Abstract
In 1958 the authors have made a survey concerning the actual reading situation in Niigata region, dividing it in five types as follows:
Type I Medium size city
Type II Small size city
Type III Plain agricultural district
Type IV Mountainous agricultural village
Type V Fishing village
They investigated about 431 persons in this area regarding (1) reading environment (2) acquisition of reading materials (3) reading state (4) reading materials (5) object of reading, and (6) request to public reading agencies.
In this survey the authors found that reading environments are very poor excepting in the city of type I. Especially fishing villages are in the worst condition and one third of the dwellers in fishing village don't read even a daily newspaper.
As to the acquisition of reading materials, the proportion of purchasing and loaning books is half and half, but the loan from library and c. p. h. is only 5.7%． 52.5% of persons under survey read books, and 66.1% read magazines, but those of remaining percentage read no books and magazines.
Generally, books are widely read, especially best-sellers, books about technics, and classical literature being most popular. A special feature is seen in high proportion of the acquisition for agricultural books.
