“It makes you feel like more of a person:” The leisure reading habits of university students in the US and UK and how academic libraries can support them

Abstract

A study that explores the leisure reading habits and leisure collection use patterns of university students in the United States and United Kingdom. Ninety-eight students on ten university campuses (five in each country) were interviewed about their reading habits and observations were conducted at each campus. Results demonstrated that most university students interviewed do read for leisure, despite the persistent narrative in academic literature and popular media to the contrary. It does not necessarily follow that student readers will use their university library for this purpose simply because it has a leisure collection. Future research on student reading and practical recommendations for academic libraries with leisure collections are discussed.

Keywords:

• Leisure reading
• reading habits
• recreational reading
• readers’ advisory
• university students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).