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Reading Habits and Library Use AmongYoung AdultsÅse Kristine Tveit aa Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences,Department of Archivistics, Library and Information Science , Oslo ,NorwayPublished online: 03 Oct 2012.
To cite this article: Åse Kristine Tveit (2012) Reading Habits and Library Use AmongYoung Adults, New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, 18:2, 85-104, DOI:10.1080/13614541.2012.714341
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New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 18:85–104, 2012Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1361-4541 print/1740-7885 onlineDOI: 10.1080/13614541.2012.714341
Reading Habits and Library Use AmongYoung Adults
ÅSE KRISTINE TVEITOslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Department of Archivistics,
Library and Information Science, Oslo, Norway
This study investigates the reading and library habits amongteenagers in Oslo, Norway using qualitative interviews and a sur-vey. Interviews with four girls demonstrate individual variation intheir literary tastes and in the roles of reading they take on. The sur-vey gives an overview of teenagers’ library use and their literaturepreferences, and detects that girls and boys differ in preferencesof reading media. Differences in literary tastes are also shown asgender-based. The survey indicates different patterns in readingfrequency and reading materials in the sense that students from theschools with the closest connection to the public library read more,as well as in a broader range of reading materials than studentsfrom schools with no such connection.
KEYWORDS public libraries, young adults, reading, Norway
INTRODUCTION
To promote literature to young readers and to make them love reading is animportant issue in public libraries, as well as one of the most challenging.In Scandinavia, children are frequent users of libraries, but the frequencyof young library users’ visits in Denmark and Sweden has for many yearsbeen distinctly higher than in Norway. The reasons for this difference couldbe explained both in economical and geographical terms. Most Norwegianmunicipalities do not give public libraries as much funding, and the popu-lation is scattered, more than in the other Scandinavian countries. A lot of
Address correspondence to Åse Kristine Tveit, Oslo and Akershus University College ofApplied Sciences, Department of Archivistics, Library and Information Science, Postbox 4, St.Olavs plass, Oslo, NO-0130, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]
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children simply do not have any library in their neighborhood. Still, manyof the Norwegian public libraries offer a broad range of literature programsand activities for children. For young adults, it is less so. Many Norwegianlibrarians are troubled by the fact that a relatively high percentage of theirusers leave the library when they reach the age of 15 to 16 years (Vaage2012). The annual PISA reports on reading skills in the OECD countries haveshown a decline in both reading competence and reading for enjoymentamong youth in the Nordic countries. Hence, the librarians are concernedabout young people’s reading habits, reading skills, and their possible lossof cultural goods. Efforts are made to get the teenagers to stay interestedin reading, and a few public libraries are striving to develop quality libraryservices for this group (Sandvik 2012). Several policy documents from thenational culture authorities stress the importance of libraries giving childrenand youth access to knowledge and culture, but these documents concen-trate primarily on serving the children (Kultur- og kirkedepartementet 2009;ABM-utvikling 2006), while less attention is paid to teen-agers and youngadults. They are left out both by the general national schemes and the locallibrary managers.
To develop quality library services requires basic knowledge of the tar-get groups. A problem in this case is the lack of knowledge about the youngusers or potential users. To address this issue properly, it is fundamental toexamine how young people in fact use the library, and get to know as muchas possible about their reading preferences.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The aim of the work presented, is to get a better understanding of the youngreaders and library users in Oslo, to get a closer view of their readinghabits, and to analyze their library use. The questions I ask in this articleare: 1) What elements influence teenagers reading choices, and what kindof texts appeal to them? And 2) What part does the public library play forteen-agers, concerning a) their reading habits and b) their school work?
The study combines individual interviews with four girls who aredevoted readers, with a survey of teen-agers’ reading habits, and libraryuse at four schools in central Oslo.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH: ON YOUTH AND LIBRARIES
Several studies outside of Norway have been made on library servicesto teenage users (Corradini 2006; Alessio and Buron 2006; Jones 2002).A Canadian study by Vivien Howard (2011) aimed at finding out how youngpeople picture the public library and what may prevent them from using it.
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Her survey indicated a relatively high score on satisfaction with library ser-vices. However, the focus group interviews revealed that the satisfaction wasbased on a minimum of expectations. The informants did not, for example,trust the librarians’ advice on literature. Her results are much in line with aDanish report (Kofod and Sørensen 2006) where young people set forwarda number of reasons why the public library did not appeal to them or meettheir needs. They did not feel welcome, they did not conceive it as a “niceplace,” it was difficult to find books for either homework or leisure reading,and the hours of operation did not suit them. The services at the libraries inquestion do not seem to have been developed according to American writerand librarian Patrick Jones (2002), who describes the exciting possibilitieswhen building up services for young adults:
The new direction of services is to look at what young adult needfirst, and then to develop services to meet those needs. The vision isabout reconnecting with teenagers, forming relationships with them, andsupporting them as they develop into adults (2002, 15).
