Anđela Stošić
Univerzitet u Beogradu
Filološki fakultet – Katedra za bibliotekarstvo i informatiku, Beograd
andjela.stosic@fil.bg.ac.rs

doi: 10.19090/cit.2022.41.62-72
No. 41 (November 2022), p. 62-72

Book Buying Habits among Students of Belgrade University

Summary

Book availability has never been higher. However, for years now, both in university and in other social circles, it has been said that young people do not read enough. This paradox makes it necessary to examine people’s reading and book buying habits from time to time in order to establish if the situation is changing considering the frequent appearance of new media that can transmit text. The paper presents the results of a quantitative study that investigated the behavior of Belgrade University students regarding the purchase of books out of the domain of university literature. In the electronic survey conducted in July 2020, 471 respondents participated, and their answers were related to book buying behavior in the past year. The results show that 84.3% (397) of students bought at least one book during the period. Most often, books were purchased in one of the bookstore chains (332), although the number of those who ordered them from bookstore websites (157) or on other websites (86) is not negligible. A certain number of students also bought e-books (33). Respondents most often choose classics, although they are also interested in thrillers, dramas, crime novels, as well as in educational content, philosophy and psychology. Half of the students who buy books also borrow reading material from the library. Of those who do not buy books, 23% (17) use library services, and 27% (20) of them read books in electronic form that they find on the Internet. Although 15.7% of respondents stated that they had not bought a single book in the last year, among them there is a large number of those who read. There are only 4% (19) of readers of free accessible e-books who do not buy books. This, and previously presented data in the paper indicate that the availability of various illegal and legal forms of books on the Internet still does not significantly affect the need of students, the future active players of this society, to bring books to the shelves of their library.

Keywords:

Belgrade University students, book buying habits, leisure time reading, e-book, printed book

Submitted: 29th September 2022
Correction to the manuscript: 15th October 2022
Accepted for publication: 3rd November 2022

Book Buying Habits among Students of Belgrade University by Anđela Stošić is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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