Ross, C.S.: Finding without seeking : what readers say about the role of pleasure-reading as a source of information (1999)
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- Abstract
- It is common to distinguish sharply between leisure reading undertaken purely for pleasure and utilitarian reading that satisfies what Peter Mann (1969, 53-61) has called `extrinsic' interests: reference materials for work and home such as medical books, cook books and repair manuals. We might suppose that information-seeking is concerned only with utilitarian reading. However, once we adopt a definition of information as something that fills in a gap in understanding or makes a difference to an individual's cognitive structure or helps people with their lives, it follows that we cannot deduce uses simply by looking at the texts themselves. Since meanings are constructed by readers, we must ask the readers about the uses they make of texts in the context of their lives. Findings from a research project focussed on 194 readers who read for pleasure indicate that for a broad understanding of the information behaviour of ordinary people, we need to think beyond reference books to include extended narrative forms, particularly biography, history, and fiction. People who are avid readers for pleasure report that during the course of wide reading they serendipitously encounter information that helps them in their lives
