Adult Fiction Reading: A Literature Review of Readers' Advisory Services, Adult Fiction Librarianship, and Fiction Readers

摘要

A review of the literature published between 1995 and mid-2003 in the United States and overseas is presented in the areas of cataloguing and classification of adult fiction books, browsing and selection of fiction by readers, user studies of adult fiction readers and readers' advisory services. The major findings are that the literature about readers' advisory services is a growing area, as are user studies of fiction readers; browsing research is an area that has seen little study since 1995 and much of the research, especially outside of readers' advisory work, is being conducted and published in Europe and Australia. More research in browsing and selection needs to be done to reflect the changes since the advent of the Internet age. The use of electronic tools and resources, such as Novelist and Amazon.com, by readers and librarians is a mostly unexplored but very important area for future research.