Jessica E. Moyer
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Using a combination of surveys and interviews, this research project explores the relationship between educational and recreational outcomes of leisure reading, the importance of learning to the leisure reading experience, the role of learning in leisure reading, and the educational outcomes reported by leisure readers. Interview transcripts and survey data were used to create a model of four categories of educational outcomes from leisure reading: (1) people and relationships; (2) countries, cultures, and history; (3) life enrichment; and (4) different perspectives. The article concludes with recommendations for integrating these results into practice and suggestions for further research.
In 2000, Catherine Sheldrick Ross published, “Finding without Seeking: What Readers Say about the Role of Pleasure Reading as a Source of Information.”1 This was one of several articles that resulted from her multiyear study of readers.2 Over the course of several years, Ross and her students interviewed 181 readers about leisure reading. “Finding without Seeking” focuses on one facet of her interviews. Ross and her students asked subjects to tell them about the one book that had the greatest meaning for them. As part of the larger discussion of their great book, nearly all of the subjects reported some educational outcomes of fiction reading, the most common being awakenings, new perspectives, and the expansion of possibilities. The purpose of this study is to look further at what, in terms of education, readers get from leisure reading materials, by asking the readers themselves about educational outcomes during leisure reading experiences. For the sake of clarity and inclusivity, in this article the term leisure reading will be used to refer to all types of recreational or pleasure reading, including fiction and nonfiction.
Based on Ross’s research and anecdotal evidence about educational outcomes from leisure reading, this project proposes to investigate the relationship between educational and recreational outcomes of leisure reading, using a survey instrument and follow-up interviews. The hypotheses are that there will be a relationship between educational and recreational outcomes for leisure readers and that educational outcomes will be an important aspect of the leisure reading experience. It is also thought that there will be more than one type of educational outcome and that the different outcomes will have varying levels of importance for individual readers.
One of the ideas investigated in this project was the concept of a single book or reading experience serving multiple purposes. The specific area of interest was books that are traditionally marketed as leisure reading materials, on the theory that while a book may serve the primary purpose of leisure reading material, it may also serve a secondary purpose as an educational tool. And for some people, this secondary role may be of great importance. This is important for librarians to understand because in order to be able to suggest leisure reading materials, they need to understand the potential multiple purposes that a leisure book may serve. Like many aspects of reading, these secondary purposes will vary among readers because readers are individuals and interact with the text in their own unique ways. It is hoped that this research will provide a broad understanding of the educational purpose served by leisure reading materials, specifically regarding the different types of educational outcomes, and in this way help librarians to better understand and serve the readers who form one of the most important user groups of libraries.
Literature Review
Fiction Readers and Readers’ Advisory Services
In 1996, Yu and O’Brien published a literature review, “Domain of Adult Fiction Librarianship” in Advances in Librarianship.3 Their thorough and lengthy article covered all the major areas of fiction librarianship, including a definition of fiction librarianship, fiction as a type of library material, fiction acquisition, fiction processing, fiction representation and retrieval, fiction promotion, readers’ advisory (RA) services (reader development), collection management, and most importantly for this article, a section on understanding fiction readers. Their review covered research published before 1996 in North America, Australia, and Europe. In 2005, a new review of the literature by the author was published in Reference & User Services Quarterly, and a pre-publication copy was used in the writing of this literature review.4 The review examined articles, books, theses, and reports published from 1995 to June 2003 in the areas of cataloging and classification of fiction books, browsing and selection of fiction by readers, user studies of readers, and adult RA services.
In Yu and O’Brien’s review, most of the studies cited were done in Europe or Australia, where there are long traditions of book and reading research. Since 1995, more research has been done in North America, but the author’s review, for which international research comprised a substantial aspect, found that this was still a thriving area in Europe and Australia. In the last few years, Shearer, Ross, Chelton, and Saricks have been some of the people important to the development of fiction studies in North America. Outside of the many journal articles listed in the author’s review, two books that are important to highlight are Guiding the Reader to the Next Book and the Readers’ Advisor’s Companion.5 Both collections are excellent resources and should be perused by any librarian or library science student who has an interest in learning more about fiction readers. As noted earlier, Ross’s recent research on readers is also summed up in the Readers’ Advisor’s Companion.6
A recent publication that is not included in either of the prior literature reviews but is worth mentioning is Reading and the Reference Librarian by Dilevko and Gottlieb.7 While most of the book studies academic librarians, the results are still very relevant to RA services. One of the tenets of RA is that to be a good advisor one must be well read in a variety of genres of popular fiction, as this is the most successful way to suggest titles to patrons. Dilevko and Gottlieb conclude that those who consider themselves the best librarians, regardless whether they are public or academic, are well read. Most librarians who read regularly and from a variety of sources not only feel that they are more successful in their jobs, but feel that without reading, they would not be able to do their jobs well. Interestingly, the type of reading material did not matter; librarians who read popular fiction responded in much the same way as librarians who read other types of materials, such as newspapers, popular culture magazines, or Web pages. If it is so important that librarians read, then it is even more important that they understand the role that leisure reading plays in their lives and the lives of their patrons.
