Who reads what and why in the library's magazine room?

The purpose of this study is to determine who visits the V Frölunda Library, Gothenbug,what magazines they read and why. The data presented in this thesis are collectedusing four methods: general observation and counting numbers of visitors, interviewswith 202 magazine readers, the completion of 1308 questiomaires regarding approximately350 maghes and interviews with more than 100 library visitors.The data indicates that men are significantly overrepresented among magazine readersas compared to the female visitors. These men are primarily from the white collar sectorof the community. This leads to a pronounced underrepresentation of the blue coIlarworkers. Young people visit the magazine room in the library at a rate about twice thatexpected from the population distribution.Women are primarily interested in magazines dealing with the home whereas men aremore interested in business, cars, boats and sports. The young people seem to favourmagazines dealing with sports and computers whereas the retired people read primarilybusiness and health journals.The vast majority read the magazines for their own satisfaction while some do it forlearning. It was also found that about 30 % of the magazines were never read by anyone.These results are consistant with those reported in previous studies