Annemarie Quill: Era of print books far from over

After the year in which Kim Kardashian's butt became big news with her attempt to "break the internet" with a photo of her balancing a Champagne glass on her large behind, it seemed we were officially dumbed down, and that no-one cared any more about anything serious.

With Gen Y seemingly embracing screens over print, and e-readers over books, and Tauranga City Council once again targeting libraries with cost-cutting, even the most dedicated bibliophiles must have wondered if print books were not just desperately old fashioned, but also doomed.

Don't disband the book club just yet. The good news is that the tide may be turning back in favour of the printed word.

This week the UK's largest bookseller, Waterstones, reported sales of physical books rose 5 per cent in December, while its sales of e-readers were disappearing. The UK's Daily Telegraph reported that British consumers spent 2.2 billion on print in 2013, compared with just 300 million on e-books. The paper said, like Waterstones, London bookstore Foyles reported a surge in sales of physical books over Christmas. The report added that in the US, book giant Barnes & Noble was looking to spin off its e-reader business, which was losing money, while its core book sales rose 5 per cent in the most recent quarter.

This week we reported that Paper Plus Mount Maunganui manager Jane Debenham said there was good trading in December and her store was up last month compared with previous years.

"We did extremely well with books - books are not dead. A lot of people are still looking for books and are prepared to pay for a book they want," she said.

Mrs Debenham also said the outlook for 2015 was positive.

And at the beginning of the year came the biggest endorsement for print books. Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced on his page that he has vowed to read a book every other week in 2015, with an emphasis on learning about different beliefs, cultures and technologies.

Zuckerberg created a page called A Year of Books and urged his friends to join him in the project.

"I'm excited for my reading challenge," Zuckerberg wrote. "I've found reading books very intellectually fulfilling. Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today. I'm looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading books."

Pundits are expecting Zuckerberg's book choices to boost book sales. Much like talk show host Oprah Winfrey whose picks have rocketed authors to the top of bestseller lists.

If more New Zealanders are inspired by Zuckerberg to read more, that has to be a good thing. Our literacy statistics are nothing to write home about. One in four school children struggle with reading at school and it is estimated that 20 per cent of students leave school without adequate literacy (and numeracy skills).

Professor James Chapman of Massey University confirms these figures are fairly accurate.

"The last international adult literacy survey (2006) showed that over 50 per cent of young NZ adults (16-20 years) performed below the minimum level necessary for functioning in a knowledge economy/society (using OECD criteria), and that 16 per cent were really low. The 20 per cent is probably an underestimate based on this survey and these criteria. Although this was done in 2006 there's no reason to believe that things are better. The results were worse for numeracy, with over 60 per cent performing below the minimum level and over 20 per cent really poor. Last year's international survey results for 15-year-old students also show poor results relative to other developed countries."

In the last survey of 9-year-olds (2011), New Zealand was ranked 23rd out of 45 participating countries: 20 countries performed significantly better than NZ, including the US, Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England. Chapman points out that a reasonable number of our children performed at the levels of Azerbaijan, Iran and Trinidad and Tobago.

This has a knock-on effect to adult literacy. Literacy surveys estimate that one in five adult New Zealanders has poor reading skills. Almost half of New Zealanders struggle to cope with the everyday literacy demands of life and work.

Is the answer just to read more books?

Professor Tom Nicholson, a literacy expert at Massey University, says that it is not that simple.

"I'm not sure if reading a book every two weeks will solve our poor reading statistics because part of the problem is that we are not reaching the one in four who struggle due to our limited reading methods."

But he agrees that Mark Zuckerberg's announcement is great - "a model for us all to follow".

Nicholson adds that there is research which shows that reading makes you smarter.

"If New Zealanders read more books, we could be a smarter country and be more successful."

That is something we would all like to read about.