Read Or Die Column: The 2007 National Book Development Board Readership Survey

*We’re not posting all our columns to the blog–because we forget, but once (or right after) the online edition comes out I’ll try to re-post the column here. To those asking: the column comes out every Wednesday and Saturday at the Youth and Campus section of Manila Bulletin.

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

by Kristine Mandigma (2/2/2008)

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) presented the results of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey on November 28, 2007 at the Discovery Suites, Pasig City. I attended the presentation as a representative of Read Or Die along with several publishers, educators, librarians, and other reading advocates.

The National Book Development Board is the government agency tasked with strengthening the book industry in the Philippines. Under its Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez and its dynamic Executive Directory Atty. Andrea Flores, the NBDB has expanded its programs to include a strong advocacy for reading. The NBDB Readership Survey is one of their most important projects. A previous readership survey was conducted in March 2003 by the Social Weather Station (SWS)

The survey was conducted as a rider of 65 questions in the June 2007 survey done by the Social Weather Station (SWS).  The March 2003 was conducted as a rider of 41 questions. According to a statement issued by NBDB Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, it covered the following topics: reading preferences, patterns of purchase and acquisition, influences on book selection and non-schoolbook readership, and attitudes towards books and reading.

The highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey are as follows. I am replicating—with permission—the contents of the summary issued by the National Book Development Board for the benefit of the general public who may not have access to the survey results (alas, readership surveys are not as exciting as the latest rumors about pork barrel scandals). You may also acquire a copy of the survey as well as the full complement of statistical data at the National Book Development Board Office, 2/F NPO Building, EDSA cor. NIA Northside Road, Diliman, Quezon City.

Highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

The percentage of book readers in 2007 (83%) has decreased as compared to 2003 (90%).

Nearly all (96%) book readers in 2007 read non-school books (NSBs), while only three-fourths (76%) of book readers in 2003 read NSBs.

Among book readers:

• Those who have read NSBs in the NCR decreased in 2007 compared to 2003.

• All other groups who have read NSBs increased.

Among NSB readers:

Weekly/monthly readers of NSBs decreased in 2007.

Those who read NSBs a few times a year or less than once a year increased in 2007.

Packaging is what is noticed by the highest number, but not a majority, of NSB readers.

The blurb found at the book is also noticed.

Most NSB readers, however, do not notice information such as the NSB publisher, date of publication, author, and whether or not the NSB has several good reviews.

Overall, the percentage of NSB readers increased from 68% (76% of 90% book readers in 2003) to 80% (90% of 8% book readers in 2007).

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey says that Filipinos are starting to read non-school books at an earlier age.

NSB readers are starting to read a year younger.

From 17.2 years in 2003, the average age of those who start to read NSBs decreased to 16.4 years in 2007.

The readers of non-schoolbooks in classes ABC began doing so at an older age compared to 2003. However, readers of NSBs in classes D and E started to read NSBs at a younger age in 2007.

What do Filipinos read?

For both 2003 and 2007, the Bible is the most popular non-schoolbook read. Romance books come in second.

Top scorers in the popularity of NSBs are:

1. Bible (67%) (38% in 2003)

2. Romance (33%) (26%)

3. Cooking (28%) (7%)

4. Comic books (26%) (0%)

5. Religion/Religious/Inspirational (20%) (9%)

Why do Filipinos read?

As in 2003, the main reason for reading non-schoolbooks is still for information, or to gain knowledge.

However, more NSBs are reading NSBs for enjoyment in 2007, compared to 2003.

Whose books do Filipinos read?

In 2007, 46% of readers of non-schoolbooks read NSBs by Filipino authors only.

43% read NSBs by both Filipino authors and foreign authors.

9% read NSBs by foreign authors only.

In the rural areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino and foreign authors increased significantly (20%+) in 2007.

In the urban areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino authors only increased slightly (5%+) in 2007.

