{"id":10427,"date":"2018-09-05T10:05:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T09:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=10427"},"modified":"2018-09-05T10:05:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T09:05:52","slug":"the-hidden-history-of-reading-new-research-project-opens-up-europes-book-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/art-literature-music\/the-hidden-history-of-reading-new-research-project-opens-up-europes-book-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden history of reading \u2013 new research project opens up Europe\u2019s book habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Gulliver\u2019s Travels <\/em>to Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice <\/em>to 1984<\/em> \u2013 what people have been reading for the past three centuries is under the microscope, with a new \u20ac1 million research project involving The Open University.<\/p>\n

Revealing Europe\u2019s reading history<\/strong><\/h2>\n

21st<\/sup> century digital tools – including an online database and smartphone app – are being developed to uncover and analyse exactly what books readers across Europe from the 18th century to the present day have been opening. The team will uncover readers\u2019 reviews and responses, revealing a hidden history of reading \u2013 and their findings will be available for today\u2019s bookworms to see.<\/p>\n

Dr Shafquat Towheed<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in English, and UK Principal Investigator for the Reading Europe Advanced Data Investigation Tool<\/a> (READ-IT) project, explains why reading habits from the past are relevant to today:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only really understand current reading habits if we have a comparison. Changes throughout history, for instance the introduction of electricity and the advent of the internet, will have influenced and shaped how people consume books and what their responses are to them. Reading is often a shared experience \u2013 it makes you part of a group, a mind-set and a community \u2013 tens of thousands of people could be reading the same book as you at any one time, and having the same feelings that you are feeling.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New digital tools to examine texts and artwork<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The project will develop a suite of digital tools including an Open Access database, a Smartphone App and a personalised, interactive tool where people can share their own reading experiences.<\/p>\n

The project will harvest data from existing sources including the OU\u2019s Reading Experience Database, as Dr Towheed explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new READ-IT project builds on the success of our Reading Experience Database, which has over 34,000 records of what British readers have been consuming over five centuries. We\u2019ll be examining the reach of different types of reading across the continent \u2013 for example was a particular author popular in one country, and not another? Was a particular genre preferred in one area of Europe? It\u2019s going to be fascinating to uncover Europe\u2019s reading habits from centuries ago right up to today.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New machine learning tools will sift through millions of pages of digitised texts \u2013 including letters, biographies and memoirs – from across the continent to extract responses from readers.\u00a0 The project will also develop a visual image machine learning tool, which will look at works of art to identify readers and reading activities within them.<\/p>\n

About the project<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Over the three-year period of the project, the READ-IT team will organise a range of events across Europe to test the new digital tools. The project\u2019s funding is from the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 Joint Programme Initiative for Cultural Heritage.\u00a0 Led by Le Mans Universit\u00e9 (France), READ-IT brings together humanities, social sciences and information technology researchers to uncover the rich wealth of information about readers and reading across Europe from 18th<\/sup> century up to today. Other collaborators are: Universiteit Utrecht (Netherlands), Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences, CNRS-IRISA (France) and a specialist developer company, IN2.<\/p>\n

Associate Partners in the UK (Queen Mary University of London), Germany, (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), France (Universit\u00e9 Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais, Tours) and Italy (Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Milano) will also be running free public engagement events.<\/p>\n

Find out more<\/h2>\n

Read more about Dr Shafquat\u2019s research into books.<\/a><\/p>\n

Study arts and humanities<\/a> with The Open University<\/p>\n

Explore our free resources<\/a> on Open Learn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Gulliver\u2019s Travels to Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice to 1984 \u2013 what people have been reading for the past three centuries is under the microscope, with a new \u20ac1 million research project involving The Open University. Revealing Europe\u2019s reading history 21st century digital tools – including an online database and smartphone app – are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[297,1332,1522,1525,1640,1874,1904],"class_list":["post-10427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-literature-music","tag-books","tag-literature","tag-news","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-reading","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}