Reading Groups, Libraries and Social Inclusion
Reading Groups, Libraries and Social Inclusion

Author: Eileen Hyder

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 1317071204

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Reading groups have grown rapidly in popularity and continue to be a significant cultural phenomenon. Reading groups in public libraries, linked to the learning and social inclusion agenda, have expanded to include a wide range of groups within society, including people with visual impairments (VIPs). This under-researched area is the focus of this book. Library-based VIP reading groups are interesting on many levels. Given that these groups predominantly use audio versions of the text (rather than print), this links to debates about the changing nature of reading in a multi-modal age. This book discusses whether contemporary society still defines reading as a visual activity or whether technological developments have led to a broadening of the definition of reading. The author goes on to discuss how policy is translated into practice within the library context and whether the wide range of reading groups linked to libraries suggests that libraries understand and are taking the social inclusion agenda seriously. She also explores how effectively libraries are using reading groups as a tool for delivering on the agenda for learning and how this sits within wider priorities for post-compulsory education and lifelong learning. Finally the book suggests ideas for future development for these groups, outlining ways in which their potential could be maximised for the benefit of both the library and the reading group members. The book will be of great interest to professional librarians as well as students and scholars of librarianship. It will also be of interest to those working on the emerging field of reading groups in literary studies. Those interested in the role of reading in education, as well as disability scholars, will also find the book useful.

Readers' Advisory Service in North American Public Libraries, 1870-2005
Readers' Advisory Service in North American Public Libraries, 1870-2005

Author: Juris Dilevko

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2007-02-13

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0786429259

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beginning in the early 1980s, readers' advisory services were a widely discussed topic in North American public libraries. By 2005, almost every public library in the United States and Canada offered some form of readers' advisory service. The services offered have changed significantly, in ways perhaps disadvantageous to adult North American library patrons. This book provides a critical history of readers' advisory philosophy and offers a new perspective on the evolution of the service. The book analyzes the debate that shaped readers' advisory and discusses how the service has assumed its present form. The study follows readers' advisory through its three prominent stages of development, beginning with the period 1870 to 1916, when the service was still a subject of much crucial debate about its meaning and purpose. During the second phase (1917 to 1962), readers' advisory systematically committed itself to meaningful adult education through serious and purposeful reading. The book argues, however, that during the most recent phase of readers' advisory, from 1963 until the present, contemporary public libraries have turned their backs on the rich heritage of readers' advisory services by valorizing the reading of entertainment-oriented and commodified genre titles and bestsellers. Historical analysis, case studies and statistical charts augment the book's central argument.

Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America
Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America

Author: Christine Pawley

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0299293238

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For well over one hundred years, libraries open to the public have played a crucial part in fostering in Americans the skills and habits of reading and writing, by routinely providing access to standard forms of print: informational genres such as newspapers, pamphlets, textbooks, and other reference books, and literary genres including poetry, plays, and novels. Public libraries continue to have an extraordinary impact; in the early twenty-first century, the American Library Association reports that there are more public library branches than McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Much has been written about libraries from professional and managerial points of view, but less so from the perspectives of those most intimately involved—patrons and librarians. Drawing on circulation records, patron reviews, and other archived materials, Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America underscores the evolving roles that libraries have played in the lives of American readers. Each essay in this collection examines a historical circumstance related to reading in libraries. The essays are organized in sections on methods of researching the history of reading in libraries; immigrants and localities; censorship issues; and the role of libraries in providing access to alternative, nonmainstream publications. The volume shows public libraries as living spaces where individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, needs, and desires encountered and used a great variety of texts, images, and other media throughout the twentieth century.

Reading and the Reference Librarian
Reading and the Reference Librarian

Author: Juris Dilevko

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-10-16

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0786480459

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Reference librarians are no longer expected to know much about the information they find; they are merely expected to find it. Technological competency rather than knowledge has become the order of the day. In many respects, reference service has become a matter of typing search terms into a library's online catalog or a web search engine and providing the patron with the results of the search. Calling for a re-intellectualization of reference librarianship, this book suggests another approach to providing quality reference service--reading. The authors surveyed both academic reference librarians and public library reference personnel in the United States and Canada about their reading habits. From the 950 responses, the authors present findings about the extent to which librarians read newspapers, periodicals, fiction and nonfiction, and recount and analyze stories about how reading has made them better librarians. The authors also report that North American professors in the humanities and social sciences believe that the best reference librarians are those who have wide-ranging, subject-based knowledge as opposed to the type of process-based, functional knowledge that is increasingly dominating the curricula of many Library and Information Science programs.