Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Situated in a review of rural, cultural, and youth geographies, this article reports on a qualitative study of the role of reading and libraries in the lives of older rural teenagers. The primary method of data collection was the use of in-depth, flexibly structured interviews with twenty-seven youth between the ages of fifteen and nineteen years, supplemented with data from unobtrusive observation and environmental scanning in a specific geographic locale. Four themes are discussed: the habitual, quotidian reading of teenagers; the shifting visibility of the public library; the Internet and the World Wide Web as a default reading site; and …