The new and old reading
challenges: will 'tomorrow' really
be different than 'yesterday'?
Dr. Ineta Krauls
Institute of Library and Information Science
Faculty of Communication
Vilnius University
Content of presentation
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Trial by jury: librarians vs readers (yesterday
and today),
Accusations:
Low reading culture,
Reading “bad” books,
Hooking up on anything else but the Book,
What is reading in itself?
Conclusions: guilty or not?
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
The future was
also better in the
past…
Karl
Valentin
(Bavarian comedian)
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
Low reading culture
• Francisco José de Goya
(1746 – 1828),
• Los Caprichos (1799).
• Capricho No. 29 “That
certainly is being able to
read”. (“Esto si que es
leer?”).
• “I get combed, I get
shaved, I sleep and study.
Nobody will say that I
have wasted my time” (“Le
peinan, le calzan, duerme y
estudia. Nadie dirá que
desaprovecha el tiempo”).
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
Low reading culture (Lithuanian
context)
Throughout
the
20th
century:
-undisciplined
(library)
readers,
-low formal aspects of
reading,
-library and information
illiteracy,
-narrow reading interests,
-non reading (typical age
gaps, social situations, etc.).
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
Reading “bad” books
“Fiction song”, Anonymous librarian, USA, 1890
“Here are thousands of books that will do you more
good
Than the novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!
You will weaken your brain with such poor mental
food
As the novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!
Pray take history, music, or travels, or plays.”
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
Reading “bad” books
“A librarian may talk till he’s black in the face
And may think that with patience he may raise the
taste
He may talk till with age his round shoulders are
bent
When he hands his report in, still seventy per cent
Will be novels, oh, novels, oh, novels!”
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Reading “bad” books
Kaunas city municipality library
reading room, 1930’s – newspapers
were mostly popular reading materials.
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Reading “bad” books: 20th
century interwar period
Kaunas city municipality public library
(1931):
Content of collection : Fiction and textbooks
(42%), Social Sciences (14%), History,
Geography, Biographies (9 %).
Lending and reading data: fiction and
textbooks (62%), newspapers (18%), Social
Sciences (5 %), History, Geography,
Biographies (3 %).
Central national library (Šiauliai city
department) (1931):
Content of collection: Fiction (29%), Social
Sciences
(11%),
History,
Geography,
Biographies (18,4%).
Lending data: fiction (85,7%), Social Sciences
(3%), History, Geography, Biographies (3,5%).
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Reading “bad” books:
today
Most popular authors and titles in Lithuanian
libraries (2010, data by LATGA-A (a collective
copyright management association), collected
from 62 libraries):
Irena Buivydaitė-Kupčinskienė ir Elena De Strozzi – authors of
female fiction,
Melvin Burgess „Junk“ – most popular international book
Romualdas Granauskas „Gyvenimas po klevu“ - most popular
Lithuanian book.
Translations are more popular than the original books!
http://www.knypava.lt/2011/07/13/paskirstytas-autorinis-atlyginimas-uz-knygu-ir-kitu-leidiniuThe 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
panauda-bibliotekose-uz-2010-metus/
Hooking up on anything else but
the Book
• Manuel
Castells on
“network society”:
-technophilia, or technology
for the sake of technology,
-book reading vs bytes
reading,
-space and time are basic
categories,
-real virtual culture,
Holland house library, London, wrecked by a
fire bomb, 1940.
-globalization.
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians
Hooking up on anything else but
the Book
• “Multiliteracy” (David Bawden),
• Reading in the quiet / reading in the noise,
• Reading a paper book: therapy, vacation,
meditation, a relic of a bygone era, etc.
• … and not least: paper is expensive!
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http://www.flickr.com//photos/38294645@N
02/sets/72157624273335683/show/
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Reading in itself
What is reading (now and then)?
Why people read (now)?
What do they get from reading (now)?
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Reading in itself
• “Not just an abstract operation of intellection: it
is an engagement of the body, an inscription in
space, a relation to oneself and others” (Roger
Chartier),
• “Reading is not in itself a uniform technology or
practise that is indentical from place to place,
moment to moment, or person to person”
(C.F.Kaestle, J.A.Radway),
• Reading as informational, careeristic, practical
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life project.
Instead of conclusions: the
final judgement
•Being aware of some
eternal and original sins of
the readers,
•Understanding
the
character and reasons of
reading “crimes”,
•Being open to reading
alternatives and the future,
•Not holding on to the
“paper”, but to the
“reading”.
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Thank you for your attention!
The 9th Congress of Baltic Librarians