Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
How patrons’ book-borrowing habits are changing The findings reported in this chapter come entirely from the online canvassings of patrons and librarians. The patron respondents in our opt-in sample were frequent visitors of both their library’s physical branch and website. They use their library’s website regularly to reserve books and download e-books, while physical branches […]
Overview Ownership of both e-book readers and tablet computers has been growing slowly but steadily for the past few years. But during the most recent holiday season, we saw a major spike in ownership.[12. numoffset=”12″ Lee Rainie, “Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period” (2011). http://pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/internet/Reports/2012/E-readers-and-tablets.aspx] In mid-January, we reported […]
21% of Americans have read an e-book. The increasing availability of e-content is prompting some to read more than in the past and to prefer buying books to borrowing them.
Background The past several years have brought changes to the bookselling ecosystem, including the rise of e-commerce (and of Amazon in particular) and the continuing decline of independent bookstores and the bricks-and-mortar mega-bookstore. Borders declared bankruptcy in 2011. The current bookstore landscape now includes Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, as well as smaller chains and […]
21% of adults have read an e-book in the past year; Those who own e-book reading devices read more books and prefer to buy books rather than borrow them
Overview of responses in our online panel Our online panel, unsurprisingly, was a relatively tech savvy group. The vast majority of library patron respondents owned a desktop or laptop computer, as well as a cell phone. Over half owned an e-reader, and about half owned a tablet computer—far higher than the 19% of the general […]
Respondents’ thoughts About half of survey respondents selected the more upbeat scenario positing that a significant number of the features of the Home of the Future might finally arrive by 2020. The respondents who said the scenario will not unfold by 2020 said it is still too soon for smart systems to become deeply rooted […]