Aozora and electronic books in general in Japan
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If you’re a learner of Japanese, or just wanting to get hold of classics of Japanese literature, the free repository Aozora is a good place to start, but judging by this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into Aozora, it’s not that well-known.
Demographics
Over the 19th and 20th of August 2010 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.15 in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
Despite having said that everybody should read stuff off Aozora, I’ve read a grand total of one book from there. My excuse is that I don’t have a decent e-book reader; however there must be a decent solution for Japanese feature phones which I ought really to investigate!
Research results
Q1: Do you what an electronic book is? (Sample size=1,080)
Know it well (to SQ1) 25.1% Know something about it (to SQ1) 55.7% Just heard the term 17.0% Not even heard of it 2.1% Q1SQ1: Have you ever read an electronic book? (Sample size=873)
Yes (to SQ2) 38.1% No 61.9% Q1SQ2: Do you know the free electronic book repository Aozora? (Sample size=333)
Yes, and have read books from there 33.6% Yes, but not read any books from there 33.6% No, don’t know it 32.7%
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