Education: Reading on the Rise

“The overwhelming opinion of the nation’s librarians is that young people are reading more and better books than ever before.”

So say two New York City high school English teachers in High Points, a monthly published by New York’s board of education. Their evidence: a survey of 73 library systems across the country.

At the Lancaster (Pa.) Free Public Library, youngsters borrowed eight times as many books in 1958 as in 1954. The population of Lincoln. Neb. has risen 30% in the past ten years, but book borrowing has doubled. At the 80 branches of New York City’s public library system, up to half of last year’s adult-book circulation came from borrowers aged 13 to 18. And the trend is away from shallow stuff. Toledo and Indianapolis wage a constant battle to replace literary classics worn out by youngsters. Other cities report that youngsters now borrow far more serious nonfiction books. “Today’s teen-agers,” says one veteran Manhattan librarian, “read about two years ahead of their counterparts 25 years ago.”

Some librarians say that the upsurge has little to do with actual love of reading. Schools are simply shifting from pure textbook assignments to more research at the public library. Another big inducement is competition for college; the ill-read have the least chance with admissions men. And skeptics question how long the reading habit lasts.

But even skeptical librarians agree, say the pollsters, that reading is rising among the young. One reason is the growing sale of attractive children’s books. And contrary to gloomy predictions, TV encourages more reading. Margaret C. Scoggin, coordinator of Young Adult Services for New York public libraries, says that “any story which appears on TV immediately creates a demand for the book in the libraries.” She thinks that the paperback boom also boosts library circulation: “The more a student reads, the more he wants to read, the more he buys, and the more he borrows.” For more and more U.S. youngsters, says Agnes Krarup, head of the schools department of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library, “to be well read has suddenly become the ‘thing that is done.’ “