Beyond gamification: Configurational pathways to effective reading promotion

Libraries worldwide are increasingly adopting gamified and entertainment-oriented strategies to engage youth readers, sparking an ongoing academic debate about “service alienation”—the risk that innovation-driven programming may drift from the library's core literacy mission. This tension remains largely unresolved at the empirical level: it is unclear whether gamified, “alienated” activities genuinely undermine reading promotion effectiveness, or whether they represent a legitimate and complementary pathway alongside substantive, content-driven approaches. This study investigates which causal configurations of program characteristics produce effective reading promotion, what role gamification and entertainment elements play within those configurations, and how Chinese libraries should strategically balance the two approaches. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on 30 cases—19 Chinese gamified initiatives and 11 IFLA Marketing Award-winning substantive programs—six key conditions were systematically compared: gamification degree, entertainment elements, social media engagement, deep content relevance, author/expert involvement, and community co-creation. The analysis identifies four distinct configurational pathways to effectiveness: the Pure Gamification, Social-Gamification, Content–Community, and Pure Content-Oriented models. While substantive content and community co-creation remain the primary drivers of sustained engagement, gamification proves effective when integrated with social interaction—and is not inherently alienating. In conclusion, these findings provide library administrators with an evidence-based diagnostic framework to strategically balance attention-grabbing innovations with the core mission of fostering deep and lasting reading habits.