Students' perceptions about the Internet's usefulness and potential to engage them in academic learning tasks have been found to influence their success in reading for information in online tasks. This article helps to understand the types of dispositions that adolescents may have toward reading on the Internet and how to characterize these…

By now we've all seen examples of Wordle, the technology app that converts chunks of text into a word cloud featuring words of different sizes according to their prevalence in the text. But you haven't seen the real power of Wordle until you've seen Lee Ann Spillane's high school students use it to analyze patterns and symbolism in The Great…

In a December 2007 "New Yorker" article, "Twilight of the Books," author Caleb Crain laments the decline of literacy in the United States, citing a number of studies indicating that "Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability." Many share Crain's angst. While the authors wouldn't disagree with Crain's point, it does beg…

Colleges share many things on Twitter, but one topic can be risky to broach: the reading habits of library patrons. Patrons' privacy is precious to most librarians. Yet new Web services thrive on collecting and sharing the very information that has long been protected. This points to an emerging tension as libraries embrace digital services.…

In Botswana, it is common to hear the lament that there is no culture of reading. We aim to contribute to the development of more specific understanding of a culture of reading by reporting on information gathered from teachers who attended workshops we offered titled "Teachers as Readers AND Readers as Teachers: Creating Young Readers and…

Google, in cooperation with several dozen research libraries worldwide, is digitizing books at the rate of 3,000 a day. The noncommercial Open Content Alliance is scanning at a more modest pace but gaining ground, especially among institutions who chafe at some of the restrictions imposed by Google and its competitors. LibraryThing, an online book…

Responding to a recent U.S. survey that indicated declines in pleasure reading, the author asks, "Are adults reading less or are they just reading differently?" From this springboard, she goes on to discuss trends in early literacy and elementary education, along with different types of literate behaviors. By looking at the increasing availability…