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Introduction
Reading is an art that can transform the life of an individual and the whole community as a whole. The survival and sustainability of any community depend on how much it is involved in reading. Following the benefits associated with reading, it is therefore advised each individual develop a good habit of reading (Danladi and Soko, 2018). Habitual reading is the basis of a reading culture. A person who has a reading culture is likely to have more knowledge in various fields (Badri, 2022). Globally, reading culture has been declining daily both in developed and developing countries. The decline of reading culture could be reflected by the rapid development of technologies, whereby, people have been attracted more to viewing gadgets (Sethy, 2018). The decline of reading culture has been observed to negatively affect academic achievements among students globally but also affects socio-economic issues globally (Samuel, 2022).
In Africa, similar to other developing countries, the reading culture trend is poor and declining (Kolajo and Agbetuyi, 2021). Several factors are causing the decline of reading in developing countries, such as the high level of illiterates, the advent of information and communication technologies (ICTs), etc. For example, in South Africa, the rate of illiterate people among the black population is high (Dick, 2020). The high illiterate level among the community makes reading a difficult task and therefore reduces the habits of reading among the people. The arrival of digital technologies and various modes of social interaction have made reading face a number of hurdles. Kabir and Jeromes (2022) observed the interests of young people in social networking, gaming, music, etc., causing a decline in reading.
Similar to other developing countries, the unsatisfactory trends of reading culture in Rwanda were observed to be associated with various reasons such as the influx of smartphones whereby children and adults have access to a variety of social networking sites on the internet. There has been an overriding desire amongst young people to spend more time with their friends on social media than spend much time reading, but more importantly it was observed the presence of inappropriate reading materials in the library which is either outdated or use unfamiliar languages (Anyira and Udem, 2020).
Public libraries have been used to serve the...