Ebooks might be convenient, but they come at a cost. The spread of ebooks has driven circulation down in China's university libraries, and even caused some librarians to lose their jobs.

Li Zhongping, a librarian in Hankou University, Wuhan told a local newspaper, Chutian Metropolis Daily, on Friday that the number of the librarians had been cut from eight to three recently, because the empty reading rooms reduced their workload.

Li said that five years ago, students might need to queue for several days to borrow some popular books but now things have changed.

Hankou's library is now lending 68,000 less books a year compared to 2010. But ebook access at a nearby school has increased from 356 to 44,556 since 2009.

 Some professors and librarians said that students still need to read the printed material and visit the libraries regularly in order to get a better understanding of the literature and not waste school resources.