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I attended the two day eBook conference held in Beijing in 16-17 May 2006. The conference was organized by Beijing Founder Electronics
Company, the company that produces Chinese eBook Apabi. There were more than 900 people attended the conference. The meeting brought together
publishers, librarians and electronic reading device manufacturers. My impression of the conference was that Chinese book publishers were eager
to be part of the new publishing format.
At the first day of the conference we heard that China has the 2nd largest number of Internet users in the world, after USA. An Internet
user survey shows that in 1999, only 3.7% of the surveyed people used Internet in China. In 2004, 18.3% used Internet, and in 2005, this increased
to 27.8%. This represents almost 100% increase each year.
The chief editor of the China Computer Newspaper, Dr. Lu Shan, revealed the results of a recent Internet user survey by his newspaper. They
conducted the survey in Beijing. The survey targeted people aged over 14 years who had shopped on Internet at least once. They were asked whether
they will buy any books in the future. These are the interesting figures I wrote down:
The Survey result showed that in 2004-2005, 32% of people used Internet bookstores to buy printed books. 22% of people read eBooks. 26% read
online, and 19% downloaded to read. 58% purchased eBook which resembles their print versions. People purchased ebooks mainly for their content,
and the most of them were reference books, dictionaries, journals. 38% of users bought a cheap ebook Reader to read ebooks, but 31% of users did
not want to buy handheld Readers. There were 41% who bought ebooks instead of print version.
He concluded that there was not a great deal of confidence in ebooks among users at the moment, and one of the main concerns was the standard
of handheld ebook Readers on the market. He thinks publishers should also work with Website creators to improve the Web interface of their
electronic products.
Mr. Zhou Jin, deputy CEO of Founder Electronics, gave some ebook publishing figures in China. Since 2005, there has been a 65% increase in
ebook publishing and 80 more publishers became E-publishers in China. 16% more academic libraries acquired ebooks in 2005. In Beijing Science and
Technology University library, ebook loans were greater than print loans, and at the Shanghai TV University which mainly offers distant learning
courses, ebook loans were 57% greater than their print loans.
Zhou thinks there will be less people reading print materials, and more people using the Internet. He thinks the future trends of the
E-publishing will be:
Print and electronic books will co-exist. There will be Print, PC format ebook, movable ebook (using handheld device), multimedia ebook, on demand E-publishing (produce chapters or a few pages from a book)
Libraries will play a role in helping users to become familiar with ebook products.
Publishing companies will have a specific unit/division to produce ebooks.
ePaper standards will be an issue
He mentioned there are 4 kinds of handheld ebook Readers on the market in China at the moment.
The second day of the conference was parallel sections. I attended the library section. The first speaker was the deputy director of the
Beijing University library, Mr. Zhu Qiang. His topic was on the "Transition of academic libraries in the Internet era". He said that the current
situation in academic libraries is:
from collection focus to user needs
from print to multiple formats
from single method of delivery to multiple method of delivery
from information searching to knowledge finding
He said that libraries were becoming hybrid and service methods had changed. Users find information themselves from their terminals.
This resulted in organization structure changes, building and equipment changes, and libraries relying on more and more electronic products.
Libraries are also facing the challenge from Google and need to make changes to face the competition (such as E-publishing, open access, deep
level sharing, storage, depository, etc.)
He thinks the academic libraries' future position should be:
an information centre
a study centre (lifelong learning center)
a knowledge management centre
In his conclusion, he said that academic libraries are in their best time in terms of technology, human resources, etc, but they need to
change their method of service to meet the challenges.
Mr. Chu Jingli, from the China Science & Technology Institute, gave a talk on the analysis of user behaviour in the Internet environment.
His talk was based on a survey result from OCLC. He said libraries need to pay attention to user information seeking behaviour and to make changes in the way they deliver information to users.
User information needs is different from what they require from other kinds of services. They want:
fast service
ease of searching. They do not want to go through login/password
immediate service. They will jump to another service provider if they have to wait.
preciseness, not a pile of information thrown on them.
to get everything just by clicking the mouse.
He said libraries are not the first point to get information any more. Library catalogues cannot compete with Google and are not simple
enough to use. Users prefer self service and do not want librarians' help. He listed 5 points on what libraries should do to face changes:
Monitor user behaviour changes
Analyse user needs
Make changes accordingly
Use new technologies to guide users
Design services based on users needs
Founder Electronics reported a result of their recent ebook usage survey. Data from 49 libraries in China over 2 years showed that the
number of ebook loans increased from 35,000 in 2004, to 97,000 in 2005 and 142,000 in 2006.
Places to read ebooks showed that in universities, 39.3% of users read ebooks in the library, 19.1% read at home, 38.2% read at their
office. In public libraries, 7.3% read ebooks in the library, 59.1% read at home, and 31.2% read at their office.
Type of ebooks users prefer to use: textbooks, computer books, literature and reference materials.
This conference certainly was an interesting one to attend. I was surprised to see more than half of the conference attendees were from
publishers all around China and keen to be involved in electronic publishing. Some of them had announced they will publish everything in both
print and electronic formats. There was a Signature Signing Ceremony during the conference for partners of the "Book Marketing Union" which
includes Apabi, OCLC. Search engines such as Baidu, Sohu, Online bookseller Joyo.com, book suppliers and book stores are to form an online one
stop shop for ebooks.
Philips Electronics had announced its plan to make a handheld ebook reading device for Apabi Chinese ebooks at the conference. This would
benefit users and allow reading of both Chinese and English ebooks.
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