Reading rates may be falling, but the word will survive

TONY DODERO

Time goes by so fast sometimes.

This week’s headlines on the 10th anniversary of the grand opening

of the Newport Beach Central Library on Avocado Avenue brought back

memories for me that don’t seem that long ago.

Yet, it was exactly 12 years ago this month that I covered the

story of that very same library’s groundbreaking, another sequence in

the dreams of former councilwoman and library board member Lucille

Kuehn and the library’s No. 1 benefactor, Elizabeth Stahr, who had

both worked so hard to see it come true.

There was much pomp and circumstance that day as a Marine Corps

band from El Toro played and dignitaries such as Rep. Chris Cox and

former astronaut Buzz Aldrin donned hardhats and dug out the fresh

ground with shovels.

The dramatic conclusion: Newport Beach loves its libraries and of

course the books that come with them.

Coincidentally, as Newport Beach was celebrating the 10th year of

the central library, a report this week was issued by the National

Endowment for the Arts that painted a gloomy picture of literary

reading and the love of the printed word.

The survey of adults 18 and over, conducted by the Census Bureau,

titled “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America,”

listed 10 key findings: * The percentage of adult Americans reading literature has dropped

dramatically over the past 20 years.

* The decline in literary reading parallels a decline in total

book reading.

* The rate of decline in literary reading is accelerating.

* Women read more literature than men do, but literary reading by

both groups is declining at significant rates.

* Literary reading is declining among whites, African Americans

and Latinos.

* Literary reading is declining among all education levels.

* Literary reading is declining among all age groups.

* The steepest decline in literary reading is in the youngest age

groups.

* The decline in literary reading foreshadows an erosion in

cultural and civic participation.

* The decline in reading correlates with increased participation

in a variety of electronic media, including the Internet, video games

and portable digital devices.

For some perspective on this, I called a librarian, who I was sure

would see this as the Apocalypse, the fall of western civilization,

the end of the world as we know it, right?

Wrong.

“I just read that report about two hours ago,” said Linda

Katsouleas, the director of Newport Beach Library Services, who has

been busy celebrating the 10th anniversary of the central library

this week.

“Like many surveys, I think it is not as comprehensive as it might

be,” she said. “I wonder if they considered the fact that with some

of our young people, so much reading is done online. Many young

people read magazines and books online. It is reading. It’s simply

through a different format.”

Wow. Well, that caught me off guard.

But how can we get people to read more, I implored?

She wasn’t buying into my “Chicken Little” questioning. (That’s a

book reference by the way.)

“I don’t think reading has necessarily declined,” she said. “We

are just doing it differently. In fact, I read that article (the

survey) online.

“There is a decline of reading in traditional formats,” she

conceded, but she wasn’t alarmed by that.

“I don’t see that as the end of the world. The writing is still

happening. The reading is still happening. Where do libraries fit

into all this? Actually, we are right in the middle, just like

always. Instead of getting people to look up the right books or right

magazines, we give them the right websites.”

And Katsouleas said despite the bad news on the national front,

Newport Beach trends simply don’t follow that. As we reported last

week, Newport Beach is one of the best-read communities in the state.

“Our people read an average of 19 books a year,” she said.

Today, Katsouleas said, young kids read books like the Harry

Potter series and then go to a website to chat about it. Those types

of things probably aren’t recorded in surveys, she believes.

Still, the idea that my dusty copy of “Farewell to Arms” or Agatha

Christie mystery novels are soon headed for the scrap heap to be

replaced by hand-held computer screens just gnaws at me.

So, I called Roger McGonegal to see what he thought could be done.

McGonegal is the district literacy chairman for Rotary District

5320, encompassing all of Orange County and has been involved in the

Los Angeles Times Reading by Nine program for the last five years.

That program, with sponsorships by the Times, the Rotary clubs and

the Daily Pilot, helps puts books in the hands of underprivileged

children at Westside Costa Mesa schools.

I asked him about his love for the written word.

“I grew up in a family of teachers,” McGonegal said. “I was

exposed to books and expected to read from the earliest time.

Therefore, I’ve carried it all my life.”

He encourages those who want to help others learn to read to go to

the libraries and schools and volunteer.

In fact, he said through Reading by Nine, admission to the Orange

County Fair on July 28 is free for anyone who brings in one new or

three “gently used” recreational reading books for kindergarten

through third-grade children.

Just as so many things have changed since I covered that

groundbreaking 12 years ago, make no mistake, book reading will

probably change from its current form, so too, will reading

newspapers.

But for those who cherish and believe in the power of the written

word as a cornerstone of democracy, maybe we don’t have anything to

fear.

“It will still be reading; it will still be communicating; it will

still be learning,” Katsouleas said of the future of reading.

I sure hope she’s right.

For more on the National Endowment of the Arts survey, go to

https://www.nea.gov/pub/

ReadingAtRisk.pdf.