For the past six years, the two cities have traded the first and second spots in the rankings, which analyze six key indicators of literacy (newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources) against population rates for cities with populations of 250,000 or more.
The study does not look at reading test scores or how often people read, but what kinds of literary resources are available and used. This is “one critical index of our nation’s well-being,” says study author Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn.
The findings come at a time when newspaper circulations across the USA are declining, and online newspaper reading is increasing. Miller’s analysis suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the availability of free online news is not to blame for the decline in newspapers’ print circulation — and that neither is the decline in bookstores across the country caused by the rise in online book buying.
Cities that ranked higher for having more bookstores also have a higher proportion of people buying books online, the analysis found, and cities with newspapers that have high per-capita circulation rates also have more people reading newspapers online. Likewise, cities that ranked higher for having well-used libraries also have more booksellers
Shelley Propernick
John L Scott
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