The authors are Yin Zhang and Somali Kudva work at Kent State

University. The journal article will be helpful to my independence research

about how publishers will change in the e-books market, and the article is
entitled E-books versus print books: Readers choices and preferences
across contexts,' and was published in Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology in volume 65 in 2014. The article is
cited by 15 articles, and research about e-books, e-book reader devices and
digital contents has already been launched, and the authors research more
focus on the investigation of readerships preference for printed books and
e-books. The purpose of the study is finding an answer to the question that
digital publishing will takeover printed publishing. Therefore, a lot of data
are analysed which was collected from a variety of people who have
different points such as gender, age, community, education or income level
in the United Nations of America. The authors used the data from the
telephone interview of the National Reading Habits Survey, which was
conducted by the Pew Research Centers Internet &American Life Project in
2011 to deal with six questions (pp.1698-1699).

When the authors mentioned about the theoretical framework, some

opinions which explained similar questions with the authors
(pp.1696-1696). In the section, the authors explained that new media do not
take the place of old media, but the new media will reform that (p.1696).
This explanation might be almost all the same with the answer of the
authors study. In the result of the RQ5, a remarkable point was that
e-books and printed books show different performance in different reading
situations (p.1702). However, at the end of the section the authors
mentioned that even though tools are changed by peoples demand,
understanding of the original function of tools is important, but it is difficult
to understand why the authors assumed that it is the necessity (ibid).
 Some surveys about printed books and e-books were already conducted by
several researchers, but every research did not answer the authors
question that e-books will take the place of printed books (pp.1696-1698).
However, the authors did not compare own research results with the others
research, despite many types of research were cited in the article (ibid).

The data about RQ1 showed that the number of people who read a book
within 12 months before in the sample was 73.7% and, the majority of them
still read only printed books (p.1699). Although the group of only e-book
readers was the minority, the percentage of readers who adopt the both of
printed books and e-books was 14.4% in the whole of the sample (ibid). The
authors considered that e-books would not takeover printed books from the
results of RQ1, and the authors also expressed that the adaptation of
e-books was still beginning at the time (p.1704). However, it is possible to
say that the e-books did not spread yet from the result, but it is difficult to
declare whether e-books will take the place of printed books in the future
from the result.

There are some interesting results in the data of RQ2 (pp.1699-1701). For
example, a large number of readers in the Internet users read e-books and
printed books, and people who live in suburban tend to read both of e-books
and printed books, and the majority of readers in rural communities was
printed book readers (p.1700). The former could be not difficult to expect,
but the latter was out of the expectation because the purchase of printed
books in rural areas where residents usually need to use a car for shopping
might be more difficult than in suburban areas. On the other hand, the
results showed that Hispanic had the largest group of only e-book readers,
compared with the group of non-Hispanic white and black (p.1701).
However, every another ethnic group was categorized together as Other,
and the future research should more focus on individual ethnic groups as
well because the research might connect with the increase of sales of books
and be useful when publishers lay out promotions of books. According to the
authors, the group which has higher education tend to read the both of
e-books and printed books, but the sample included 16-18 years old people
as well, and the majority of people who read only printed books in the group
which is high school education level (p.1701). Furthermore, people who earn
money less than $20,000 per year had a larger population of the only e-book
reader than the other, but people who earn $20,000 $40,000 had a larger
population of only printed book readers (ibid). On the others hand, there is
nothing noteworthy gap the e-books reader and printed books among the
people who earn $40,000 to $75,000, (ibid.). Some of the results such as the
Internet or age are easy to explain because young people more familiarize
IT devices than adult, and the environment of Internet is essential for the
purchases of E-books, but the authors should have analysed factors that
resulted in the other consequences, especially income and education level.

It could be said from the result of RQ3 and RQ4 that reading frequently
tended to reduce (p.1705). When the authors pointed out the opinion that
the reduction of reading frequently was due to e-books from Rainie et al.
was used as fallacious reasoning (p.1705). Reading frequency of printed
books and e-books readers showed the higher figure than only printed books
readers in the result of RQ4 (p.1702). Therefore, the authors assumption is
probably reasonable.

When the authors analysed the result of RQ5, it was mentioned that the
influence of individual readers contextual situation might work
significantly to choices of printed books or e-books (p.1705). In addition, the
result showed that the most popular situation in which people chose printed
books was when people read a book with children, and share with someone
was the second (p.1702). The authors are concerned that e-books do not
have pictures or interactions compared with printed books, thus printed
books were chosen in the situation which reading books with children
(p.1705). The result might provide the exact example which new medium
performed in different situations with older mediums because the most
popular situation which people choose e-books is when people want to get a
book quickly and read a book while traveling or commuting (p.1702). On the
other hand, there is no authors inference why the choice between e-books
and printed book became polarized in reading in bed (p.1702).

There are many factors that spread the adaptation of e-books in RQ6, and
almost all of them could be deducible from the result of RQ1 to RQ5 (p.1703).
Nevertheless, it is not clear why reading for work or study might push the
adaptation of e-books and how education level will give influence positively
to that (ibid). Moreover, further research might be a necessity to establish
why readers who read an interesting research topic frequently will adopt
e-books and reading for work or study might push the adaptation of e-books
(ibid). The authors also suggested that the relationship between printed
books and e-books in the future might be clear by further investigation
(p.1705). It is too early to conclude the question that e-books will take the
place of books at the moment because the movement of the spread of e-books
is still in progress.

In the conclusion and future research (pp.1705-1706), the authors

mentioned that the share of e-books is increasing, but the position of printed
books is not replaced yet (p.1705). In addition, both of them work
individually in different readers needs, and it can be said that both of them
work supplemental each other (ibid). It may mean that the authors predict
that e-books and printed books will exist together, and the authors
predication might be supported by the results of research.
 The article provided interesting information, but some results such as RQ2
of ethnic groups, education level, and income level should have researched
further because analyzing of the consumer might be helpful to publishers
for selling products. However, the possibility that e-books and printed books
could take a role of supplementing each other is quite reasonable as an
argument, and the results of the study will be useful to research about the
change of publishers in the online publishing market.

Reference

Zhang, Y. and Kudva, S. (2014) E-books versus print books: Readers choices
and preferences across contexts, Journal of the Association for Information
Science and Technology, 65(8), pp. 16951706. doi: 10.1002/asi.23076.