Main segments of a reading circle of Siberian and Far Eastern residents in the late XX - early XXI centuries

Abstract

The reading study allows determining the level of development and scales of intellectual-spiritual demands and practical needs of the population. The main segments of a reading circle, common for Siberian and Far Eastern residents in the late XX - early XXI centuries, are art, educational, industrial, scientific, local history, practically useful literature and periodicals. They perform the following functions: information, educational, leisure, relaxation, educational, communicative ones, persons’ socialization, broadcast of social experience and main systems of the values developed in the society at this stage of its development. Popular genres of fiction were entertaining: detective stories, love and historical novels, adventures, fantasy. Entertaining and information publications were the most demanded in the periodicals. It was marked demands for social-political and economic literature, books on housekeeping, popular psychology, traditional medicine, truck farming, children care. The content and ratio of the main segments of reading was defined first of all by reader’ age and occupation. Motives and frequency of regional inhabitants appealing to this or that literature are the basis for separation of reading segments.