Supporting such a development is a big challenge and requires insight notonly into young adult life, but into the potential of the library as well.Ways of using the public library could be described by a model, consist-ing of four rooms, each of them offering arenas, services, and activities toserve four different goals for the individuals; knowledge/experience, com-mitment, empowerment, and innovation (Jochumsen et al. 2010). The fourrooms include the meeting room; based on the user’s participation eitherin arrangements, study groups or in facilitating communities or networking,while the learning room is where one discovers and learns new stuff, eitherby having access to learning resources, or by attending courses. The perfor-mance room is the creative sphere where the users may develop and displaytheir aesthetic talents, and the room of inspiration is based on experiences,by offering access to different media and entertainment. The four roomsconstitute a model of how the public library could be of individual value indifferent ways. This model makes a useful tool for analyzing the informant’slibrary use.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH: ON YOUTH READING
As for the question of reading habits, I will make use of Joseph A. AppleyardBecoming a Reader: The Experience of Fiction from Childhood to Adulthood(1991). Appleyard combines insights from both developmental psychologyand reader-response theory and presents five age determined reader roles.Donald Fry’s Children Talk about Books: Seeing themselves as Readers (1985),makes in-depth analyses of conversations with a number of young readers.
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Both Appleyard and Fry made interesting discoveries of what literaturecould mean in the lives of young persons, especially in building identities.A Norwegian researcher, Sylvi Penne (2003) made use of both Appleyardand Fry in her studies of how teenagers read and understand the literaturethey are presented to at school (Penne). Another interesting study is made bythe Swedish researcher Maria Ulfgard. In her thesis För att bli kvinna och avlust (2002) she examines the reading habits of 20 teenage girls. She detectsclose connections between reading preferences and social surroundings andalso between reading preferences and the development of a sexual identity.
A recent study of Nordic young adults reading, published by the NordicCouncil of Ministers (Egelund 2012), is based on the statistics from the annualPISA-reports, which measure the reading skills and reading habits of studentsof 15 years age in the OECD countries. This study points at a decline in read-ing for enjoyment, and considerable differences in reading patterns betweengirls and boys. Norwegian statistics of reading habits, in general, indicatesthat readers from 15 years and onward spend less time reading than theyounger age groups (Vaage 2012). A few studies of young people’s choiceof literature show us that many of the Norwegian young adults prefer adultliterature and that many of them are into specific genres such as crime fic-tion or fantasy (Fritt valg 2004; Westerheim and Tveit 2006). This means thatthey are likely to read both books from the children’s and youth departmentas well as from the general department in the library. In this way, they are“invisible” when looking at the library’s lending statistics.
An old, comprehensive study of reading among 8000 Oslo-childrenwas made in 1936 by the head of the children’s department in Oslo pub-lic library (Deinboll 1942). The patterns of reading preferences at that timewere marked by social differences as well as gender-based differences in pre-ferred literature. The boys (2nd to 7th grades) were the most active users of thelibrary at that time. This old study makes an interesting basis of comparisonto the present study from 2011–12.
METHOD AND INFORMANTS
This work combines two sets of data: qualitative interviews and a survey.The two sets are presented in that order, and the results are collated in thelater conclusion section.
For the interviews, the informants were recruited from a storytellingcourse in Torshov branch of Deichmanske bibliotek, Oslo Public Library.Eight girls participated in the course; they were from 12 to 15 years old, fourof them had immigrant background, and they all lived nearby the library.1
1 The course was open to both girls and boys, but no boys turned up. Several of the girls made itclear that they preferred it so, as they would have found any boys’ presence to be a disturbing element.
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I informed the girls the first night in the storytelling class that I worked ona project concerning storytelling as promotion of literature.2 I invited themto volunteer as informants, with their parents’ acceptance. Four of the girlsagreed to be interviewed, and they got a letter to bring home and takeback to me with their parent’s signature of approval. An interview guide wasset up, but not followed closely. They were interviewed individually at thelibrary for about 45 minutes to one hour each. The interviews were recorded,as it was made clear to the girls that the files were to be deleted afterward.After being transcribed, the girl’s statements were sorted into the differentcategories of particular interest (Kvale 1997). In this article, the categoriesof interest are “reading habits,” “taste,” “literary quality,” “the social standingof reading,”and “library use.” To secure anonymity, the girls are given newnames. They now are: Sara, 15; Anine, 13; Miriam, 13; and Ellen, 13.
The four interviewed girls’ statements on reading and library use are putin context by a survey among students of the same age and from the sameareas in Oslo. The survey was made to establish teenagers’ patterns of libraryuse and of leisure reading, which is understood as all types of reading thatis voluntary and not connected to school work.
