Giving Pleasure Its Due: Collection Promotion and Readers’ Advisory in Academic Libraries

The National Endowment for the Arts’ 2007 report “To Read or Not to Read” discusses the distressing nationwide decline in reading. This report has generated considerable dialogue. The NEA’s data suggest that “frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement.” In a complex world, the ability to participate fully in societal decisions may be contingent on homing in on ideas in a way fostered by reading, and specifically by avid reading, reading for pleasure. The reading of books imparts skills that other media may not be able to grant. Academic librarians understandably focus on supporting their colleges’ pedagogical and research missions, only incidentally providing other resources, such as popular reading. However, fostering reading for pleasure both supports those pedagogical aims and moves beyond them. The university community needs these services more than ever, as the modes of electronic entertainment and communication employed by students fragment their attention ever further. Ludic reading is crucial, and promoting it remains essential to our profession. After a look back on 20th century academic library history, this article highlights ways academic librarians can encourage reading among users, including displays, instruction, programming, connecting with other libraries, expanding ideas of genre, and developing readers’ advisory skills.