Celia's

The Rise of e-Reading [in the USA]. Pew Internet & American Life Project

Posted by Celia Walter | 11 Apr, 2012

One-fifth of American adults (21%) report that they have read an e-book in the past year, and this number increased following a gift-giving season that saw a spike in the ownership of both tablet computers and e-book reading devices such as the original Kindles and Nooks. In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an e-book in the previous year; by February, 2012, the share increased to 21%.

The rise of e-books in American culture is part of a larger story about a shift from printed to digital material. Using a broader definition of e-content in a survey ending in December 2011, some 43% of Americans age 16 and older say they have either read an e-book in the past year or have read other long-form content such as magazines, journals, and news articles in digital format on an e-book reader, tablet computer, regular computer, or cell phone.

+ Direct link to full report (PDF; 1.5 MB)

From Docubase post by Heather Negley

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Reading a Book Vs a Screen: Different Modes of Reading?

Posted by Celia Walter | 20 Oct, 2011

Reading a Book Versus a Screen: Different Reading Devices, Different Modes of Reading? (via Science Daily)

A book or a screen – which of these two offers more reading comfort? There are no disadvantages to reading from electronic reading devices compared with reading printed texts.
This is one of the results of the world’s first reading study of its kind undertaken by the Research Unit Media Convergence of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in cooperation with MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH. “E-books and e-readers are playing an increasingly important role on the worldwide book market. However, readers in Germany are particularly skeptical when it comes to e-books and electronic reading devices. The objective of the study was to investigate whether there are reasons for this skepticism,” says the initiator of the study, Professor Dr. Stephan Füssel, chair of the Gutenberg-Institute of Book Studies and spokesperson for the Media Convergence Research Unit at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. “This study provides us with a scientific basis for dispelling the widespread misconception that reading from a screen has negative effects,” explains Füssel. “There is no (reading) culture clash – whether it is analog or digital, reading remains the most important cultural technology.”

Read the Complete Summary

From : INFODOCKET

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"The New Readers" Infographic from the NY Times

Posted by Celia Walter | 1 Nov, 2010

Direct to Infographic

Some researches believe that online reading builds on traditional reading skills and also requires new ones like the ability to navigate the web and to synthesize information in many different formats.
Data: New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut

Source: NY Times Infographic via Resourceshelf.org

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Yozi, a library of cellphone stories. Shuttleworth Foundation

Posted by Celia Walter | 22 Sep, 2010

Yozi new library of cellphone stories – also known as mobile novels or m-novels – was launched by the . as part of its m4Lit (mobiles for literacy) project. see the project release at http://m4lit.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/press-release-launch-of-yoza-m-novel-library/

via

http://lselibraryresearch.blogspot.com/

1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read. The Guardian

Posted by Celia Walter | 26 Jan, 2009

The UK’s Guardian newspaper is compiling a mega-guide to 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read. Over seven days their writers will recommend the very best novels in the following categories:

War & Travel
Science Fiction & Fantasy
State of the Nation
Family & Self
Comedy
Crime
Love

Permalink iLibrarian blog

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Literacy and Online Reading

Posted by Celia Walter | 28 Jul, 2008

The Sunday edition of The New York Times presents the first in a series of articles on the Future of Reading: Digital Versus Print titled Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? The article looks at what it means to read in the digital age, taking into account the opinions of literacy experts and readers alike.

“Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Pride and Prejudice” for fun. And those who prefer staring at a television or mashing buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit from reading on the Internet. In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.”

iLibrarian blog

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Room to Read

Posted by Celia Walter | 30 Apr, 2008

"Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure" to help children learn to read in their local language and in a foreign language, often English. The site describes programs such as local language publishing of children's books, computer and language labs, and girls' scholarships. Provides updates of activities in Cambodia, India, Nepal, South Africa, Zambia, and other countries. Annotation copyright LII.ORG

URL: http://www.roomtoread.org/

LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25792

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Will shorter books save reading?

Posted by Celia Walter | 31 Jan, 2008

In the Guardian’s theblogbooks, Jean Hannah Edelstein attacks “sizeism” in fiction and suggests that novellas might be the perfect antidote to the reading public’s (supposedly) declining attention span:

And then I had an epiphany: could it be that we should look to classics like Ethan Frome to find the key to saving fiction from the worrisome tides of publishing sturm and drang, the statistics that indicate that people distracted by the trillions of choices provided by digital media are giving up on fiction? Might the way to stop our atrophied attention spans becoming terminally distracted be to simply publish more short books? ...[more]
From The Booklist Online

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Doris Lessing, The Nobel Prize in Literature 2007

Posted by Celia Walter | 20 Dec, 2007

On not winning the Nobel Prize

I am standing in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is still uncut forest. Yesterday I drove through miles of stumps, and charred remains of fires where in '56 was the most wonderful forest I have ever seen, all destroyed. People have to eat. They have to get fuel for fires.

This is north west Zimbabwe early in the eighties, and I am visiting a friend who was a teacher in a school in London. He is here "to help Africa" as we put it. He is a gently idealistic soul and what he found here in this school shocked him into a depression, from which it was hard to recover. This school is like all the schools built after Independence. It consists of four large brick rooms side by side, put straight into the dust, one two three four, with a half room at one end, which is the library. In these classrooms are blackboards, but my friend keeps the chalks in his pocket, as otherwise they would be stolen. There is no atlas, or globe in the school, no textbooks, no exercise books, or biros, in the library are no books of the kind the pupils would like to read: they are tomes from American universities, hard even to lift, rejects from white libraries, detective stories, or with titles like 'Weekend in Paris' or 'Felicity Finds Love'...

Thanks to Fareeda Jadwat for directing me to this.

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