Ein Artikel im Blog „ACRL Tech Connect“ geht der Frage nach, wieso die Ausleihrate pro Benutzer in wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken in den USA im Fallen ist:
Und, es dürften nicht die ebooks daran schuld sein:
If it’s not a shift in media, the most reasonable explanation is that it’s a shift in user behavior. Students are simply not using books (in any format) as much as they used to. …
I think the most simple answer is the web. 1996 is the first data point showing a drop in circulation. Of course the web was quite small then, but AOL and Yahoo! were already around, and the Internet Archive had been founded. If you think back to a pre-web time, pretty much anything you needed to know more about required a trip to the library and checking out a book.
The most important thing to take away is that, regardless of cause, user behavior has changed and by all data points is still changing. In the end, the greatest question is how will academic libraries adapt? It is clear that the answer is not as simple as a transition to a new media. To survive, librarians must find the answer before we have enough data to prove these predictions.
Siehe: http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=233
Gibt es dazu auch Daten aus dem deutschen und österreichischen Raum oder vergleichbare Untersuchungen?