Library and bookstore as a fiction intermediary : A user study in a public library and in a bookstore

The purpose of this study is to examine what readers of fiction literature are influenced by when they choose books. What libraries and bookstores do to influence readers in their choice of literature and how readers perceive the librarys and the bookstores influence on them in their choice of fiction literature. We have also studied which factors outside the library and the bookstore that readers are influenced by when borrowing or buying a certain book and to what extent readers are influenced by the books appearance. To answer our questions we chose a public library and a bookstore, where we interviewed six persons in each place. We have interviewed a librarian and a bookstore manager for information about how these two cultural institutions work with marketing of their fiction literature. The result of the study shows that different factors, as advertisement and what other people read, influence readers to borrow or to buy a book. The library and the bookstore influenced our interviewees most through book display and front exposure and also through offering fewer books in one place. The interviewees chose literature by book covers, title, author, size and the summary of its content.Uppsatsnivå: