Older teenagers' attitudes to a further education college library's fiction collection

Koch, Louise and Kendall, Margaret (2003) Older teenagers' attitudes to a further education college library's fiction collection. New review of children's literature and librarianship, 9 (1). pp. 21-40. ISSN 1361-4541

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Abstract

Recent advances have been made in promoting reading to young people between the ages of 16 and 18 by UK public libraries, but there is a need for similar reader development initiatives in educational libraries. This paper provides a review of recent literature on reader development activities for this age group. It then reports on a questionnaire survey completed by 118 young people in a Further Education college library in North West England. The results show student usage and opinions of the fiction collection, attitudes to reading for pleasure and genre preferences. Non-use may stem from limited time available given the extent of student employment in addition to their studies, a lack of awareness of the availability of fiction from the college library and lack of interest in reading outside of their studies. Areas for improvement and further research are identified.