Reader on Top: Public Libraries, Pleasure Reading, and Models of Reading

摘要

This article examines competing models of reading that have beenavailable for librarians to use in their discourse and policy makingabout pleasure reading. Two models, ???Reading with a Purpose??? and???Only the Best,??? developed within public librarianship, while the othersdeveloped variously in education, psychology, mass media studies,and sociology. These models have differing stories to tell aboutthe power of the text, the role of the reader, and the effect on thereader of what is read. Who is in charge in these stories of reading?Is reading a receptive process of extracting meanings right there inthe text or is it a productive process that involves the reader as a cocreatorof meaning? What happens during the reading transactionitself? Is the reader empowered? Or is the reader duped, dumbeddown, tranquilized, or deceived? Each model of reading makes itsown power claims and each has its own entailments. Some modelsare more appropriate than others for public libraries now that theyare seeking to play a more significant role in the leisure structure.The article uses two types of readers as test cases whose readingtastes have historically been denigrated: the series book reader andthe romance reader.