The survey was limited to nine classes at four secondary schools in cen-tral Oslo: Sagene, Bjølsen, St. Sunniva, and Kristelig gymnasium (KG).3 Thechoice of schools was made partly for practical reasons, as some of themwere easily available, and the teachers were willing to open their Norwegianlesson for the survey, and partly because I wanted to get information fromthe schools where the four girls belonged. Bjølsen was an important schoolto include because of its cooperation with the local public library branch.Some classes at Bjølsen and a few other schools in Oslo have been “adopted”by the library and have had regular classes there for several years. At thelibrary classes, the students are presented with a range of books by a librar-ian and story-teller. She makes storytelling performances out of minor partsof the books, in order to tempt the students to read what follows. This pro-motion of literature has had a documented positive effect on the students’reading ability, their enjoyment of reading, as well as an improved vocab-ulary, noticeable in the students’ writings and oral presentations (Sæteren2003). Two of the interviewed girls attend Bjølsen. The Sagene school isclose to Bjølsen, but does not take part in the library cooperation previouslymentioned. Both Bjølsen and Sagene are located in one of Oslo’s districts
I thought of including interviews with some external boys, but because of another setting and becauseof the relation I developed with the girls in the story-telling sessions, I decided that the interviews wouldnot be comparable.2 Parts of the interviews concerning the storytelling course, are not included here, but used as datamaterial in my article “Å lese for å fortelle: Performativ litteraturformidling” “Reading to Tell Stories:Performative Promotion of Literature.” to be published in Nordisk tidskrift for informationsvidenskab ogkulturformidling /Nordic Journal of Information Science and Promotion of Culture 8.3 (2012).3 In English: Christian High school and secondary school.
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with the lowest family income (Oslo kommune 2011). St. Sunniva is a pri-vate, catholic school, located nearby the main public library in Oslo. KG,another private school, is dominated by ethnic Norwegian students fromwell-off families. The three other schools are, to a large extent, multiethnic,with a high percentage of first or second generation immigrants. One ofthe interviewed girls attends KG. I collected data from 10th grade studentsat Sagene and Bjølsen schools, 9th grade students from St. Sunniva school,and from 8th and 9th grade students at KG. I have made simple percentagecalculations from the data collected.
The students were to answer 10 questions about their library use andtheir reading habits, by marking with a cross (or several, for most of thequestions) in boxes linked to the alternative answers on the questionnaire.Eventually, they were asked to write down the title of one book of whichthey were especially fond. Any questionnaire, but especially one presentedto young people, should emphasize simplicity in language and a logicalstructure, to prevent misunderstandings, and hence loss of data. As I was ableto present the survey for the informants, and to explain any difficulties thatarose while they answered it, the risk was minimized. One of the advantagesof having this survey done in the classrooms, instead of inviting volunteers,was that it made the reluctant readers answer; many of them would otherwiseprobably have refused to take part.
The Interviews
Three out of four of the interviewed girls had ethnic Norwegian background.The interviews are analyzed according to John A. Appleyard’s (1991)
five roles of reading, to find out what roles the girls are fulfilling at theirpresent level. This way I could get a better picture of what they are capa-ble of reading, their motivation for reading, and what they expect from thebooks they choose. Appleyard has based his theory mainly on the devel-opmental psychology of Erik Erikson (1968) and his division of humandevelopment into stages. Vital for both theorists is the description of howchildren develop an identity. Appleyard presents five reader roles, con-nected to the different stages of man. Three of these roles are of specialinterest here: The first one is “The reader as Hero and Heroine.” This roleof reading is connected to the primary school-age child, who makes litera-ture form alternative worlds to involv with, and into where he or she canescape from the daily life. The other role is “The reader as Thinker,” whichAppleyard applies to the age of 13–17. This role is distinguished by thereader’s search in literature for values, truth and understanding of the bigquestions in life. The third role of interest is “The reader as Interpreter.”This role of reading is distinguished by systematic and analytic studies ofliterature and the ability to speak analytically about his or hers reading(Appleyard).
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GIRLS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD READING
The girls in the storytelling course did show different attitudes toward read-ing, but they quite agreed on storytelling. They were generally enthusiasticabout the course, and what inspired them the most was the performingpart of storytelling. They loved to perform. Some of the girls talked aboutbecoming actresses or TV-journalists (”in TV you don’t have to write”).
Reading was not as popular for all of the storyteller-girls. To some ofthem, reading was a very important part of life. As for the four girls I inter-viewed, they were all avid readers and spoke with enthusiasm of the goodreads they had experienced. To some of the other girls, reading was a boringnecessity; they had to find a story they could start working on, to make ittheir own. The girl with the most negative attitude to reading made severalcomments such as “mind you, I don’t read books,” and sighed when she hadto start reading. She spent a long time reading a few pages, and she did notfind the stories any fun when she read them herself. Once she commentedthat she was not a skilled reader, and she added “That’s why I am here.”
WHAT ROLES OF READING DO THE FOUR GIRLS TAKE ON?
Both Sara, 15, and Anine, 13, were concerned that what they read shouldbe significant to them. They want to learn something from their reading,but they do also want to be emotionally involved and to be entertained byreading. Anine answered very quickly that the key to a good story is “thatit has a meaning.” She repeated the word meaning; she emphasized it. Thestory could be funny as well, but that is not the most important thing. One ofthe best books she has read is Før jeg dør/Before I Die (Downham 2008). ”Itwas very absorbing, because it sort of put life in perspective.” Therefore, shelikes to read books about the big issues in life, which puts her in the role: Thereader as Thinker, but at the same time, she likes the easy and entertainingpopular fiction like Jenter i jeans/Forever in Blue (Brashares 2007–2009).On one of those books she commented: “One could somehow identify alittle with that book—it is maybe like something you dream of,” a statementthat connects her with the role of reading called The reader as Heroine.
