Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988, 35(2), 69-76
READING INTERESTS AMONG ADULT LITERATES
IN A SEMI-URBAN COMMUNITY OF ORISSA
R K BALIARSINGH
Assistant Librarian
University Law College
Vani Vihar
Bhubaneswar-751 004
Investigates by interview method more than
hundred persons at their residences as a part of a
large project, for assessing the information needs
of a semi-urban community. Analyses the res-
pondent's newspaper, magazine and book read-
ing interests, later being further analysed into
age and sex-wise distribution. Focusses on their
favourable reading times and points out the
probable role of the public libraries in this
regard, since most of the people of the com-
munities of this type are yet to realise the ad-
vantages and benefits of a free public library
service.
INTRODUCTION
In a democratic set-up, the government is ex-
pected to provide all facilities and means to its
citizens to develop their personalities, among
which free education and library service for all
are considered to be the most vital. Reading
books of different tastes will enlighten the citi-
zens to become the leaders of tomorrow. An
individual owes much to the society, the com-
munity in which he lives, besides his parents and
other family members. So efforts must be made
to inculcate reading habits among them from the
very beginning[8]. It needs no emphasis that
Dr. S.R. Ranganathan had been in the forefront
since 1930 so far as the development of public
library service in the country was con-
cerned [13]. It is the library and its librarian
who hold the responsibility of creating interest
among the readers through various subtle
methods. The tempo of literacy is achieved
through formal schooling which is, of course,
limited to a specific period of life. But libraries
have been considered as the best media and the
services they offered as a never ending process
for providing reading materials in order to create
and sustain reading interests among these
people.
Vol 35 No 2 JUJU' 1988
MMAHAPATRA
Head, P.G. Department of Library &
Information Science
UtkaJ University
Bhubaneswar-751 004
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A number of works have been reported in the
literature on reading interests and habits of
students, teachers, scholars, scientists of aca-
demic institutions and research organisations.
But works on the reading interests of the general
public are scanty. The reading interests and
habits of adults in general are discussed by Gray
and Munroef G] , Lucas[10] , whereas Norvell[ll]
has reported the reading interests of young
people. In a community studies on reading,
Ridgway[15] has discussed the reading habits
of adult non-users of the public library but
Grigge[7] is very much optimistic of improving
literacy with public library's help. Reading
habits of young adults or adolescents is reported
by Jenkinson [9] and that of housewives of
rural county by Turbeville and Schuller[16].
The relationship between libraries and the neo-
literates has also been reported by Richard-
son[14]. But no significant attempt has been
made so far to study the reading interests and
habits of adult literates in a semi-urban com-
munity, especially in the developing countries
like India, where most of the people are illiterate
and belong to the lower socio-economic groups
of the community and are yet to realise the
benefits of a free public library service[2].
Therefore, the scope of this paper lies in bring-
ing out the reading interests of the adult literates
of a typical semi-urban Indian community i.e.
Banpur (Notified Area) in the Puri District of
Orissa.
THE STUDY SITE
Specific communities have specific require-
ments, especially, rural, semi-urban commu-
nities, which are so unequal to each other in
India, that a generalization may not be achieved.
They show greater variation in comparison to
 BALIARSINGH & MAHAPATRA
their western counterparts. For the present in-
vestigation, a typical Indian community with a
population of mixed characteristics was chosen,
that is, the Banpur (Notified Area) in the Puri
District of Orissa. It is a small town surrounded
by a number of village communities consisting
of 15 wards, each ward having its specific polling
area. Geographically, it lies between 19041'N
and 19049'N latitude and 85010'E and 85015'E
longitude and about 105 km to South from
Bhubaneswar, the Capital of Orissa State. It
covers an area of 2323 acres or 3.29 sq. miles
and spreads over 22 villages[12] . This is a typi-
cal site where both rural and urban communities
interact. The literacy rate of the area was
48.50% in 1981 [5]. The present survey also
confirmed the approximate 50% literacy rate
of the area[2]. Therefore, it was an excellent
site to assess the reading interests of the adult
literates, where most of them were willing to
accept the library services at their doors.
METHODOLOGY
Choice of the sample
The present investigation is one of the aspects
of assessing the information needs of a semi-
urban community, for which the latest (1984)
voter's list of the site was used to derive the
sample, It contained the serial number of the
voter, house number, name, his/her sex and age
and was appropriately divided into 15 wards
and each ward into the respective polling areas.
The voters of each polling area were classified
into males and females and further grouped
according to their ages: (i) 21-25 years (ii) 26-
35 years, (iii) 36-55 years, and (iv) 56 years
and above. The exact samples were determined
randomly from the voters list based on the
Table of Random Numbers distributed at equal
proportion by age and sex from each polling
area. The serial number of the sample voter, his/
her name and house number were noted in a
diary for conducting the interview. Accordingly,
a total of 107 persons were interviewed for this
purpose.
Questionnaire-cum-interview
107 persons were successfully interviewed in
their houses to whom category-wise the ques-
tions on reading of books, newspapers, maga-
70
zines as well as type of books, any special
interest in reading a specific portion of news-
papers, the time of reading etc. were asked. The
respondent's answers to each of these questions
were noted in a personal diary which was
written only after leaving the respondent's
house and before beginning a new interview.
Some of the sample questions are given below
for illustration :
(i) Do you subscribe to newspapers/
magazines in your house?
Yes : Name the newspaper /magazine
No : then, how do you read news-
paper /magazine?
(ii) Are you interested in reading books?
(iii) Do you purchase books/magazines?
(iv) At what time generally do you read?
A page of the dairy is provided in Fig. 1 for illus-
tration :
Sample 100 : 21.6.85/10.30 A.M./S :
Banpur, 312/85. The house is situated in
the last part of the area, high economic
order, social status is good, very coopera-
tive in nature, hygienic environment.
Person : Sex-male, Age group - 26 to 35
years, passed B.A. LL.B., an established
businessman dealing with T.V.s at pre-
sent, has habit of reading newspapers,
magazines and novels, interest in read-
ing business advertisements, trade and
commerce portions in newspapers when
asked that particular question.
Interview eucessful.
Fig. 1. Sample page of the diary.
Recording and compilation
The answers of the respondents were classified
into suitable categories and the percentage were
calculated.
SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS
Persons who could read and write to some ex-
tent irrespective of the class upto which they
have studied were considered as literates. Of the
107 successful interviews, there were 80 (74.7%)
Ann Lib Sci Docu
 READING INTERESTS IN ORISSA

