European Journal of Innovation in Nonformal Education

 
 
 
 
European Journal of Innovation in Nonformal Education 
www.innovatus.es 
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American Library Association (ALA), founded in Philadelphia in 1876, began to study library patrons 
early in its history. Turning to the recently published unique bibliographic index of English-language 
dissertations on librarianship, we can see that more than three thousand dissertations, about 150 works, 
written from 1903 to 2004, are devoted to the study of various aspects of the psychology of reading. That 
is, the first studies date back to the 1970s and 1980s. The researches of psychologist Douglas Wopless, a 
famous American professor of the 20th century Chicago School of Sociology, date back to the same 
period. His monographs, published a little later, are devoted to the psychology of reading as a social 
process. It is noteworthy that even today the Chicago Research School is actively working in the field of 
reading. In the 1970s and 1980s, and in the subsequent period, American researchers are distinguished by 
their interest in specific problems. For example, their interest was related to the needs of the students of a 
certain university in the psychology of learning; interests of students of different races in the psychology 
of learning; They analyzed the interest in reading for people living in nursing homes and people over 65 
years old in Michigan. American scientists are very interested in studying the psychology of reading: in 
the 1970s and 1980s, extensive research by A. Sorensen and M. Hallinan (North Carolina), D. Hanson, S. 
Williams and R. McGee and done by others. In America, the study of reading and the psychology of 
reading is now considered a very serious matter. In the 1980s, there were concerns in the United States 
that the country was becoming a "nation of spectators", so the "tops" focused widely on the problems of 
reading and the psychology of reading. Research conducted from the early 1990s to the present has 
revealed major changes in the psychology and nature of American reading. The peculiarity of this stage of 
study of reading and teaching is that special attention is paid to the psychology of reading outside the 
library; to study interest is compared to interest in other information channels. Reading and the 
psychology of reading are considered in cultural, social, and educational contexts. It is worth mentioning 
that today research on reading is conducted by such authoritative services as the Book Industry Study 
Group, the Gallup Institute, and the Reading Watch Observatory research center. Multidimensional 
studies such as America Online, which reflect all aspects of American life, have provided information 
about the reading habits of Americans. In American practice, the most relevant directions of study of 
reading and psychology of reading are: Study of the psychology of student reading; marginalized groups; 
studying the place of reading in family and community life, etc. As the most important analytical studies 
in recent years, American specialists D. David’s "Readers and the Psychology of Reading in America: 
Historical and Critical Perspectives" (1994) and K. Davidson’s "The Psychology of Reading in America: 
A History of Literature and Society" (1994) they recommend their works. In 2002, a study was conducted 
in the United States on public engagement in the arts, including the psychology of reading fiction. A 
similar study was conducted earlier in 1998 in Canada and provides a basis for comparing these studies. 
Today, there is a clear need for a comparative analysis of the situation in the field of reading and reading 
psychology among specialists, which encourages international research in cooperation. However, their 
number was small. One of the first was "Do you currently read a book?" conducted by the Gallup Institute 
in the USA, Canada, Australia, England and Germany in 1974. is an international study called This blitz 
study was a new step in understanding reading and the psychology of reading as a single, global 
phenomenon. The researchers were able to compare the indicators of reading and the psychology of 
reading in different countries, analyze the situation in their own way and find the reasons for the 
differences. 
Russian expert V.D.Stelmak conducted an international research on reading of citizens covering 26 
countries. At the time, this issue led many to view the study of reading and the psychology of reading as a 
global professional problem. In the same years, international studies on reading were conducted in the 
Soviet Union, in which socialist countries: Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic and others 
participated. But ideological differences made it impossible to conduct scientific research together with 
colleagues in foreign countries. Today, research is being conducted very actively in European countries. 
In particular, extensive research has been carried out in Germany, France, Great Britain, Scandinavian 
countries, and Italy. The prevalence of reading in France has been the subject of extensive surveys. They 
were organized by the National Publishing Syndicate in cooperation with Le Figaro newspaper. The 
information obtained during these surveys was later included in the book of K. Kuno, who was able to 
analyze the state of reading in the country. By the 1980s, more than thirty studies had been conducted in 
the UK, mostly of a local nature. They can be divided into three groups: study of student demand in 

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