Means of acquiring books

NSB readers in 2007 acquired the NSBs they read by:

1. Receiving the books as gifts (42%)

2. Borrowing from others (41%)

3. Reading books from the library (27%)

4. Buying (19%)

5. Renting (18%)

Among all groups of NSB readers, receiving NSBs as gifts and borrowing from others are the most prevalent.

In what language do Filipinos prefer to read books?

Tagalog (Read: 50%) (Preferred: 32%)

English (Read: 35%) (Preferred: 15%)

Cebuano (Read: 5.97%) (Preferred: 4.6%)

Bisaya (Read: 5.73%) (Preferred: 4.41%)

Ilocano (Read: 4.72%) (Preferred: 4.1%)

Arabic (Read: 1.98%) (Preferred: 1.94%)

Ilonggo (Read: 1.18%) (Preferred: 0.91%)

Source: 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

In conclusion

The summary outlined above gives us a pretty descriptive picture of the state of reading in the Philippines. While questions have been raised about the sampling methods and the structure of survey questions along with the terminology used by the SWS (the unfortunate use of ‘Tagalog’ for one), the study itself yields interesting results.

According to Dr. Linda Luz Guerrero, Vice President of SWS and presenter of the survey results, Filipinos read an average of three books a year. That is not so much interesting as very sad. A couple of people questioned this claim, citing the phenomenal popularity of Harry Potter. I don’t really see the connection, unless it’s discovered that those three books that Filipinos read annually are all Harry Potter titles, in which case it would also be kind of funny. Furthermore, while the resurgence of reading brought about by Harry Potter should be celebrated, especially after the release of Book 7, a number of critics have rightly pointed out that reading Harry Potter doesn’t automatically turn people into readers.

Ron Charles wrote about Pottermania and the ‘death of reading’ in an article in the Washington Post. I think it’s an interesting viewpoint. While a lot of fans and reading advocates marvel at the fact that Harry Potter makes young people read through the sheer magic and pull of its storyline, and that it has become a unique phenomenon in the sense of uniting readers all over the world together, awaiting every new installment with a fervor that no author has generated since Charles Dickens with his considerably less media-oriented reading public, Ron Charles points out that such a unity “has almost nothing to do with the unique pleasures of reading a novel: that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves — without a movie version or a set of action figures. Through no fault of Rowling’s, Potter mania nonetheless trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide.” He emphasizes the importance of a ‘real engagement’ with books that can never be conditioned by marketing hysteria and that the practically monomaniacal obsession with Harry Potter by its readers may have paradoxically created “the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.”

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if for most young Filipinos, those three books would indeed turn out to be Books 1-3 (or 4-7) of the Harry Potter series. Or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or the first three installments of Precious Hearts’ delightfully intriguing Stallion series. I know dedicated readers who are serial monogamists. They can subsist happily on a steady supply of a certain kind of story. While I would personally recommend a more balanced diet, as long as they’re not pointing at the sky and screaming about Dark Marks and trying to off each other through pointing wands, I’m okay with it. Reading is reading, as Dr. Ned Roberto—professor at the Asian Institute of Management and the resource person tasked with interpreting the survey results from a market-oriented perspective—pointed out. 83% of the population read books. It’s not a sign of the apocalypse. Let’s set aside distinctions between functional literacy and true literacy for now. Eight out of ten Filipinos read books. Compared with other Asian countries, that’s a respectable statistic.