males and 27(25.2%) females. The distribution
of samples by age and sex (Table 1) showed that
maximum of males belonged to the age group
of 21-25 years (28 i.e. 26.1%), followed b_ythe
age group of 26-35 years (24 i.e. 22.4%) whereas
maximum females belonged to 26-35 years (11
i.e. 10.2%), closely followed by 21-25 group
(9 i.e. 8.4%). In the 36-55 years group, there
were 21(19.6%) males and 5(4.6%) females.
Only 7(6.5%) males and 2(1.8%) females
belonged to the last group. The educational
level of the sample were categorised into:
(i) primary (i.e. upto class V), (ii) secondary
(i.e. from class V to XI), and (iii) higher (i.e.
above class XI or H.S.C.). The distribution
of sample according to their educational attain-
ment is provided in Table 2, which showed that
maximum number of males (34 i.e. 31.77%)
were educated upto secondary level while
maximum number of females (16. i.e. 14.95%)
studied upto primary level. 30(28.03%) males
studied upto primary level whereas 7(6.5%)
females upto secondary level. Only 16(14.95%)
males and 4(3.73%) females reached the level
of higher education. Distribution of the sample
by occupation (Table 3) showed that the per-
sons in the sample were scattered in a variety of
occupation. Among them, majority (25 i.e,
23.36%) were doing business closely followed
by housewives (24 i.e. 22.42%), and service-
holders (18 i.e, 16.82%).

Table 1
Distribution of samples by age and sex

Males Females

Age groups no. % no. %

21-25 28 26.17 9 8.41

26-35 24 22.43 11 10.28

36-55 21 19.63 5 4.67
56 7 6.54 2 1.87

Total : 80 74.77 27 25.23

Table 2
Educational attainments among literates

Males Females

Status no. % no. %

Primary 30 28.04 16 14.95

Secondary 34 31.78 7 6.54

Higher 16 14.95 4 3.74

Total : 80 74.77 27 25.23

Vol 35 No 2 June 1988 71

 BALIARSINGH & MAHAPATRA
. :",

Table 3
Distribution of the sample by occupation

Occupation No. of persons Percentage

Businessmen 25 23.36
Housewives 24 22.42

Serviceholders 18 16.82
Cultivators 12 11.21

Labourers 11 10.28
Teachers 5 4.67
Household professionals 5 4.67
Unemployed persons 4 3.74
Students 3 2.80

Total 107 99.97

So far marital status of the sample is con-
cerned, except 10 males and 2 females, all were
married. This is probably due to the practice of
early marriage in the rural areas of Orissa.
Besides the local language, most of the persons
had the knowledge of English only.
of those who-did not subscribe to newspapers in
their houses never read, and others just managed
to read them either in a teashop for a brief
period or borrowed from their neighbours,
friends and hawkers.
Prominent newspapers

