Search

Reading takes on a multifaceted nature subject to varied interpretations depending on the perspectives from which it is approached, but there is a general consensus regarding its virtues and benefits for the population in general and for the development of culture in particular. The technological changes that reading has undergone during the last decade, which involve all the parts of its value chain, have added functionalities, features, and modalities that considerably expand the range of content available and its forms of consumption. One can speak of reading "in the outdoors," first to give a name to these new practices, and second to refer to the interpretation made of them according to the available measurement tools. The problem arises when analyzing the process by which one goes from the act of reading to the affirmation of "I have read," which is particularly important in the case of books. Books are accepted as the most refined expression of reading practice in the collective unconscious. This is because of their "chronodegradable" condition concerning memory: statements about what is read can refer to inexistent works and depend on the memory's weight and intensity, as numerous experiences and investigations have shown. Despite everything, reading of books represents a utilization of essential skills, especially in the university environment in which the book is experiencing a decisive displacement in favor of other, shorter and more cognitively accessible genres, such as the scientific journal. For all these reasons, suitable procedures must be initiated in the university setting not only to recover the role of prescription and recommendation inherent in teaching practices, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but also to stimulate interest and student use of a genre relegated to an increasingly less consistent voluntarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus epidemic (Covid-19) unleashed worldwide has had repercussions in all social sectors, and the world of culture in general and of publishing in particular have not been an exception. The need to adopt confinement measures has determined the closure of all public spaces related to reading, such as libraries, bookstores and cultural centers, with serious consequences for the sector that has seen its activity to stop. Faced with this situation, there have been numerous actors involved, such as authors, publishers, bookstores, but also individuals, who have developed a set of initiatives to try to alleviate these effects, both for the editorial segment and for the population. On the one hand, the online acquisition systems, advance purchases, flexible deliveries, etc., have been strengthened. And on the other, from the publishing sector, authors, publishers and booksellers have proposed the release of titles for free online reading, or the development of personalized recommendation systems for readers, among many other initiatives. The consequence of all this has been an important growth in the consumption of digital content, verifiable above all in the increase in loans in systems such E-biblio in Spain, and similar platforms in other countries. These movements, although they are of a conjunctural nature, have revealed the possibility of other forms of consumption and distribution of content, little frequented by a large part of the population that, out of necessity, has tried other reading formulas that always look good as an alternative to traditional ones, either as a complement or as another mode of appropriation and consumption that may be the prevailing one in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]