Anine and Miriam, 13, both mention deeply serious books when theyare to express themselves on quality of the books they read. In additionto Before I die, they talk of Hvis jeg blir/ If I stay (Forman 2009) andVinterjenter/Wintergirls (Anderson 2010). All three books are concernedwith death, and the girls talk about them as “important.” They take onthe role as The reader as Thinker. The two other girls; Sara and Ellen aremore closely tied to their favorite genres, respectively crime fiction and fan-tasy. Asked to define what a good book is like, Sara talks of Jo Nesbø’sHodejegerne/The Headhunters (2008), a thriller for adults, and Ellen pointsat Christopher Paolini’s big volumes Arven/ Inheritance (2005–2010) and
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Gro Fykse’s Nelias gåte/Nelia’s enigma (2010). Still, both girls do read booksoutside their favorite genres.
Fantasy fiction offers great opportunities for the reader to involve in thestories as hero. The genre is characterized by offering alternative universes,which do not mirror the known world, but form new ones with other pos-sible conditions. This does not indicate that all fantasy fiction readers aretaking on only the role as Hero or Heroine. Ellen, though, says that shelooks for the exciting experience and the suggestive imagination, and shecould be placed in that role. However, both Ellen and Sara are interested inlanguage and structure in the books they read, a way of reading that takeson a more confident and interpretative role, closer to the aforementionedthird role, The reader as Interpreter.
TALKING ABOUT READING
Being book lovers is no problem at the schools and in the classes of thefour girls. On the contrary, it is in relatively high esteem. At Ellen’s school,nobody looks upon reading as nerdy, she says, and she is herself an activepromoter of literature, as she is giving books as gifts to make others lovereading.
Three of the girls say they talk to their classmates about books theyhave read, and they recommend books to each other. Miriam, for instance,has two close friends with whom she discusses books. They borrow fromeach other as a supplement to what they borrow at the library. Only one ofthe girls implies that reading is not appraised by her classmates: “You couldread, but it is not exactly a good thing to do.”
Sara, 15, often talks to her aunts about books, and it turns out theyare her most important sources of information on books. She also discussesher reading with her father, and adds that they have the same taste in books.In her class, there are not many readers, but of those who do, Sara comments:“They do not read the kind of books that I read, not at all. They like to readthose about love and that stuff.”
In order to talk about books, one is in need of a metalanguage. Threeout of four girls did not have a very well-developed language of such.“Exciting” and “funny” are the terms they use most frequently, and thesetwo words cover a broad range of different experiences and emotions thattheir reading evokes. Miriam, for instance, uses “funny” to describe a youngadult novel about suicide. She explains (after being asked to) that the book isvery sad, but that she got very engaged in it, and that it had something veryimportant to tell. A talk about what they read will help the young readersto put words to their reading experiences, which in turn may provide themwith a better understanding of what they read. This was also the case in theconversations that prof. Sylvi Penne (2003) had with 7th grade students at anOslo school. They had just read a text and had difficulties in interpreting it,
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but talking about how they felt about the text made them understand moreof it. They were on their way from the role of reader as a Hero or Heroineto the role of The reader as a Thinker (Penne). Penne argues that the con-versation on reading is of great importance to open up the young readers’understanding and interpretation of the texts they read.
WHAT DO THE GIRLS USUALLY READ?
Ellen, 13 has “read a lot lately. It all started with Harry Potter.” Shestarted reading while she was ill and at home. “It was really fun with thePotterbooks, because so many others had read them.” This shows an atti-tude to reading as something you could do for social reasons; having readPotter is having something in common with others. After Potter, she startedsearching for other books, and she is now an avid reader. She often readscomics, like Nemi4 and Donald Duck, but she prefers to read books, everyday “as often as possible.” Sometimes she has got so much homework thatthere is no time left for reading, and this frustrates her. Ellen reads a lotduring her holidays as well, and she both buys and borrows books. She is alittle reluctant when asked about reading on the internet, but mentions thatshe follows the blog by one of her favorite authors.
Sara, 15 reads every day if she has time to do so. She has a lot of home-work and spends much time preparing for examinations and presentationsat school, which, in turn, give her less time for reading than she wished shehad. She prefers crime fiction and suspense, but reads what she calls “funnyor sweet stories” as well as “crime-like historical or religious novels.” Before,she used to read a lot of comics, now she is only into books. Sara preferscrime in a book to crime on TV, because she thinks reading makes it easierto get involved in the story.
Miriam reads every day, both comics and books. To her, comics were theentry to book reading; she became much better in Norwegian after startingto read comics, she says. She reads in bed or after school if she has no otherplans. Donald Duck is her favorite comic. On the internet she reads severalJustin Bieber-blogs, and she even writes one herself. On her blog, she hasstarted publishing her own stories. Miriam buys books as well as borrows.She chooses books by blurb and by reading some samples.
