“The share of Americans who report not reading any books in the past 12 months is higher today than it was nearly a decade ago. Today, 27% of adults say they have not read any books in the past year, up from 19% in 2011.”
The Panorama Project’s first full year was a busy one as new ebook and audiobook terms from major publishers sparked intense conversations about libraries’ role in the publishing ecosystem, and the lack of transparent data limited the impact of those conversations. The Project itself was busy as a mid-summer change in leadership and a pivot towards advocacy and engagement required a shift in methodologies and priorities.
“Despite the growth in ebooks and audiobooks over the past decade, there are reportedly fewer people reading books today, and fierce competition for their attention and discretionary spending,” explained project lead, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez. “Coupled with fewer bookstores in fewer communities, it’s vitally important to understand what impact the 16,000+ public libraries across the United States have on developing readers, driving book discovery, and generating book sales.”
“Most people agree,” said Gonzalez, “transparent, actionable data about the public library’s role in the publishing ecosystem would be enormously helpful to everyone.”
To help generate some of this data, the Project announced two new initiatives for 2020 in its newly released annual report.
Immersive Media & Reading 2020—Consumer Survey
In the absence of any major consumer research focusing on how book consumption and purchasing behavior has changed over the past five years, there are many unsupported theories attempting to explain why consumer ebook sales plateaued, and then began a gradual decline. Consumer pricing, library lending, and self-publishing are believed to be among the primary factors, while little consideration has been given to the impact of other forms of digital media that have experienced exponential growth. In partnership with Portland State University, we will spearhead a comprehensive consumer survey to measure immersive media consumption and buying behaviors across key formats—books, film, TV, and gaming—and platforms, both analog and digital.
Library Marketing Valuation Toolkit
Extending from the 2019 Readers’ Advisory Activities Survey, we want to get a better understanding of the different ways public libraries produce and host author visits. This includes literary festivals, book clubs, and other experiential events that directly connect readers to books and authors. The Library Events & Book Sales Survey asked U.S. public librarians for additional insights into the various book-related events they produce for their communities, how they market them, which partners they work with, and how they measure and report on the impact of these events. We will produce a combined report & toolkit which will identify best practices for producing events, and specific tactics libraries can use to drive book sales and calculate the total monetary value of their readers’ advisory and marketing efforts.
For more information on these new initiatives, and an overview of 2019’s key initiatives, download the full 2019 annual report here: panoramaproject.org/annual-report-2019