A conversation between two  business faculty members and a business
librarian has lead to a collaborative experiment between the Wisconsin School of Business and  the General Library System.

Robin Tanner and David Schweidel, assistant professors of Marketing, were talking to  Michael Enyart about electronic reserves and course packets. Schweidel wondered if the new generation of electronic readers might be suitable to replace hard-copy course packets. Enyart thought it worth pursuing, and secured funding from Ken Frazier, director of the General Library System, to purchase three electronic readers for an experiment.

Frazier feels that the search for the “perfect electronic book” is beginning to gain traction in the marketplace.  The Sony Reader and the Kindle are both growing in consumer acceptance.  For the University Library, portable-reading devices may have a profound influence in changing the way that academic content is stored, used, and managed. The collaborative pilot between the General Library System and the business school provides an opportunity to measure the effectiveness of the device in real-world context of student needs and expectations.

Shashidhar Golagani and Matt Cline, members of  Tanner’s MKT 715 class, volunteered to test-drive the  devices. Schweidel, Tanner  and Enyart plan to assess the results of this pilot to determine the acceptance of this type of technology among students. Cost savings and “green” savings of such devices will be examined.

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