Several of the girls attending the storyteller course talked about heavyamounts of homework, and stated that they had a lot to do, both with thedaily homework and with special project preparations and presentations inclass. The informants stressed that homeworkhours was an obstacle to readbooks they chose for themselves. This antagonism between school read-ing and leisure reading is confirmed in the study by Maria Ulfgard (2002,
4 Cartoon figure made by Norwegian artist Lise Myhre. http://www.nemicomics.com/
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132). She points at the unfortunate in this situation, and argues that a pos-sible connection between the two would stimulate both kinds of reading(347). Only Anine out of the four girls mentioned with a happy face that shewas going to read books by Lars Saabye Christensen for an assignment inNorwegian; “I am sure it will work out well,” she added optimistically.
GIRLS AS LIBRARY USERS
Six out of eight girls at the storytelling course had visited the library throughtheir school’s program. All eight of them use the library in other ways aswell, either alone or with family or friends. They all agree on the library as anice place to stay and their behavior confirms that they feel at home there.
Ellen says she did not discover the pleasures of reading until a couple ofyears ago. Since then she has used the library “very much” to choose booksfor herself and her little sister. She likes to get book recommendations, andshe talks a lot about books with her friends. Sometimes she asks the librariansto help her, but she prefers to search herself: “I sometimes stay in here forhours to look for books.” Earlier she had a crush on monster and horrorbooks, and searched exclusively for those, but now she reads a broaderrange of books. She borrows comics too, and a lot of picture books for herlittle sister. The best book she has read in her entire life is Jakten på VioletPark/Finding Violet Park (2010) by Jenny Valentine. When I ask her to showit to me, she looks for it at the exhibition shelf “where it usually is,” but it isnot there. Ellen does not remember the author’s name, and she has no ideaof how to retrieve the book. She is puzzled when I ask if she ever uses thelibrary’s computer to search for books. She never has, and neither have anyof the other three girls. They were unaware that the computers are placedthere for them to search for literature. Ellen’s method of searching a goodread is browsing by the shelves, she explains. If she finds one with a catchycover, she reads the blurb before deciding whether to borrow it or not.
Anine, one of the other girls, says she sometimes asks the librarian tohelp her find books, but the help she gets is not always of the best quality.The teacher of the storytelling course, who works as a young adult librar-ian, sometimes helps her by picking a few books and talking about them,and then Anine may choose among those. This kind of active promotion ishelpful to Anine, she likes it. But for the most part she listens to her friends’recommendations. She trusts them. Her class does not have regular visits atthe public library, but she uses the library in her leisure time, and borrows“girl’s books” there.
Sara is also skeptical toward the librarians’ recommendations, but sheasks them all the same, because she has a hard time finding good books her-self. She trusts her reading aunts more, as she knows they suggest books shewill enjoy. Sometimes she double-checks the librarians’ recommendationswith her aunts. Or, she goes to the library to find more books by an author
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her aunts have spoken well of. What the aunts suggest, she reads withouthesitating. Sara loves to buy books as well, but they are expensive and some-times she is not sure whether she will spend a lot of money on a book thatshe may not like. That is the reason why she often starts reading books atthe library, and if she likes it she buys it, and if in doubt, she borrows it.To her, the library is like a laboratory for testing out literary experiences.
Miriam has always loved books, and she borrowed a lot as a child. Herclass visits Torshov library on a regular basis, and she borrows books bothhere and from her reading friends. She finds her books by browsing thespecific shelves where she knows certain serial books are placed. To avoidmaking the wrong decicions, she often asks for help from the librarians. Shetells that she often has borrowed books that she just read a little of, and thenput away, because they were too boring. Even if Miriam visits the bookstoreto find good reads as well, she does not trust the help she gets there: “It isbetter asking a librarian than those working in a bookstore – they are kind ofelderly people who certainly not have read the books [that I am looking for].”
Miriam often goes to the library with her little sister. The sister is notvery fond of reading herself, but she finds lots of books that she makesMiriam read to her. Miriam wonders if she should say no to her sister and,in this way, making her read to herself instead.
The girl’s attitudes to librarians’ reader advisory are similiar to those inin Howard’s study (2011), where 60 % of the teenagers answered that thelibrarian “had no influence whatsoever” on their leisure reading. This waseven confirmed in her focus-group interview (332). Browsing and more orless random selections on the shelves is the method most often used bythe girls in this study. They considered the cover to be very important whenchoosing books, which means that exposing fronts of books is vital for them.It goes without saying that the usual meters and meters of backs of booksin the libraries do not provide the best conditions for searching a good readfor these girls.
LIBRARY AS A WORKING STATION
Sara finds nothing of interest for leisure reading at her school library: “thereare only children’s books,” she says with an air of contempt. She rememberson the positive side, though, that she found her favorite serial books atthe school library when she was younger. She now neither uses the schoollibrary nor the public library for doing homework, but she did so earlier,because of lack of reference books at home. She liked to work at the publiclibrary, but these days she has no one to join her there, and often she is verybusy. Even if she lives only a five minutes’ walk from the library, she findsthat lack of time is the reason why she is not so often at the library anymore.
Miriam uses the school library quite often, even for finding good reads.The school librarian has read a lot, Miriam says, and she concludes that this
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is “a very good librarian, because she is of the kind that recommends booksto us.” The school library offers many new books, but Miriam still prefers thepublic library, where she does her homework together with some friendsfrom primary school. They now have started on different schools, and thelibrary makes a place where they still can keep in touch.
