Interesting article. Read it for a Forbes view on library strategies.
How Public Libraries Are Solving America’s Reading Problem
“We have a reading problem in the United States. It’s not that people aren’t reading: in fact the Pew Research Center reports that 76% of adults have read a book in the past year. Even kids are reading – and some studies suggest that millennials are more likely to read literature than previous generations. The problem is choice. Readers are drowning in books.
Too Many Books, Not Enough Time
11,022 books were published in 1950. That number may sound quaint today, but it’s still a large number. Read one book a week for sixty years, and you’ll still leave two-thirds of those titles untouched. Consider then, the jaw-dropping 978,701 titles Bowker told me were published or self-published in 2012. There’s some double counting in that number (print and eBook copies of the same title have separate ISBNs) but it is terrifying, nonetheless.”
Stephen
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