No abstract

This paper examined if undergraduates of African universities have reading culture or not. To elicit the necessary information, a questionnaire was randomly distributed to 200 students from 100-500 level and a response rate of 100% was achieved. Using simple percentage response rate to analyze the data, the results showed that only 21% of the respondents have poor reading culture, while majority of them (59.5%) read for interest only. The paper therefore recommended ways by which librarians; lecturers and parents can encourage undergraduates to read, to improve and to inculcate good reading culture. Introduction: The acquisition of knowledge for the development of man, society and nature does not arise from a vacuum. This can be done partly through formal training which involves mostly a; "determined, result oriented information processing efforts" by the individual, through reading (Ugwoke, 2004). Thus, besides being a ready source for acquisition of information, reading is an effort aimed at sifting received opinions in order to cope with the challenges of the everyday experiences. The word sifting is used because sometimes, received opinion may not be adequate for ones contemporary needs and interests. Since man's existence depends on ability to cope with the challenges of survival, it is important to develop the critical attitude to meeting them. This obviously makes the proper cultivation of reading culture impetrative. This is so not only because Holte (1998) avers that reading adds quality to human existence, empowers and emancipates man and society, but rather that reading creates the atmosphere that makes human freedom inevitable. Certainly, reading culture in a university like Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso will obviously have some problems.