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Reading Revolutions: Who Reads and How?

Here is an important article that is an antidote to some of the misinformation about reading out there.

Who Reads and How?

Barry Cull, Information Services Librarian at the University of New Brunswick, Canada, has written Reading Revolutions: Online digital text and implications for reading in academe, a valuable review article on reading research that investigates important questions and provides a corrective to the idea (we’re looking at you NEA and Steve Jobs) that “no one reads anymore.” ”

From First Monday:

Reading Revolutions: Online digital text and implications for reading in academe
by Barry W. Cull

“While the Internet is a text–saturated world, reading online screens tends to be significantly different from reading printed text. This review essay examines literature from a variety of disciplines on the technological, social, behavioural, and neuroscientific impacts that the Internet is having on the practice of reading. A particular focus is given to the reading behaviour of emerging university students, especially within Canada and the United States. A brief overview is provided of the recent transformation of academic libraries into providers of online digital text in addition to printed books and other materials, before looking at research on college students’ preferences for print and digital text, and the cognitive neuroscience of reading on screen.

Contents

Introduction
A very brief historical overview of reading
Current North American reading trends
The benefits of leisure reading
Internet usage trends
Online research and reading behaviour
Online digital text: The story of academic libraries
Popular e–books
Student preferences for reading print vs. digital text
The cognitive neuroscience of reading
Discussion and conclusion”

Stephen

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Posted on: July 21, 2011, 7:54 am Category: Uncategorized

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