Prague, March 22 (CTK) – Thirty-six percent of Czech readers read books in electronic form, but most of the respondents (87 percent) cannot imagine stopping reading classic books, according to a survey conducted by the Nielsen Admosphere company for the Czech National Library.
“It cannot be said that people who spend a lot of time on the Internet do not read books,” Hana Friedlaenderova, from Nielsen Admosphere, said about the results of the survey which deals with the Internet population, or those who use the Internet every day.
The number of those who read e-books has been growing and especially young people and university graduates are among the readers. Most Czechs read e-books on their PC or notebook, the survey showed.
A vast majority of the readers (93 percent) download e-books that are freely available on the Internet. Thirty-seven percent said they buy e-books via the Internet and 21 percent borrow them from libraries.
A majority of the Czech Internet population said they were weak (1-6 books a year; 42 percent) or average readers (7-12 books a year; 28 percent). Eighteen percent said they were strong readers (more than 13 books a year). On the contrary, 13 percent said they were non-readers.
These figures correspond with the results of national surveys that the Institute for Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences organised in 2007, 2010 and 2013.
Jiri Travnicek said these surveys showed that the number of active readers was not dropping in the Czech Republic.
Travnicek said there were many passionate readers in the country who read about 55 books a year.
Women prevail among the readers of fiction, which is the most popular category of books, while men among those of non-fiction.
