Buddy can you spare some time

Norma writes: “”Buddy can you spare some time” by Martin Peers is an article in today’s Wall Street Journal (Jan. 25, 2004) about how Americans are using their discretionary time. There’s some good news and some bad news for librarians, but all of it is news librarians need to analyze to be prepared when considering staffing and collections.Broadcast TV hours going down; cable TV hours going up.Radio going up.Video/Internet useage going up (although not as much as I’d thought)Daily newspaper reading flat.Reading books flat.Reading magazines flat.Books, magazines and newspaper reading accounted for about 7 hours a week of discretionary time. Sure, that’s not a lot, but they haven’t lost ground since 1996. Appears that the time to surf the net is taken from TV time, not from books.Disposable time is a battle for the dollar.Then there is a second article on differences in gender and age in using TV, internet, renting movies, listening to music, etc. 39% of people over 45 read (what I’m not sure) compared to 11% under 25 and 24% read between 25-34.“

January 28, 2004 by Uncategorized 2

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2 Responses

  1. Anonymous Patron says:
    January 29, 2004 at 2:52 am

    E-media versus print?

    Ah… A book…on paper is a welcome rest after the hours of glare and eyestrain and clicking finger, wrist and shoulder aches from surfing the net all day on the PC at work…

    The whole process of reading a book printed on paper feels different…cognitively, more senses are involved, and you can skip around more easily…and sit or stand anywhere
    comfortably to read it etc.

    Plus if the power goes fzzzt…a candle or lamp and a book are great!

    Reply
  2. soy_mustang says:
    January 29, 2004 at 4:28 am

    wrong date?
    Good article – but I found it in the January 26th, 2004 paper on our electronic newspaper database.

    Reply

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