What Makes People Read?

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Does the reading public read because it has a literary taste or for some other reason? In the case of the public library, for instance, does a man start with an overwhelming desire to read or study books and is he impelled thereby to seek out the place where he may most easily and best obtain them? Or is he primarily attracted to the library by some other consideration, his love for books and reading acting only in a secondary manner? The New York Public Library, for instance, carries on the registry books of its circulating department nearly 400,000 names, and in the course of a year nearly 35,000 new applications are made for the use of its branch libraries, scattered over different parts of the city. What brings these people to the library? This is no idle question. The number of library users, large as it is, represents too small a fraction of our population. If it is a good thing to provide free reading matter for our people—and every large city in the country has committed itself to the truth of this proposition—we should certainly try to see that what we furnish is used by all who need it. Hence an examination into the motives that induce people to make their first use of a free public library may bring out information that is not only interesting but useful. To this end several hundred regular users of the branches of the New York Public Library were recently asked this question directly, and the answers are tabulated and discussed below. In each of sixteen branch libraries the persons interrogated numbered forty—ten each of men, women, boys and girls. Thirty answers have been thrown out for irrelevancy or defectiveness. The others are classified in the following table:

Sent or Told by Teacher Sent or Told by Friend Sent or Told by Relative Sent or Told by Clergyman Sent or Told by Library Assistant Through Reading Room Saw Building Saw Sign Saw Library Books Saw Bulletin Saw Article in Paper Sought Library Totals

Men 6 64 10 .. .. .. 37 20 3 1 9 4 154

Boys 38 63 28 .. 4 3 9 6 5 .. .. 3 159

Women 12 67 14 4 .. .. 20 21 2 1 2 5 148

Girls 33 69 34 .. .. .. 5 3 3 .. .. 2 149

Total 89 263 86 4 4 3 71 50 13 2 11 14 610

It will be seen that the vast majority of those questioned were led to the library by some circumstance other than the simple desire to find a place where books could be obtained. Of more than six hundred persons whose answers are here recorded only fourteen found the library as the result of a direct search for it prompted by a desire to read. In a majority of the other cases, of course, perhaps in all of them, the desire to read had its part, but this desire was awakened by hearing a mention of the library or by seeing it or something connected with it. These determining circumstances fall into two classes, those that worked through the ear and those that operated through the eye.

Those who heard of the library in some way numbered 449, while those who saw it or something connected with it were only 147—an interesting fact, especially as we are told by psychologists that apprehension and memory through sight are of a higher type than the same functions where exercised through hearing. Probably, however, this difference was dependent on the fact that the thing heard was in most cases a direct injunction or a piece of advice, while the thing seen did not act with similar urgency. There are some surprises in the table. For instance, only four persons were sent directly to libraries by persons employed therein. Doubtless the average library assistant wishes to get as far from “shop” as possible in her leisure hours, but it is still disappointing to find that those who are employed in our libraries exercise so little influence in bringing persons to use them. The same thing is true of the influence of reading rooms. In many of the branch libraries in New York there are separate reading rooms to which others than card-holders in the library are admitted, and one of the chief arguments for this has been that the user of such a room, having become accustomed to resort to the library building, would be apt to use the books. Apparently, however, such persons are in the minority. No less disappointing is the slight influence of the clergy. Only four persons report this as a determining influence and these were all women connected with a branch which was formerly the parish library of a New York church.

The influence of the press, too, seems to amount to little, in spite of the fact that the newspapers in New York have freely commented on the valuable work of the branch libraries and have called attention to it both in the news and editorial columns whenever occasion offered. Do the readers of library books in New York shun the public-press, or do they pay scant heed to what they read therein?

Another somewhat noteworthy fact is that of the 449 persons who sought the library by advice of some one, only 89 were sent by teachers. But perhaps this is unfair. Of 265 boys and girls who thus came to the library, only 71 were sent by teachers. This is a larger percentage, but it is still not so large as we might expect.

The difference between adults and children comes out quite strikingly in a few instances. We should have foreseen this of course in the case of advice by teachers, which was reported by 71 children and only 18 adults as a reason for visiting the library. Here we should not have expected this reason to be given by adults at all. Doubtless these were chiefly young men and women who had used the library since their school-days. In like manner the advice or injunction of relatives was more patent with children than with adults, the proportion here being 62 to 24. This probably illustrates the power of parental injunction. In another case the difference comes out in a wholly unexpected way. Of the 71 persons who reported that they were attracted to the library by seeing the buildings, 57 were adults and only 14 children. The same is true of those who were led in by seeing a sign, who numbered 41 adults to only 9 children. This seems to show either that adults are more observant or that children are more diffident in following out an impulse of this kind. It completely negatives the ordinary impression among librarians, at least in New York, where it has been believed that the sight of a library building, especially where the work going on inside is visible from the street, is a potent attraction to the young. Some of the new branch buildings in New York have even been planned with a special view to the exercise of this kind of attraction.