What is a source of concern and should be further studied is the nature of social shifts in reading habits. People read as a matter of course. What we should address is why they read the way they do. For instance, the number of NSB readers in the NCR has fallen drastically while the number of NSB readers in the Visayas has risen in a similarly dramatic fashion. Given that bookstores and libraries are concentrated in Manila, what are we to make of this? Attendees in the presentation put forth theories which ranged from the tentative to bold assertions about the increasingly hybrid nature of reading materials. Since readers in Manila have more access to a diverse array of (distracting) media—computers, video games, television shows, etcetera—they are not inclined to focus on just one media—in this case a book—to educate or entertain them. While it has been a long-held fear that the advent of the Internet will demolish reading once and for all, Dr. Roberto pointed out that the Internet may only have extended reading in ways that traditional print-bound readers would not have anticipated. And it’s not just the Internet. Reading has become a multi-media platform in other parts of the world. Books are turned into movies and movies are novelized. Novels serialized in the Internet are printed out and become instant bestsellers in China and Korea. Japan, ever the country of novelties, has introduced the cellphone novel. The wired denizens of Manila have yet to catch up on the more interesting trends or—on the part of publishers—to integrate non-book media in a way that will impact their reading, but they are susceptible to the technologies which would make these things possible.

Still, they must be doing something right over at the Visayas. One is inclined to paint a bucolic picture of diligent young readers bent over their books by the flickering light of a gas lamp—and in certain parts of the country this may well be an actual scenario, with less idyllic whitewashing and more focus on the fundamental truth of poverty and social inequality in the regions. Poor students who can’t afford to buy the latest gadgets or to go online whenever they feel like it will have to read more, if only because doing so might secure them better grades and a fighting chance to get into universities in Manila. The role of parents in such a situation is especially acute. Educators have always agreed that reading should start at home, but in the case of lower- to middle-class homes, this acquires an extra and perhaps more urgent dimension. Poor parents are more likely to buy their children books because these are perceived to give them leverage in terms of educational opportunities. In fact, Dr. Queena Lee-Chua—member of the NBDB Governing Board and one of the commentators at the presentation—noted that the NBDB and other concerned reading groups should make it a point to solicit feedback from parents in public schools with regard to how they implement reading in their homes or the relative importance of books in the familial hierarchy of needs.

Another interesting result is the fact that Filipinos—whether in the NCR or elsewhere—do not buy books the read. They get them as gifts. In a lecture on the history of the book in the Philippines last July, Dr. May Jurilla of the University of the Philippines pointed out that books in the Philippines have acquired a decorative, even aesthetic function, which has superseded its more utilitarian applications (i.e., as sources of information). This should explain the popularity of coffee table books in a country where cheap paperbacks rarely sell more than 1000 copies. Filipinos tend to display books—like wedding knickknacks and travel souvenirs—instead of, well, reading them. For some reason, the notion of a book as a decorative item has crossed over to the notion of a book as a worthy gift item, which would then presumably be enshrined as a decoration. Such is the circuitous nature of Filipino cultural exchanges. My mother—along with countless other Filipino mothers—has received several sets of perfectly useful dinnerware over the years. We have yet to touch a single spoon and instead eat off plastic ware. The dinnerware sits in pompous splendor in the kitchen cabinet, like remnants of an obscure shipwreck. In a trip to Barcelona, my mother bought me several huge volumes on Greek prehistory and archeology, which I couldn’t read as comfortably as I would have liked—inasmuch as you could derive relaxation from reading about how to date Mycenean helmets—because she insisted on shelving them inside more glass cases. I imagine the presence of similar glass shelves in similar living rooms all over the country. Come to think of it, this might also be the reason why there’s very little discourse of and about books in this country. I’m speaking in terms of general readership. It’s kind of hard to embark on a literary discussion—outside established if small literary circles—when most of your favorite books are shrink-wrapped.

To go back to the reading survey, I’m still thinking of ways through which we could effectively synthesize the results in order to map a coherent reading campaign though a more thorough research into Filipino cultural history and behavior with regard to the functions and symbolism of books in our society should also be part of such an enterprise. Filipinos do read. But like everything else in this country—the way we approach politics and revolutions, the way we behave in traffic, the way we pray in churches—the reasons why we do it are probably obscure even to us.

Last 5 posts by tin

• Updates - April 6th, 2008
• Panibagong Paraan 2008 Showcases Innovative Ideas - April 6th, 2008
• Announcements - March 8th, 2008
• Coming soon (or sooner) - March 8th, 2008
• Column: Reading Dangerously - March 8th, 2008

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