Research Reviews

Reading has long been regarded as an essential skill for learning and knowledge building, and the more frequent and skilled readers often became successful in gaining university entry. However, in the last decade libraries, and especially university libraries, as repositories of literature and reference works, have undergone significant changes with the introduction of online information access. Is there a difference between reading text in a book and reading online? Although there have been several claims that students who operate online are better readers than those who do not, the evidence remains ambiguous and contestable. Recent work in examining online reading behaviour, evidence from neuroscience research and research into the library habits of students and their reading preferences has shed some light on the differences between reading from printed texts and reading online.