WebJunction

I encourage you all to check out a report from the National Endowment for the Arts titled, Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy: http://www.arts.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf

From the intro, written by Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts:

Reading on the Rise, the National Endowment for the Arts’ new report, documents a significant turning point in recent American cultural history. For the first time in over a quarter-century, our survey shows that literary reading has risen among adult Americans. After decades of declining trends, there has been a decisive and unambiguous increase among virtually every group measured in this comprehensive national survey. Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics have all shown significant growth in their reading
rates, as have both adult men and women. There have been similar improvements in adults across most educational levels and age groups. Combined with general population growth, these higher reading rates have expanded literary readership by 16.6 million—creating the largest audience in the history of the survey.

Best of all, the most significant growth has been among young adults, the group that had shown the largest declines in earlier surveys. The youngest group (ages 18-24) has undergone a particularly inspiring transformation from a 20 percent decline in 2002 to a 21 percent increase in 2008—a startling level of change. At the Arts Endowment we have paid particular attention
to this crucial cohort. During their high school years, they were the target of the largest literary initiatives in the agency’s history, and we note their progress with particular satisfaction.

There is very encouraging news in this report. Of special interest to YA librarians is the following finding (from p.4 of the report):

4. Literary reading has increased most rapidly among the youngest adults.
n The percentage of 18-24-year-olds who read literature has grown by nearly 9 points,
representing 3.4 million additional readers.3
n The rate of their rise as readers (+21 percent since 2002) is greater than for any other age group
and three times the growth rate of all adult readers.
n Six years earlier, by contrast, 18-24-year-olds had shown the steepest rate of decline in reading
since the NEA survey began.

It's a short report, and filled with good news about American adults and reading. It's a real page-turner!
Hooray!

Cheryl

Cheryl,
Thanks for that encouraging news! It's good to know that with all the technology competing for people's attention, the book is still popular.
Adrienne