Anine finds it inconvenient to bring her schoolbooks with her to thelibrary, and she prefers to to her homework at home. Earlier, she says, inprimary school she did her homework at the library. Today she mainly usesthe public library to find leisure reading materials.
Ellen, who visits the public library very often, does not use it very muchfor homework, just occasionally, when she has time, or for special assign-ments. She finds it easier to concentrate sitting at the library than at home,where there are plenty of things to distract her. Ellen does not use the schoollibrary at all.
To sum up the girls’ relation with libraries, we observe that althoughbeing avid readers and frequent users of the public library, they do notknow much about either how the books were arranged or possible waysof searching for books of interest. Three out of four do not use the schoollibrary.
The Survey
The survey gave a total of 212 answers; 120 girls and 92 boys. The answerswere divided on the four schools as shown in Table 1. Since the data wereput down on paper, they were collected and sorted manually. Three of thequestionnaires were rejected, as they did not indicate the informant’s gender.
A general impression when going through the collected material was theinformants’ strive to give honest answers. In order to be as precise as possi-ble, some of them made crosses between the alternative boxes; or they madeeither a tiny cross or a big, distinct one to visualize the level of importance intheir different answers. Explanations linked to some of the answers occurred.One informant indicated that she exclusively found her reading materials atthe public library, and put up an arrow saying “Mum is a librarian.” Anotherinformant, who did not write any favorite book title, put in brackets “(I havenever read a book in my life).” A lot of students did not limit themselves toonly one favorite title, but mentioned up to five or six, while others left thisspace blank. Due to the observations of sincerity mentioned, I consider thedata collected as reliable.
TABLE 1 Number of informants at the four schools
Bjølsen Sagene Kristelig gymnasium St. Sunniva
Girls 26 27 41 26Boys 23 12 38 19
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One conclusion is simple: Teens do read in their leisure time, but notnecessarily books. At least, that is a fact for the vast majority in the classessurveyed. Their answers show that 70% of the girls are frequent readers(once or more a week), while 60% of the boys. Only 3% of the girls answerthat they “never” do leisure reading, while 9% of the boys did. This is inaccordance with the reading patterns in the Norwegian population as awhole (Vaage 2012)
READING PREFERENCES
Some of the most striking results from the survey were connected to thereading material chosen, and the big differences were gender related. To thequestion “What do you prefer to read in your leisure time?” 75 of the girlsanswered blogs, but only nine of the boys did. 35 of the boys preferredcomics, compared to only 13 of the girls. Comics were the only medium inquestion with mainly male readers, while blogs and magazines were pre-ferred by females. When it came to newspapers and books, there were nosignificant gender differences.
To get closer to what kind of books they preferred, the students were tochoose between three categories: “serial books,5” “stories/novels,” or “non-fiction”. The boys were a bit more interested in non-fiction books: 28 %compared to the girls’ 14%. Their different interests in subjects of non-fictionwere clearly stated, as only 14% of the girls would read a book on a scientificsubject, while 46% of the boys would do so. The boys were also most keenon books on sports and history, while the girls preferred books on celebrities.Traditional gender roles can easily be recognized in the patterns shownpreviously, and is just as visible when it comes to the content of fictionalliterature (see Table 2).
The dominating categories of girls’ reading are connected to strong emo-tions and dealing with problems. The lists of favorite titles reported in thesurvey confirms the tendency, with very few titles appearing on both thegirls’ and the boys’ lists, except for Harry Potter6 and a couple of other
TABLE 2 Preferences of content in fiction
Question 6. If you read stories, novels or serial books, what would they be about?
N = 212 Fantasy Humor Emotions/Problems Crime/Suspense Others
Girls 120 38 (32 %) 31 (26 %) 90 (75 %) 86 (72 %) 34 (28 %)Boys 92 49 (53 %) 49 (53 %) 18 (20 %) 65 (71 %) 16 (17 %)
5 Serial books are defined as popular fictional stories published with uniformed covers and titles,with a considerable degree of predictability of characters, plot and style.6 J. K. Rowling’s books about Harry Potter (1997–2007) are not specified in single titles by theinformants.
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fantasy and crime novels (primarily adult novels). The girls have listed youngadult novels and serial books, most of them popular fiction with brave, butemotional heroines and dramatic love stories, while the boys’ favorite titlesare mainly action thrillers, like Percy Jackson,7 or action-oriented, like thebiography of the soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic.8 This implies that a greatdeal of the new young adult novels published in Norway primarily appealto girls, because of their amount of emotional conflicts and social problems,while both girls and boys may enjoy the high numbers of titles in adultcrime fiction published. The young adults show the same gender-relatedpatterns in their reading behavior as the adult Norwegian population (Vaage2012).
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PUBLIC LIBRARY USE
In general, Norwegian libraries are visited more frequently by female patronsthan male (Buskoven 2006; SSB 2008). It was no surprise then that the girlsin the present survey went more often to the public library than their fellowmale students; 31% of the girls answered that they used the public library“often,” compared to 21% of the boys. About one half of both sexes indicatedthat they used the public library “rarely.”
