Abstract

This study investigated the consumption status, focusing on the factors related to book loans and purchases of reading consumers. Library experience, reading purpose, book genre, book price, and new books are the decision-making factors regarding consumers’ book loans and purchases. As a result of a survey of reading consumers focusing on these factors, the more experience they have in using the library, the more they consume books. As for the book genre, the higher the loan consumption, the higher the purchase consumption. Consumers for reading purposes for liberal arts, hobbies, and leisure activities showed higher loan and purchase consumption than consumers for reading purposes for information acquisition, learning, and research. In terms of book price (cost), loan consumption was higher than purchase consumption. In the case of new books, both loan and purchase consumption were high. In general, reading consumers considered book loan consumption first when it was a library-owned book, and cases that led to book purchase consumption in the book market were confirmed. Based on this, it was proposed that win-win cooperation between the library and the book industry could be achieved.