Reading Still Matters
What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community
by Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer
March 2018, 258pp, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
1 volume, Libraries Unlimited

Paperback: 978-1-4408-5576-4
$60, £47, 53€, A83
Please contact your preferred distributor for pricing.
eBook Available: 978-1-4408-5577-1
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Proof of the library’s central role in increasing literacy and bringing communities together.

Drawing on scholarly research findings, this book presents a cogent case that librarians can use to work towards prioritization of reading in libraries and in schools.

Reading is more important than it has ever been—recent research on reading, such as PEW reports and Scholastic’s “Kids and Family Reading Report,” proves that fact. This new edition of Reading Matters provides powerful evidence that can be used to justify the establishment, maintenance, and growth of pleasure reading collections, both fiction and nonfiction, and of readers’ advisory services. The authors assert that reading should be woven into the majority of library activities: reference, collection building, provision of leisure materials, readers’ advisory services, storytelling and story time programs, adult literacy programs, and more.

This edition also addresses emergent areas of interest, such as e-reading, e-writing, and e-publishing; multiple literacies; visual texts; the ascendancy of young adult fiction; and fan fiction. A new chapter addresses special communities of YA readers. The book will help library administrators and personnel convey the importance of reading to grant-funding agencies, stakeholders, and the public at large. LIS faculty who wish to establish and maintain courses in readers’ advisory will find it of particular interest.

Features

  • Provides proof of the library's vital role in readers’ lives, information that may be used to justify services and collections
  • Compiles current research on reading from diverse sources and presents it intuitively, saving librarians time and energy when searching for research findings
  • Offers a clear rationale for making pleasure reading a priority in libraries and in schools
Catherine Sheldrick Ross is Dean and Professor Emerita of the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, where she taught graduate courses on pleasure reading and reference services. Her most recent books include Libraries Unlimited's The Pleasures of Reading: A Booklover's Alphabet and, with Kirst Nilsen, Communicating Professionally: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Third Edition. . She is recipient of Novelist's Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award (2013).

Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie is Professor at the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, where she teaches graduate courses in library materials, services for children, and research methods. She practiced as a children's librarian for almost 20 years before becoming an academic. She is coeditor of Plotting the Reading Experience: Theory/Practice/Politics. Her latest research project, funded by an ALISE/OCLC research grant, explored children's perspectives on e-reading.

Paulette M. Rothbauer is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, where she teaches graduate courses in library materials and services for teens as well as reference. She is coeditor of Plotting the Reading Experience: Theory/Practice/Politics. Her latest research project is exploring the meaning of reading among older adults.

Reviews

"Easily digestible chapter segments, tips for librarians and educators, and references within each section. VERDICT Purchase where current literacy research is in demand."—School Library Journal, July 1, 2018
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