographically disparate campuses(Liverpool Stockport Ormskirk) and teaching andlearning takes place on each of these sites Learn-ing Services (a converged service comprising ofcomputing library and media services) endeavoursto support students remotely by facilitatingeffective hybrid-library services to all studentsE-books have been integrated into midwifery

studentsrsquo studies through a programme of infor-mation literacy training and evidence has beengathered as to how much impact e-books have hadon studentsrsquo study experiences

Background

Having achieved successful implementation pro-motion and embedding of other electronic resourceswithin teaching and learning throughout EdgeHill College the next logical step for LearningServices appeared to be involvement with e-booksA specific student user group e-book collectionand e-book supplier all had to be identified InMarch 2002 Learning Services decided that atarget pilot group for e-books should be a usergroup that studied on a multi-site basis and hada critical mass of part-timedistance users Auser group that met these criteria was the Facultyof Health students Similarly remote resourcesare required for these students as they spendsignificant amounts of time away from campuswhilst on clinical placements At this time themajor multi-disciplinary e-book suppliers toacademic libraries were NetLibrary and EbraryMore specialist e-book suppliers such as Safariand Books 24 times 7 were acknowledged but onfurther scrutiny of appropriate health medicaland nursing subject material the shortlist consistedof only NetLibrary and Ebrary NetLibrary waseventually chosen as the supplier as they wereable to provide e-books within a library settingThat is to say from an acquisitions and circulationperspective individual titles may be made avail-able to library users The NetLibrary model at thetime suited Learning Servicesrsquo requirements Eache-book could be circulated in the same manneras its print equivalent An individual e-book couldbe checked out to one user at a time meaningthat if multiple simultaneous use was requiredthen multiple copies had to be purchased EachNetLibrary e-book could be checked out to a userwho then had sole access to this particular e-bookfor a pre-determined circulation period (it shouldbe noted that since this initial implementation ofe-books NetLibrary have allowed multiple accessto titles purchased by the NoWAL consortium)

A successful pilot project concerned withpromoting the use of e-books was completed in



247




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Documents

The use of electronic books in midwifery education: the student perspective