The Pew Internet & American Life project has released a new report entitled: Younger Americans’ Reading and Library Habits
You can find it here
You can see a summary here and/or download the full report.
This report covers the reading habits of 16 – 29 year olds, including the primary demographic for IU students. The report mainly focuses on reading and how these demographics use e-books at a public library, but it also offers guidance about how discovery tools can be used. With IU about to launch a new discover library catalog interface I thought I would point out how New IUCAT Beta will address some of these suggestions.
Book covers – Many readers like to see what the book looks like as it inspires them to read it. New IUCAT Beta will contain Book covers supplied by Google Books. Eventually we hope to expand into DVD and CD covers as well.
Ease of finding books – New IUCAT Beta has easy to use facets to help users limit to just ebooks, or just print books, whatever the user prefers.
Ease of accessing e-materials – The New IUCAT Beta will allow users to have a one-step access to e-materials available to them. When they find an item they want, all they have to do is click on the URL. From there a login screen will pop up, the user logs in, and they now have access to their materials. There will no longer be a laborious login users have to get through.
List of new books – with the New IUCAT Beta users can RSS searches, allowing them to be notified when new books are added.
These are just some of the features the New IUCAT Beta has to offer users. Its an exciting and important change for IU, students, staff, and researchers.
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