Reading Matters in the Academic Library
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5860/rusq.52n4.309Abstract
With the increasing virtualization of resources, reference service, and instruction, college students have fewer reasons to visit the academic library, a place they believe lacks relevance in their lives. This article explores the idea of revitalizing academic libraries by reconsidering the place of pleasure reading in them. Considerable research has been conducted on reading in the last quarter century. Reading serves a host of essential functions, far more than we have ever guessed. The first part of this paper looks at the social, psychological, moral, emotional, and cognitive role it plays in our lives. The second half examines readers’ advisory services that we can borrow or adapt from public libraries, services that can attract new users, promote lifelong reading, and transform academic libraries to be more community, user, and reader focused.
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Narrative Impact
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College Students’ PerceptionsnTrott, “Reference, Readers’ Advisory, and Relevance, ” 61nBarry Trott, “Building on a Firm Foundation: Readers’ Advisory Over the Next Twenty-Five Years, ”
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Readers’ Advisory in the Public Library
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The Reader-friendly Library Service
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Saricks, Readers’ Advisory in the Public Library
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The Reader-friendly Library Service
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The Reader-friendly Library Service
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College & Undergraduate Libraries
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Collection Management
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The Reader-friendly Library Service
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Readers’ Advisory in the Public Library
, 143–53; Lissa Staley, “Passive Readers’ Advisory, ” in Moyer and Mediatore,
The Readers’ Advisory Handbook
, 73–80; Lynne Welch, “Creating Themed Booklists, ” in Moyer and Mediatore,
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Library Journal
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Reading Builds Communities
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Such Stuff as Dreams
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The Readers’ Advisory Handbook
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Library Journal
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The Readers’ Advisory
Handbook, 121–33; and Goldberg, “Extracurricular Reading.”nMargaret Elwood, “Online Book Clubs, ” at
RA in Day
nNational Endowment for the Arts,
To Read or Not to Read
. Mar, Oatley, and Peterson found that the stereotype of the socially awkward and withdrawn “bookworm” has no basis in fact. “Exploring the Link, ”
CommunicationsnBehler, “Leisure Reading Collections in College and University Libraries” in Zabel,
Reference Reborn
, 141n
