In Pawley’s chapter on the Sage Library, she discusses the reading and library use patterns of many families, from their similarities in material selection, to the number of books that a family member would have checked out at one time. One example is the John L. Whitney household. From their library records Pawley demonstrates a pattern of weekly charges to each of the children until they were approximately seventeen or eighteen, when she predicts that they left for college. She also discusses the possibility of a number of family members reading a book that was checked out on a single account. She acknowledges that this would affect the reading statistics of Osage but that it also affects the consumption of print culture within a family.
I am interested to know if anyone can recall any print consumption patterns from their own childhood. Did you take weekly trips to the library with a particular family member? Was there a limit to the number of books you were allowed to check out on those visits? Was there a specific time of day when newspapers filled your dinning room table or when you recall you family reading?
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My family used to live within a reasonable biking distance of Middleton Public Library, and my mother, sisters and I would go there together or individually. When I was in high school I often read three or four books a week (I wish I had the time for that now!), and when I ran out of my own library books I'd read anything my sisters had lying around. My youngest sister was too young then to be interested in many of my library books, but my first younger sister often read the same ones that I did. And on at least one occasion she stole my library card when she couldn't find her own -- I found out when I got an overdue notice for a book I'd never heard of!
I talked to my mom on the phone tonight and found out that our family habit of sharing library books lives on. She's currently reading a book my sister checked out.
In what seems like direct contrast to everything that's been said, my father is a book reader (although many of those are books on tape) and my mother rarely reads at all. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this but my father grew up on a farm in a very rural area and except for his brothers and sisters, there weren't many children around. My mother lived in the city and spent almost all of her time playing with the kids in the neighborhood. Both of them rarely talk about their experiences with libaries, but I have to wonder if their different childhood experiences play a part in their reading tendencies now.
I, too, echo some of the comments made here. Being a nerdy little bookworm as a young child, a great evening for me was going to the library and getting a stack of books, coming home to a pizza and lots of reading. My mother, younger sister, and I made regular trips to the local library. My father didn't come with us, but he did have several news and political magazines, newspapers and an office with book shelves filled with books lining all the walls. My parents also bought magazine subscriptions for my sister and me individually and for the family. As a family, we read a lot, both for leisure and news/information, and most of the family were considered regulars at the library branch in our neighborhood.
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