In a new report released this morning, Pew Internet looks at “The rise of e-reading.” The major points? 1 in 5 adult Americans has read an ebook in the last year. Additionally, digital readers read more books (24 to 15) in the past year as compared to print readers; 30% of readers say they now spend more time reading since switching to digital.
If we dig a bit deeper into the study, however, we find some interesting tidbits of interest to libraries. Don’t get sidetracked by the usual suspects; just accept that only 14% of the most recent book read by people came from a library and only 12% of ebook readers head to the library to check for a book before buying it. Right now, libraries are not seen as ebook places. Deal with that, and let’s move on to how we can become ebook places.
The real gem of this Pew study is that ebook readers are reading more for information than they are for pleasure. Let me say that again. Ebook readers are more likely to head for nonfiction than fiction. From the study: 89% of Americans over 16 who own an e-reading device “read at least occasionally for pleasure.” A statistically similar 88% of them “read at least occasionally to keep up with current events.” But when Pew asked about daily habits, a difference emerged; 64% of those readers read for current events on a daily basis, but only 49% are reading for pleasure on a daily basis. Furthermore, an equal 89% of digital readers report reading for research on a topic of interest with 36% of readers doing this daily.
The message is clear: Libraries need to be focusing more on nonfiction ebooks.
Pew’s reporting on why readers like to read supports this. The highest response (26% of readers) was that what readers enjoyed most about their reading was “learning, gaining knowledge, and discovering information.” So what does this mean for our interactions with publishers? So far, most of the contention has been over the new release bestsellers. While these are certainly important in libraries, it seems that current nonfiction and a wide variety of informational texts might be just as important. Libraries may be lagging behind in being the place for access to ebook bestsellers, but we can probably quickly become the place to go for informational ebooks.