was preferred to fiction. While the majority of students said that they derived
satisfaction from reading, a critique of both primary and secondary school surveys from
the Assessment of Performance Unit concluded that ‘This pattern of performance
suggests that a substantial number of pupils have difficulty in gaining more than very
simple information when they have to rely on reading alone’ (Bald 1987:47).
While it is easy to identify the main categories of buyers of information books, it is
difficult to estimate the size of the market. Guidelines from The Library Association
(Kinnell 1992:42–43) suggest that thirteen items of stock per pupil is the minimum
number required to meet current needs, and the implication of the calculation is that
about 80 per cent of stock would be subject-related. The IFLA standard for children’s
libraries is three books per child. Usually fiction outnumbers non-fiction in such
libraries, but the most recent Library Association guidelines give no specific
recommendation on this point (Library Association, 1991:24–26). Total expenditure on
stock for children’s libraries and School Library Services (which act as local support
services to individual schools) can be tracked from annual surveys by the Library and
Information Statistics Unit at Loughborough University. These originally covered
England and Wales only, but have now been extended to cover the whole of Britain
(Fossey et al. 1992). However, these figures do not show the proportion of funds being
spent on non-fiction, and can, therefore, principally serve as a basis for estimates of
expenditure on information books.
The Publishing ContextAs teaching by the textbook became enriched by an emphasis on children finding out
facts for themselves from a variety of sources, so the demand for information books grew.
One saw, in Britain, the success of publishers such as Watts and Wayland who virtually
confined their lists to non-fiction and others, such as A. and C.Black, who relied heavily
on their non-fiction lists to support other aspects of children’s literature. This emphasis
on an active role for learners grew throughout the 1960s: linked with it during the
1970s and 1980s was the information skills movement which sought to develop children’s
informationhandling skills. Publishers consequently worked hard to design books which
made information retrieval easy and which involved greater reader-participation,
stimulating children to start their own lines of enquiry and observation.
The educational demand was fed by increased production, partly managed by the
growth of series publishing. This enabled an economy in design and in marketing as
books were issued in series with a common theme or readership, a common price, a
common editor and common design features. The system made (and makes) selection
and selling easier, as customers build up loyalty to a series. The disadvantages in terms
of quality and individuality have been well-documented, for example in Ralph Lavender’s
article ‘The fatal lure of the series’ (Lavender 1979:30), but the economic advantages to
publishers are so considerable that series publishing is likely to continue for the
foreseeable future.
Improvements in printing technology have enabled publishers to consider increasingly
the international rather than national market, and, to a certain extent, this has reduced
the range of subject coverage to those suitable for global use. More recently, recession
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