Pew Research Center survey finds that the share of Americans who have read a book in the last 12 months (73%) has remained largely unchanged since 2012. (Pew Research 09.01.16)

“That doesn’t surprise me especially given how big readers West High students are. So even though so many people have a device and so many people have a computer and so many people have access in the building the number of physical paper books we check out has remained really steady. Our informal statistics go along with that data really well.” – Jill Hofmockel, Head Librarian

“I don’t really think it’s that interesting.” – Jacob Smith ’20

“I think it’s pretty interesting because [despite] the rise in technology and stuff… people still actually read. People are always on their  phone playing video games or texting each other, it’s nice that people still have time to sit down and read a book. ” – Claudia Smith ’19

“People are still reading books which I think is good.” – Tyler Pals ’18

“It’s not unexpected because it’s only been a few years. If it were ten years or twenty years [later] and it were the same thing then… it would be something interesting to look into. But because it’s just been four years in between it doesn’t really change anything.” – Emma Petersen ’17

Featured artwork by Leah Dusterhoft