Readership development > Best practice > Becoming reader centred

Simple Ideas for increasing issues

Being reader-centred is one of the guiding principles of Reader Development. It’s a piece of jargon that’s been coined to describe a way of working. Like all jargon its inventors think its meaning is clear. Like all jargon it’s not, so I’ll try to explain it.

Put simply, a reader-centred approach to library work puts the interests of the reader at the heart of all the book-related work the library staff do. Easy!

The idea behind Reader Development is to broaden the range of peoples reading. The best way to do this is simply to give them some choices. "But they already have choices", I hear you cry, "Look at all the books we’ve got!"

Well, that’s fair enough: you have got lots of books. Your stock selection teams work hard to pick stock that will issue but some of it still doesn’t, which is heartbreaking if it’s a book you’ve read and loved.

Imagine you are one of your readers. You’ve come in for a browse (research shows that 70% of users are browsing). What would you rather look at: rows of spine on stock or a face out display? Go into a bookshop and look at how many people are looking on the shelves in comparison to those looking at the tables and dumpbins. In my experience it’s 2 to 1 looking at tables.

Readers respond to this type of display. A reader-centred library will give it to them. Now where do you put it?

Text by Matthew Perren (Readership Development Officer, 2002)

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