When people visit the library, they do quite a lot of different activ-ities there, as stated by recent observation studies (Audunson and Aabø2011; Cox, Swinbourne, Pip, and Laing 2000). To discover some of the teens’ways of using the library, the survey proposed the categories “lending booksand films,” “doing homework,” “hanging out with friends,” “reading,” and“other.” It turned out that the boys who went to the library engaged in asomewhat broader range of activities than the girls, even though the girlswere more frequent users. As many as 25% of the boys did homework at thelibrary, while 18% went there to read, and 13% used the library to be withfriends, while the girls made less use of these possibilities. The dominatinglibrary activity was still the lending of books and films for both girls andboys.
If we consider the model of the library’s four rooms, there seems tobe a big potential for developing services. Borrowing books and films, andreading or doing homework corresponds with the room of learning andhopefully with the room of inspiration, provided the borrowed materials areof the quality preferred. The library as a meeting room seems to be of lessimportance, but to a somewhat higher degree for the boys, as previouslyshown.
7 R. Riordan’s five books about Percy Jackson (2005–09) are not specified in single titles by theinformants.8 Lagercrantz, D., and Z. Ibrahimovic. Jeg er Zlatan. Oslo: Font, 2011. Print.
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DOES EAST AND WEST MATTER?
Traditionally, Oslo is divided into an eastern and western region, separatedby a little river. Statistics show a considerable difference between the tworegions in life quality numbers like income, life expectancy at birth, andrate of unemployment, where the East represents the negative part of thenumbers. Citizens living in the eastern parts of town have generally lesseducation than those in the West, which in turn has a negative influence on,among other things, the use of culture facilities and goods, such as libraries.Previous studies point at different attitudes to reading and literature amongstudents in lower secondary schools in Oslo’s East and West (Penne 2006,2010). For several reasons then, it is to be expected that the reading patternsand library use differ between the Eastern and Western schools. Sagene andBjølsen schools are located in typically working-class areas on the East side,while KG is located on the West. St. Sunniva is somehow difficult to place inthis respect, as the school recruits students from all over town, mainly fromcatholic families, many of whom are immigrants. The school’s location onthe West, close to the river, is not of particular importance.
The survey shows a variation in number of leisure readers between theschools in the survey, but not between East and West as could be anticipated;from 51% at Sagene, 67% at KG, and up to 71% at both St. Sunniva andBjølsen (see Table 3).
The four schools show some differences in reading preferences, bothin medium chosen and in content. The KG readers are characterized bythe “lightest” profile, with the highest score on serial books and maga-zines and the lowest score on newspaper and books. They are the mostdevoted fantasy readers, and not as keen as the others on books about“emotions/problems.”
In comparison to the students from the Eastern schools; Bjølsen andSagene, and St. Sunniva as well, the students from KG shows little interest inpublic libraries. Nearly one half of the students claim never to use the publiclibrary, and only 18% indicate that they find their reading materials there.This makes a contrast to the three other schools, where the public libraryis the most important place to get get books, even slightly more importantthan family and friends. However, the majority of the students from KG usetheir school library more frequently than the others: 25% stated that they useit “often,” 70% answered “rarely,” and 27% indicated that they find books
TABLE 3 Reading and library use
Total number of informants: 212 weekly readers frequent public library visits
Sagene: 39 20 (51 %) 13 (33%)Bjølsen: 49 35 (71 %) 11 (22%)Kristelig Gymnasium (KG): 79 53 (67 %) 8 (10%)St. Sunniva: 45 32 (71 %) 24 (53%)
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for leisure reading here. The pattern is quite the opposite at the other threeschools, where about one half of the students answer “never” to the questionon use of school libraries, and they make little use of it to find either leisurereading or use it as a work space.9
The KG students are more likely to buy their books in a bookstore thanany of the other students, but they point at “family/friends” as their mostimportant source of getting the books they choose to read. The KG students’reading habits require money to spend on reading, since they more oftenbuy their books and magazines instead of borrowing. The average incomeof a KG student’s family is likely to be higher than those of the easternfamilies, and could explain the KG students’ preferences of bookstores tolibraries. Quite a few of the KG students live outside Oslo, which means thatsome of them may not have as easy access to a public library as the studentsat the other schools.
LIBRARY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Looking at all four schools, we observe that the two schools with the highestscores on weekly leisure reading (St. Sunniva and Bjølsen) are the ones withthe closest links to the public library, either by distance or by organization.Students at the two schools also demonstrate a broad taste when it comesto the style and content in the fiction they prefer, as can be noticed in theirlistings of favorite titles in the questionnaire.10 The favorite lists from Bjølsenand St. Sunniva are less dominated by commercial serial books than the onemade from the KG students’ favorites (see Table 4).
The students from Sagene school read less than the others, but scoreparticularly high on newspapers and adult book reading; they seem lessinterested in serial books. At KG, popular series such as Sweet, Little Lies,and Percy Jackson make up more than half the list of their favorites. Theexplanation could be that the KG students are rarely exposed to the broader
TABLE 4 Categories of listed favorite books at the different schools
SchoolNumber of titles
suggested pr. stud.% Norwegian
authors % adult books% serialbooks
Sagene 0.87 21 54 18Bjølsen 0.80 20 44 29KristeligGymnasium (KG)
0.40 24 29 51
St. Sunniva 0.87 28 30 40
9 All schools have libraries, but they vary a great deal when it comes to hours of operation, staff, andservices.10 Favorite books listed are considered to exemplify the kind of reading that is most wanted and mostappreciated by the individual readers.