The small number of persons who were attracted by printed matter, in library or general publications, were entirely adults. The one instance where age seems to exercise no particular influence is that of the advice of friends, by which old and young alike seem to have profited.

The influence of sex does not appear clearly, although among those who followed the injunction of relatives the women and girls are slightly in the majority, and the four who were sent by clergymen were all women. Of those who were attracted by the buildings 46 were male and 25 female, which may mean that men are somewhat more observant or less diffident than women.

A few of those questioned relate their experiences at some length. Says one boy: “A boy friend of mine said he belonged to this library and he found some very good books here. He asked me if I wanted to join; I said yes. He told me I would have to get a reference. I got one, and joined this library.” Another one reports: “I saw a boy in the street and asked him where he was going. He said he was going to the library. I asked him what the library was and he told me; so I came up here and have been coming ever since.”

Critical judgment is shown by some of the young people. One boy says: “I heard all the other boys saying it was a good library and that the books were better kept than in a majority of libraries.” A girl says that friends “told her what nice books were in this library.” In one case a boy’s brother “told him he could get the best books here for his needs.”

The combination of man and book seems to be very attractive. One child “saw a boy in school with a book, telling what a boy should know about electricity; I wanted to read that book and joined the library.” Others “followed a crowd of little boys with books”; “saw children taking books out of the building and asked them about joining”; “saw a boy carrying books and asked if there was a library in the neighborhood.” A woman “saw a child with a library book in the park and asked her for the address of the library.” Sometimes the book alone does the work, as shown by the following laconic report: “Found a book in the park; took it to the library; joined it.” A cause of sorrow to many librarians who have decided ideas regarding literature for children will be the report of a boy who exclaimed: “Horatio Alger did it!” On being asked to explain, he said that a friend had brought one of Alger’s books to his house and that he was thereby attracted to the library.

Among those who were brought in by relatives are children who were first carried by their mothers to the library as infants and so grew naturally into its use. Sometimes the influence works upward instead of downward, for several adults report that their children brought them to the library or induced them to visit it. One man reports that he “got married and his wife induced him to come.”

Some of the reasons given are curious. A few are unconnected with the use of books. One girl came to the library because “it was a very handy library”; another, because she “saw it was a nice place to come to on a rainy day.” Still another frankly avows that “it was the fad among the boys and girls of our neighborhood; we used to meet at the library.” A postman reported that he entered the library first in the line of his duty, but was attracted by it and began to take out books. A clergyman had his attention called to the library by requests from choir-boys that he should sign their application blanks; afterwards thinking that he might find books there for his own reading, he became a regular user. One user came first to the library to see an exhibition of pictures of old New York. A recent importation says: “When I came from Paris I found all my cousins speaking English; ‘well,’ they said, ‘go to the library and take books’”—a process that doubtless did its share toward making an American of the new arrival. In another case, the Americanizing process has not yet reached the stage where the user’s English is altogether intelligible. He says: “Because I like to read the book. I ask the bakery lady to my reference and I sing my neam” [sign my name?].

Here are some examples of recently acquired elegance in diction that are almost baboo-like in their hopelessness: “Because it interest about the countries that are far away. It gives knowledge to many of the people in this country.” “So as to obtain knowledge from them and by reading books find out how the great men were in their former days and all about them and the world and its people.” It will be seen that the last two writers were among those who misunderstood our questions and told why they read books rather than how they were first led to the use of a library.

These reports are far from possessing merely a passing interest for the curious. For the public librarian, whose wish it is to reach as large a proportion of the public as possible, they are full of valuable hints. They emphasize, for instance, the urgent necessity of winning the good will of the public, and they forcibly remind us that this is of more value in gaining a foothold for the library than columns of notices in the papers or thousands of circulars or cards distributed in the neighborhood. It is even more potent than a beautiful building. Attractive as this is, its value as an influence to secure new readers is vastly less than a reputation for hospitality and helpfulness.

In looking over the figures one rather disquieting thought cannot be kept down. If the good will of the public is so potent in increasing the use of the library, the ill will of the same public must be equally potent in the opposite direction. Some of those who are satisfied with us and our work are here put on record. How about the dissatisfied? A record of these might be even more interesting, for it would point out weaknesses to be strengthened and errors to be avoided—but that, as Kipling says, “is another story.”