READING INTERESTS AND HABITS Most of the persons (88.46%) who subscribed
to newspapers in their house preferred the
107 adult literates were interviewed for finding famous Oriya daily, the Samaj, followed by
out their interests and habits of reading news- the Sam bad and the Prajatantra. Only 8 persons
papers, magazines, books, etc. as well as the time (15.38%) were interested in reading The States-
and duration of reading. The questionnaire was man, which topped the list among the English
framed accordingly, dailies (Table 5). Among the newspapers which
were read other than the ones subscribed at
Newspaper reading interest home (Table 6), the Prajatantra (19.23%) was
at the top of the list followed by the Samaj
Home subscription of newspapers and the Sam bad (9.61%).
52 respondents (48.59%) of the total sample
told that they subscribed to newspapers in their Magazine reading interests
houses. This means, the remaining 55(51.40%)
either did not read the newspapers or if they . Only 21 (19.62%) persons had suggested that
read, they borrowed them from others. Table 4 they subscribed to magazines in their houses,
provides the percentage of those who borrowed That means the remaining 86(80.37%) persons
newspapers from different sources. It can be did not read any magazine. Among the promi-
noted from Table 4, that 25 persons (45.45%) nent magazines, the Oriya magazine [anha-

72 Ann Lib Sci Docu

 READING INTERESTS IN ORISSA

Table 4
Percentage of newspapers borrowed from different sources and those who never read

Source Number % of those who did % from total

not subscribe to
newspapers in their
houses

Teashop 14 25.45 13.08

Neighbour 7 12.73 6.54

At Office 5 9.09 4.67

Friend 2 3.64 1.87

Hawker 2 3.64 1.87

Do not read 25 45.45 23.36

Total 55 100.00 51.39

Table 5
Names of subscribed newspapers

Name of the newspaper Number of % of total % of total

persons persons who persons
subscribed subscribed to interviewed
to newspapers newspapers in the
sample

Samaj 46 88.46 42.99

Sambad 9 17.30 8.41

Statesman 8 15.38 7.48

Prajatantra 6 11.53 5.61

Times of India 2 3.84 1.87

Telegraph 2 3.84 1.87

Khabar Kagaz 1 1.92 0.93

Nav Bharat Times 1 1.92 0.93

Vol 35 No 2 June 1988 73

 BALIARSINGH & MAHAPATRA

Table 6

Names of newspapers read by the intervieuiees but not subscribed by tliem

Name of the nwspaper Number of % of those who % of total

persons subscribed to persons
newspapers in interviewed
their house

Prajatantra 10 19.23 9.35

Samaj 5 9.61 4.67
Sambad 5 9.61 4.67
Dharitri 3 5.76 2.80
otatesman 2 3.84 1.87

Times of India 1 1.92 0.93

Observer 1 1.92 0.93

mamu (33.33%) and Sisulekha (9.52%) which Nature of books

were meant: for children, were found to be the
most popular ones' being at the top of the list
of subscribed magazines. Among the English
Magazines, the Competition Success Review
(33.33%) usually meant for appearing in com-
petitive examinations topped the list, followed
by Tuesday (19.04%). However, the rate of
subscription of magazines is very poor. Dur-
mu kh (9.5 2%), an Oriya satirical magazine
topped the list of magazines other than sub-
scribed ones, whereas, Illustrated Weekly of
India (23.80%) followed by Sunday (19.04%)
were prominent among English magazines other
than the subscribed magazines.
It can be noted from the Table 8 that maximum
of males and females preferred to read fiction
followed by books dealing with myths. How-
ever, a significant number of males preferred
to read non-fiction as well.
Purchase of books
When the interviewees· were asked whether
they purchased books for reading, only 21
(19.62%) persons answered in the affirmative.
The response was very poor, perhaps due to
low-economic status of most of these persons.

Book reading interests Reading times

Age and sex-wise distribution 40( 37.38%) persons preferred to read anything
after lunch. Surprisingly. this time was repre-
66(61.68%) persons had shown interest in read- sented by all categories of interviewees of either
ing books, whereas, the remaining 41(38.31%) sex, and for all age groups. 21(19.62%) persons
persons did not read books at all. Table 7 preferred to read during evening while 16
provides the distribution of persons interested (14.95%) persons preferred reading before
in reading books according to sex and age breakfast, 4(3.73%) during breakfast, 1(0.93%)
group. Maximum persons, both males and before lunch, 6(5.60%) during night and 15
females, belonged to the age group of 21-25 (14.01%) at other times. However, none pre-
years who showed interest in reading books. ferred to read during late nigh t.