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Reading Habits and Library Use Among Young Adults 101
range of books that the public libraries offer. The frequent use of the publiclibrary at the three other schools could indicate that the libraries’ collectionof media and the promotion of literature at the libraries have developedthe students’ taste and made them choose reading materials from a broaderrange of genres and styles.
CONCLUSIONS
The interviews show that to the four girls in this study, reading makesan important part of their lives, and their choice of books is based onindividual tastes. Their levels of reading preferences and levels of metalanguage differ; while two of them express ways of reading connectedmainly to what Appleyard (1991) names the role of The reader as Heroine,the two others revealed some thoughts and opinions on literary style thatconnects them with the role of The reader as Interpreter. All four ofthem made statements that connect them with the role of The reader asThinker.
The four girls make extensive use of the public library. Applying themodel of the four-room library on the girls’ ways of library use, we findactivity in all four rooms. The meeting room is in use when Miriam and herfriends from another school come together for doing homework and keepingin touch. The inspiration room is demonstrated by Sara’s searching for goodbooks and her trying them out in the library. In the learning room Ellenconcentrate on writing her assignments, with the assistance of the library’slearning resources. The performance room is in use by all four girls at thestorytelling course, when giving storytelling performances, both on rehearsaland to an open public. The story-telling activity could even be placed in thelearning room, the meeting room and the inspiration room, as this activityincludes all four aspects.
This study points out the need for reader advisor assistance for theyoung readers. The four girls, though frequent users for years, have nearlyno knowledge of principles behind the arrangements on the shelves, letalone the possibilities of computer searching. This was the case in Howard’s(2011) study as well. The young readers would like to get recommendations,to have someone pick out books for them, at the same time as they notnecessarily trust the librarian.
In developing quality library services to make young adults love read-ing, it could be argued that participation is a key word. Trust seems vital.To be trusted is a question of being perceived as trustworthy. Recruitingyoung readers as advisors in collection development, as well as inte-rior planning and programming could mean building a trustworthy image,and doing so means seeing young persons as assets, as stated by PatrickJones:
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Successful young adult services in school and public libraries emergefrom the bottom up, not the top down. Young people are seen as assetsto libraries, not as customers. Services are planned with young adults,not merely for them. The needs of young adults come before the needsof librarians. (2002, 7)
The two sets of data included in this study give a double insight into youngadults’ relation to reading and libraries. The number of informants in thesurvey is far too small to claim universal validity, and one should be carefulto claim the results as generally valid in a Norwegian context as well. But,even with this small numbers, at least two patterns have been identified; theold gender-based difference in reading, detected back in the 1930s can stillbe observed. Reading preferences among young readers are clearly genderbased, both regarding the type of reading material and the content preferred,except when it comes to traditional fantasy and to grown-up crime fiction.The other clearly visible pattern in the survey, as well as in the interviews,is the connection between reading preferences and library use, both whenit comes to frequency of leisure reading and the type of reading materialpreferred. This knowledge demonstrates the importance of public librariesservices to young adults in general, as well as the gain in establishing formsof long term cooperation in promoting literature between public librariesand schools.
A third pattern, based on social difference between reading preferencesin East and West of Oslo could also be suggested, as the students from theWestern school of the survey tend to buy more books, and prefer morepopular genres than the other students. Even this pattern was seen in theold survey mentioned, but the present social situation could not summarilybe compared with the one in the interwar period. This study thus points ata need for further research into the questions of today’s social difference inconnection with library use and reading preferences.
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Appleyard, J. A. Becoming a Reader: The Experience of Fiction from Childhood toAdulthood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Print.
Audunson, R., and S. Aabø. “How do Public Libraries Function as Meeting Places?”Library & Information Science Research 32.1 (2011): 16–26. Print.
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Howard, V. “What Do Young Teens Think About the Public Library?” The LibraryQuarterly 81.3 (2011): 321–344. Print.
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Literature Referred to by the Informants
Anderson, L. H. Vinterjenter [Wintergirls]. Oslo: CappelenDamm, 2010. Print.Brashares, A. Jenter i jeans [Forever in Blue]. (1–4). Oslo: Damm, (2007–2009). Print.Downham, J. Før jeg dør [Before I Die]. Oslo: Gyldendal, 2008. Print.Forman, G. Hvis jeg blir [If I Stay]. Oslo: Cappelen, 2009. Print.Fykse, G. Nelias gate [Nelia’s Enigma]. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2010. Print.Nesbø, J. Hodejegerne [Headhunters]. Oslo: Aschehou, 2008. Print.Paolini, C. Arven [Inheritance]. (1–3) Oslo: Cappelen Damm, (2005–009). Print.Valentine, J. Jakten på Violet Park [Finding Violet Park]. Oslo: Cappelen, 2010. Print.
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