Book desert

A book desert is a geographic area (country, state, county, city, neighborhood, home) where printed books and other reading material are relatively hard to obtain, particularly without access to an automobile or other form of transportation. Some researchers have defined book deserts by linking them to poverty and low income, while others use a combination of factors that include census data, income, ethnicity, geography, language, and the number of books in a home. The term "book desert" came into regular use in the mid-2010s when the social enterprise Unite for Literacy, coined the term. Unite for Literacy suggests that planting and growing “Book Gardens” is one way to eradicate book deserts. Initiatives that increase the availability of books by such measures as bookmobiles and librarians on bicycles have been offered as possible solutions to book deserts, as have Little Free Libraries and offering children's literature available online, free of charge.