74 Ann Lib Sci Docu

 READING INTERESTS IN ORISSA

Table 7

Interest in reading books by age and sex

Males Females

Yes No Yes No
Age group
-----------------------------------------!---------
Number % of Number %of Number % of Number %of
males males females females

21-25 16 20.25 11 13.92 8 28.57 2 7.14

26-35 10 12.66 14 17.72 6 21.43 5 17.86

36-55 13 16.46 8 10.13 4 14.29 1 3.57

56- 7 8.86 2 7.14

--------------------------------------------------~--------
% of total
interviewees 42.99 30.84 16.69 7.48

Total 46 58.23 33 41.77 20 71.43 8 28.57

----------------------------------~------------------------

Table 8
Nature of Nature of books preferred for reading

Nature No. of Males No. of Females

persons persons
% of male % of total % of female % of total
reading inter- reading inter-
books viewees books viewees

Fiction 23 50.00 21.50 14 70.00 13.08

Myth 11 23.91 10.28 5 25.00 4.67
Non-fiction 10 21.74 9.35 3 15.00 2.80
Professional 2 4.35 1.87 1 5.00 0.93
Religion 2 4.35 1.87 1 5.00 0.93

Vol 35 No 2 June 1988 75

 BALIARSINGH & MAHAPATRA

interest in specific portions of newspapers 4. Bunch, A : Community information services:

The interviewees were asked regarding their
interests in specific portions of newspapers
which they generally read. Quite. a significant 5.
number of persons (29 i.e. 27.10%) did not
have any preferrence towards any specific por- 6.
tions of a newspaper. The maximum attention
of the interviewees was drawn by the news
on natural calamities followed by the news
relating to the government. 7.
CONCLUSION
Their Origin, Scope, and development, London.
Clive Bingley, 1982. 168 p.
Census of India, Orissa. 1981.
Gray, W S and Munroe, R : Tbe reading in-
terests and habits of adults. New York, Mac-
millan, 1929.
Griggs, H K : Shc··J'.d public libraries' help to
improve literacy in North Carolina? N Carolina
Lib 1982,40,259-65.

This paper discusses the reading interests of 8. India : Ministry of Education and Scientific
adult literates in a semi-urban community in Research. Secondary Education Commission,
relation to newspapers, magazines, books etc. October 1952 - June 1953. Report. Delhi,
and the findings have dear implications for Manager of Publications, 1953. p. 23.
public libraries. Although most of the inter-
viewees belong to village area and it is declared Jenkinson, D H : Another look at adolescent
as urban area by the state govt., they are still 9.
reading in Manitoba. Sch Lib Can 1982, 2, 18-
deprived of library facilities in comparison to
22.
major urban areas of the state. Most of these
literates have shown interest to accept the
10. Lucas, R S : Reading interests, life interests and
library services if at all these are provided to
life style. Pub Lib Q 1982, 3,.11.18.
them at their village level. At this stage, the
librarians, as well as the state authorities should
1L Norvell, G W : The reading interests of young
play their roles in view of the "Free book
people. Boston. Heath. 1950.
service for all". They shauld plan their ser-
vices in the light of existing services available
for rural areas. In general, it can be said that 12. Ranganathan, S R et al. : Free book service for
the people of this community are yet to rea- all. Bombay, Asia Publishing House. 1968.
Iise the advantages and benefits of a free pub- p.464.
lic library service.
13. Orissa : Town planning (Directorate of -).
Draft Master Plan for Chilika . Balugaon - Banpur.
REFERENCES
Notification No. RP.VI-P /78. 24910/UD
Aug., 1978.
1. Albright, John B : A bibliography of community
analysis for libraries. Lib Trends 1976, 24,
14. Richardson, J : Libraries and the nee-literates.
619-43.
Int Lib R 1983, 15,9-13.

2. Baliarsingh, R K and Mahapatra, M : Current in-

formation needs and their providers among the 15. Ridgway, H A : Community studies in reading.
literates and illiterates : A comparative study III. Reading habits of adult non-users of the
in a semi-urban community. IASLIC Con- public library. Lib Q 1936,6,1. S.
ference 1985, 15, 137-49.
16. Turbeville, G and Schuller, E A ; Reading and
3. Heal, C : Studying the publi's information needs. reading interests of house-wives in a rural county.
J Libnship 1979, 11, 130-51. Rural Social 1949, 14,227.

76 Ann Ub Sci Docu