Tucson State of Reading
2026 Baseline Edition
Produced by The Place & Page
Our city reads. Now we have a baseline for the culture that sustains it.
An annual public measurement of reading culture in Pima County.
Read the methodology documentation
The report is annual. The commitment is every day.
What the Tucson State of Reading measures.
Reading is usually experienced one person and one book at a time. Its effects extend much further — into education, families, libraries, bookstores, culture, connection, and civic life. Until we understand the patterns beneath those individual experiences, we are left mostly with assumptions.
The Tucson State of Reading was created to replace some of those assumptions with a shared baseline. It looks beyond whether Pima County adults read to examine how often they read, how they see themselves as readers, what supports or gets in the way of reading, and the environment in which reading happens.
The 2026 Baseline Edition is a starting point — not a verdict — and a foundation for watching Tucson's reading life change over time.
What we found.
Selected findings from the 2026 Baseline Edition. The TRHI is a composite index, not a percentage. Unless otherwise noted, percentages are weighted estimates for Pima County adults (N=511); figures describing readers are based on adults who read or listen at all. The full report contains complete results, subgroup analysis, and figures.
39.70
Tucson Reading Health Index · TRHI
Band: Emerging
The TRHI combines five dimensions of reading health into a single baseline measure of Tucson's reading culture. It is an index, not a percentage or a grade — 39.70 is the reference point future editions will be measured against.
Scale 0–100 · Five weighted components · N=511 Pima County adults
Who Reads
84.2%
do at least some reading by choice — books, articles, audiobooks, or scripture. Voluntary reading of some kind is present in most lives.
What Gets in the Way
47.7%
name time as a barrier to reading more — the most-cited obstacle, and roughly three times as common as cost.
How Reading Is Seen
36.0%
neither agree nor disagree that Tucson is a city that values reading — the largest single response. Fewer than half agree; only 17.3% disagree.
Read the work.
Four documents, published together. All are free and available without request.
Corrections after publication are documented in a public errata and version log.
Why a forthcoming bookstore produced this.
We wanted to know Tucson's reading culture. When we went looking for a record of it, we could not find one — not for Tucson, and not in a form that would show how it changes over time.
So we asked Pima County adults directly, and published what we found. The Place & Page was conceived as a way to serve the community it sits in; a bookstore is the form that took, and a storefront is not required to do the work. The Tucson State of Reading is how we chose to begin.
We are not here yet. But we are already here.
Why the findings are public.
Tucson's reading culture does not belong to one bookstore — or to any single library, school, university, nonprofit, or organization. The findings may be useful in different ways to readers, educators, librarians, booksellers, advocates, funders, researchers, and civic leaders.
The Tucson State of Reading is not intended to tell Tucson what its reading culture should be. It is intended to make more visible what already exists: the strengths to build on, the barriers readers encounter, the differences within the community, and the questions worth asking next.
We produced the work and remain responsible for it. But we hope its usefulness extends to everyone interested in understanding and strengthening Tucson as a city that reads.
Cite this edition.
Pre-formatted citations for academic and professional use.
The Place & Page. (2026). Tucson State of Reading 2026: Baseline edition. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22714565
The Place & Page. Tucson State of Reading 2026: Baseline Edition. Tucson, AZ: The Place & Page, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22714565.
https://theplaceandpage.com/tucson-state-of-reading/2026/
ISSN 3144-1416 (online) · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22714565 ·
Published under CC BY 4.0 — free to share and adapt with attribution.
Errata and version log — this edition is Wave 1.0.
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Other editions
- 2026 Baseline Edition — you are here
- 2027 In development
Each edition is published permanently at its own address. Earlier editions remain available, and any revisions are documented in the public version log.
Questions about the report, the methodology, or media inquiries:
tsor@theplaceandpage.com