1. The Research Agenda for E-content David Nicholas CIBER University College London david.nicholas@ucl.ac.uk

2. Importance of research Knowledge of virtual scholars information seeking behaviour based on e-journal studies which appeal to researchers and scientists. Know much less about behaviour of students, arts/humanities scholars and some social scientists – majority community. In vacuum work with an e-journal stereotype of information seeking and that is dangerous

3. Importance of research Biggest user group might not have to visit the library. Books occupy premier space Publishers getting closer to users – decoupling scenario Publishers the new librarians, and librarians the new publishers? OUP walled- garden approach. Libraries have huge experience And then there is data!

4. E-books look particularly formidable Offer condensed, distilled knowledge – big demand Textbook access particular big issue with students - customers Under-utilised resource because contents not digitally visible, now in consumer-friendly form, fits bouncing & power browsing behaviour of virtual scholar. Bait of abstract and keyword, raises to the prominence (digital visibility) enjoyed by e-journals In e-shop window, becomes part of the digital consumer choice

5. Importance of research There is a blockage that is frustrating the development of the future digital library Need data and best practice to unblock the blockage….

6. CIBER e-book pebble in the pond studies Evidence based: major on deep log analysis with supporting contextual survey and interview data Superbook: action research over period October 06 – November 07. 3000 scholarly e-books from OUP (Oxford Scholarship online), Wiley InterScience and T & F and see what happened at UCL. Quite a mix of e-books, including monographs, lots of cross discipline use JISC national e-books observatory: another evidence based study covering scholarly textbooks (and their impacts) in 127 universities 10,000 MyiLibrary e-books; 500,000 sessions in 15 months. Nearly 60,000 questionnaire responses. Hugely powerful evidence base which points to good practice and impacts and neglected at its peril. http://www.jiscebooksproject.org/ Sheffield where it burns and some titles toohttp://www.jiscebooksproject.org/