The social weaving of a reading atmosphere

• Autor(a) principal: Sequeiros, Paula
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/95888; https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000611425823
• topic: atmosfera de leitura; reading atmosphere; bibliotecas públicas; public libraries; leitura em bibliotecas; reading in libraries; espaço; space; ruído; noise

This paper discusses how public library readers in Almeida Garrett, Porto, create a reading atmosphere, focusing on meanings associated with aural conditions. Through a qualitative, single case study, ethnographic and interview techniques were applied. Readers’ actual practices and discourses, through a theoretical sample, and those of managers, staff and architects were analysed; a spatial analysis was conducted within the framework of social inequalities and power relations. The paper proposes the concept of reading atmosphere and suggests that its social production is based on a tacit, informal code of conduct in which some regular readers played an influential role. Some recommendations on service provision are made.