One of the most important results of the literature reviews by Yu, O’Brien, and the author is their conclusion that outside of Ross’s research, there is very little theory, or theoretically based studies, about leisure readers, or studies that work directly with the readers themselves; without this research it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of leisure readers. There are two reasons that librarians need to better understand leisure readers. First, leisure readers are an important subset of the population, and as such it would behoove librarians to have a better understanding of them and their information needs. Secondly, leisure readers make up a large portion of the public library clientele. Fiction circulation in the participating libraries made up more than 50 percent of adult print circulation and up to 20 percent of all adult circulation. Audio-visual materials, which include books on tape, made up as much as 53 percent of adult circulation.8 In order for librarians to best serve these readers they need to understand them. This is of special concern to libraries and librarians who provide RA services. Without a more complete understanding of how readers find new books, how they decide what to read, and most importantly, what they get out of the reading experience, it will be difficult to serve these important and numerous patrons as well as patrons who ask for more traditional reference assistance.
May, Olesh, and Miltenburg recently completed one of the first studies of RA services by having students ask the same question at several libraries–a traditional method of studying reference services. The most disturbing result of this already saddening study is that the RA transactions were rarely treated with the respect and professionalism that are seen as mandatory for other reference transactions.9
Incidental Information Acquisition
There are a limited number of theories related to education and leisure reading, and most of those that relate to this study actually come from studies of information-seeking behavior, especially studies of everyday life information. The most applicable concept for this research is incidental information acquisition, which is a subset of uses and gratification.10 Incidental information acquisition is not a commonly used concept and there are few studies that utilize it. Two of the most recent studies that do are Ross’s previously mentioned article, “Finding without Seeking,” and a 1998 article by Williamson, which uses the concept to explain the information behavior of the elderly and expand on this idea of information seeking.11 Both articles are included in the 2002 review of information-seeking models in Case’s book, Looking for Information.12
Because incidental information acquisition is a relatively new concept and not as well studied as some, there is no single definitive definition. Instead, researchers who use it define it in their own ways. Williamson defines incidental information acquisition as follows: “[it] is seen as synonymous with ‘accidental information discovery,’ suggesting that people find information unexpectedly as they engage in other activities. Some of this information they did not know they needed until they heard or read it.”13 Ross defines it as a non-purposive activity and says, “We know, in fact, that in the course of every day living people constantly encounter and use textual information without ever posing a formal request to an information system.”14 Case includes incidental information acquisition as part of the larger information-seeking idea of uses and gratification, a theory that has been used by mass media researchers.15 He defines it as picking up information that may become useful later in life, during an activity that is not exclusively for information seeking, and most often the activity (reading) has an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with information seeking. Case also raises the concern of knowing when the information seeking goes from conscious to unconscious, or from incidental to purposive, an issue also raised by Williamson.16
In this study, incidental information acquisition is defined as information that is gathered from leisure reading material that at some point becomes useful to the reader and results in some type of learning experience (educational outcome). The gathering of information is not done purposefully nor do the readers generally have an immediate need for the information; instead they see it as something that may become useful to them at some later point in life. The concerns raised by Case and Williamson about when the information seeking moves from accidental to purposeful were addressed by the study design, as readers were only asked about leisure reading experiences. In this way, they talked about an activity with a specific purpose (leisure reading) the primary goal of which was not purposeful information seeking. This study continues to explore the relationships between leisure reading and information seeking, which Case sees as inextricably linked.17
Outcome Measures
In addition to the concept of incidental information acquisition, the author also chose to study educational experiences of leisure reading using the concept of outcome measures. Outcome measures are a way of measuring what users get out of a service or experience. In terms of libraries, this can mean measuring what users get out of a particular library service or collection, such as a user’s satisfaction with and use of the online catalog after being taught how to use it. Outcome measures are fairly new to the field of library and information science (LIS). In October 2004, a search of the Library Literature and Information database found that twenty-two of twenty-four articles on outcome measures were published in the last ten years, and of the twenty-two, eighteen were published since 2000, a sign of the increasing importance of outcome measures to library science. One of the most important published works in this area is Perspectives in Outcome Based Evaluation for Libraries and Museums, from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).18 This valuable guide has an introduction that outlines the concept of outcome measures and gives a brief history of the uses of outcome measures in museums and libraries. The second chapter of the report, “Documenting the Difference: Demonstrating the Value of Libraries through Outcomes Measurement,” is devoted to the use of outcome measures in libraries.19 Finally, this guide includes an excellent bibliography and reference list, with resources from within LIS and from other fields. Many of the listed resources are available online, making them easy to access for anyone who is interested in learning more about the use of outcome measures.
Outcome measures have been used to some extent in public libraries, but are used more often in academic libraries, often to study student outcomes of library services or, increasingly, as part of the accreditation process.20 Public libraries are not accredited and the most well-known ranking system for public libraries, the Hennen rankings, are primarily based on output measures, such as circulation per capita.21 However, as is demonstrated in this study, outcome measures can provide valuable information about library services from the users’ perspective. Knowing what users get out of a library service, such as a home delivery service for elderly patrons, or story time for children, can be very valuable when library services need to be justified to the administration or to the tax-paying public. The results can also be used to better understand library patrons and their expectations and experiences of library services, so that services can be improved to better meet the needs of library users.