I
have always been a voracious reader. I
can remember my mom taking me to the library as a child and filling up bags of
picture books to read at home. When I
was a tween, everyone had a GameBoy, and I was very jealous. I repeatedly asked for one, but my parents
told me to take a book with me if I needed entertainment. To this day, I still purchase my purses based
on if they can fit a book in them. As a
teacher, I visited the bookstore multiple times during the month and purchased
anything that looked interesting. As a
librarian, I have become more of a “borrower” than a “purchaser”. One aspect that has changed is the type of
books that I’m reading. When I was a
young adult, the Young Adult genre had all but disappeared. During the 2000s, the genre reemerged as a
respectable, quality-driven genre. At
this time, I was in my twenties.
However, that didn’t stop me from falling in love this genre and
learning everything I can about its evolution and new titles and authors. Overall, not much has changed for me
personally as a reader.
While
not much has changed for me, a great deal has changed for readers in this world. The emergence of the Internet has opened up a
whole new world of possibilities. As
much as I hate Amazon, it has enabled individuals to purchase a great deal of
books that they may not have been able to in the past. (I have also used their services to obtain
titles I couldn’t find anywhere else.)
E-Readers, tablets, and smartphones have also become commonplace and
brought a great many benefits: immediate downloads/purchases or titles, the
ability to alter the format for ease of reading, the ability to carry multiple
titles on one device. I am not an avid
user of eBooks although I have a nook and an iPad—I still prefer print
books. As with Amazon, I only use it out
of necessity (I can’t find a title in print, but I can download it easily and
immediately.)
I don’t foresee reading changing a great deal in twenty
years. There are a lot of readers that
still have a large fondness for print reading.
Statistics have also shown us that, currently, teens still prefer print
even though they have a great deal of access to electronic formats. Reading has become a great deal more
interactive due to the Internet. With
sites such as Good Reads, Amazon, and social media, readers are able to share
what they are reading, what they enjoy, and solicit recommendations. As sites and apps evolve, this will only
become more prevalent in our world. It
is changing continuously, so as much as I would love to imagine where it will
be in 20 years, I am unable.
The publishing world is evolving a great deal due to
technology. A number of sites allow
writers to self publish and control their own material’s fate. Wolf states, “With the arrival of turnkey self-publishing in the
form of Amazon’s Kindle platform that enables an author to instantly start
selling their books on the world’s biggest book marketplace, authors big and
small have realized that they no longer need big publishing in order to get
their works out into the world and start making money” (2013). While not all self-published authors will
become successful, it does offer a new option for authors that can affect the
publishing world. This is important for
libraries to pay attention to. Bacon states, “Only 12% of people with
digital readers look to the library first for e-books, whereas 75% of readers
go online for e-books, according to research conducted by
Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. This is probably because they know libraries don’t stock all
of the most popular ebooks” (2013).
Libraries will need to work with technology offerings in order for patrons
to be able to access these titles as easily as regular books.
Bacon, B. (2013). Are libraries offering enough self-published
ebooks? Digital Book World. Retrieved
from http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/are-libraries-stocking-enough-self-published-ebooks/
Wolf,
M. (2013). Self-publishing an e-book? Here are 4 ways to leave Amazon’s 30% tax
behind. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelwolf/2013/07/31/self-publishing-an-e-book-here-are-4-ways-to-leave-amazons-30-tax-behind/
