We report findings from an assessment of e-book user experience (search and information seeking) from usage data and user tests. The usage data showed that most reading sessions were brief and focused on certain pages, suggesting that users mainly use e-books to find specific information. The user tests found that participants tended to use default keyword search and browse the search results. Experience levels with e-books and features of e-book platforms influenced users' information seeking in e-books. The assessment results have significant implications for designing e-book features to support users' reading strategies and help libraries create a consistent user experience. Introduction E-books are being widely adopted in academic libraries as a new format for scholarly resources, largely for their apparent advantages over print books (such as storage and cost). The literature on e-books has covered an array of themes, including library adoption of e-books, acquisition models, the supply side of e-book market, promotion among users, cataloging, copyright, and digital rights management (DRM). 1 These themes are useful in determining library acquisition strategies and designing e-book-related services; however, the role of e-books in users' information-seeking processes remains comparatively unexplored. While a number of studies have reported faculty's and students' perceptions and attitudes of e-books, 2 less is known on user actual behavior with and around e-books. 3 A few usability studies have examined specific e-book platforms, 4 but there is still the need for libraries to better understand the discovery and actual use of e-books. Understanding these phases holistically as users' information-seeking behavior can facilitate a user-centered approach to improving e-books, as well as their use and adoption in academic libraries. The goal of this study was to better understand the discovery and use of e-books in an academic library. To this end, we developed a new assessment methodology by integrating e-book usage data and behavior observation in user tests. We expected the usage data to show patterns of user interaction with e-books, which should serve as the basis for designing user test tasks. In the user tests, we observed how participants
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