Show reading habits of ON young people A speaker before a group of abr abrar ar ians library trustees and e en n I 1 at a recent meeting sponsored b by y the service bureau for women s organizations made the point that we are spending four times as much for comic books as for library books in the e whole country she cited a fig ure o 0 of a sear ear spent for comic corm c boos bools which is four times the amount of money spent in the annual book budgets of all public libraries that is of course a sinking striking con nor is its essential spoiled by pointing out that these figures are no longer accurate in the last two years there have been some dramatic things happening in the world of comic books most au thon ties now say that comic book sales are running 50 leq percent cent under what they hey t A ere two W 0 years 3 bears ago an annual expenditure of 40 1 is nearer the truth than boff however th ohp speaker is right it is still a national disgrace that we ue spending more on comic books tha than n on library books it is sad to consider the fact that comic books television and other diversions are creating a race of youngsters who are biting themselves from our great ht lit grature many librarians are axe sun ess fully c om batting this trend but as a group they are among our most modest citizens in telling about it |