A Study of Swedish Children's Attitudes to Reading and Public Library Activities

Abstract

This article presents findings from a study of Swedish children's attitudes to reading and to literature promotion in public libraries. The study was made in collaboration with the Swedish Library Association and 100 children were interviewed. This article reports the main results from this study, concentrating on discussing the children's different approaches to reading and how they perceive public library activities. Using socio-cultural theory and qualitative methods the results show three different approaches to reading. The article concludes that it is important that public libraries gain knowledge about the media practices of children and when developing literature promotion the departure point must be the different cultures of reading that characterize the children's everyday world.