Category Archives: Research

Literacy citizenship conference call for proposals

Literary Citizenship

25–27 September 2019, National Library of Norway, Oslo

Call for papers

The history of the book is one of global and complex encounters, and the book trade has from its very outset been a transnational enterprise. Today, in part due to digitization, the production, distribution and consumption of books are becoming increasingly international, as books are made accessible worldwide. How does this tangle of transnational and transmedial characteristics inform the way we understand and study books and other printed materials? In what ways do local and global conditions shape what may be termed literary citizenship; how the act of writing, publishing and reading can foster social identity and agency?

The concluding conference of Literary Citizens of the World (LitCit), an international research project financed by the Research Council of Norway and hosted by the National Library, will be held in Oslo 25–27 September 2019. The conference is one in a series of events marking the 500th anniversary of printed books in Norway. The first ‘Norwegian’ book was printed in Paris in 1519, in Latin. Today, most ‘Norwegian’ books are printed in the Baltics, and the holdings of the National Library are digitized and made publicly accessible from around the world. The intermediate 500 years of Norwegian book history display similar transnational and transmedial characteristics.

We welcome papers (20 min) that explore aspects of both the local and the transnational nature and impact of the book or other printed materials. Our interests are historical as well as contemporary, and we welcome topics related to Norway, the Nordic countries or beyond, from the 16th century onwards. We also invite reflections on how the history of information packaging and control, (re)distribution, entertainment, reading practices and reading communities can help us to reflect on similar patterns and phenomena shaping society today. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • literary citizenships: reading cultures, readerships, print cultures, the public sphere
  • migrating books: translations, adaptations, transactions, trajectories, exchanges
  • the book industry: book trade, production, promotion, consumption, distribution
  • the materiality of books: print, illustrations, binding, media, digital culture
  • the politics of books: contexts, censorship, copyright, usages of books

We are pleased to announce our keynote speakers:

  • Roger Chartier, Professor of Early Modern European History and Culture, at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Collège de France in Paris and the University of Pennsylvania
  • Ann Thomson, Professor of European Intellectual History at the European University Institute in Florence
  • Daniel Bellingradt, Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Book at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Submission guidelines

Deadline for submission of abstracts (200–300 words): 15 February 2019

Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2019

Paper presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Please email abstracts, or any enquiries regarding the programme, to litcit@nb.no

Papers from the conference may be submitted for an edited volume, due to be published in 2020/2021.

For more information about the project and the conference, please visit Literary Citizens of the World. Tracing the Transnational Crossroads of Books in Early Modern Norway.

Reading and well-being report

Mental wellbeing, reading and writing

Added 26 Sep 2018

Mental wellbeing, reading and writing explores the relationship between children’s mental wellbeing and their reading and writing enjoyment, attitudes and behaviours.

The report is based on findings from our eight Annual Literacy Survey of 49,047 children and young people aged 8 to 18 in the UK.

As this is the first time we have explored the link between reading, writing and mental wellbeing, we developed two new measures to enable us to better understand these relationships:

  • Mental Wellbeing Index: we quantified children’s responses to questions on life satisfaction, coping skills and self-belief on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest level of mental wellbeing.
  • Literacy engagement score: we quantified children’s responses to questions on how much they enjoy reading and writing, how often they read and write outside school, what they think about reading and writing, and how good children think they are at reading and writing. Scores were then given out of a total of 52, where 52 is the highest level of engagement with literacy practices.

Our analysis found that:

  • Children and young people who are the most engaged with literacy have better mental wellbeing than their peers who are the least engaged (Mental Wellbeing Index scores of 7.9/10 vs 6.6/10)
  • Children who are the most engaged with literacy are three times more likely to have higher levels of mental wellbeing than children who are the least engaged (39.4% vs 11.8%)
  • Conversely, children who are the least engaged with literacy are twice as likely to have low levels of mental wellbeing than their peers who are the most engaged (37.4% vs 15%)
  • Children with above expected reading skills are three times more likely to have high levels of mental wellbeing than their peers with below expected reading skills (40.3% vs 13.1%)
  • As children transition from primary to secondary school, their levels of literacy engagement and mental wellbeing both begin and continue to decline
  • Boys who are the most engaged with literacy have higher levels of mental wellbeing than girls who are equally engaged (Mental Wellbeing Index scores of 8.1/10 vs 7.6/10)

The report also includes new analysis from University College London which shows an enduring relationship between mental health and verbal scores, with those who have low verbal ability having worse mental health outcomes than those with higher verbal ability. This finding is true when one considers children from the 1970 British Cohort Study as well as children from the more recent Millennium Cohort Study.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/mental-wellbeing-reading-and-writing/

Reading and school libraries study

Singaporean Loh Chin Ee studied the reading habits of Singapore teenagers based on a survey conducted in six secondary schools between January and March 2017. The research question that guided this survey was: What are the reading habits and practices of Singapore adolescents between 12 to 17 years old?

This first part of a larger study on reading and school libraries is complete. Please find attached the final copy: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ff4zqetq0e0kkzl/Loh%20%26%20Sun%20%282018%29%20Report%20on%20Reading%20Habits%20of%20Teenagers%202017.pdf?dl=0

Reading culture

To mark International Literacy Day on 8 September, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) is launching a new publication entitled Fostering a culture of reading and writing: Examples of dynamic literate environments. The compilation features 18 case studies of successful youth and adult literacy programmes, all of which seek to foster rich literate environments within the family, the community or wider society. It demonstrates the critical value of such an approach and advocates its wider adoption against the backdrop of the global agenda to advance literacy.

DOWNLOAD (PDF, 7.8 MB)
Fostering a culture of reading and writing: Examples of dynamic literate environments
UIL, 2017   ISBN 978-92-820-1217-8

The 18 examples of effective educational literacy programmes showcased and analysed in this compilation demonstrate the value of dynamic literate environments and the importance of nurturing a culture of reading and writing, by examining the following four different contexts: digital environments, intergenerational settings, community libraries and prisons. Furthermore, the publication presents a number of promising approaches to cultivating such environments, in the hope of inspiring literacy stakeholders around the world to sustainably engage youth and adults in literacy learning.

All these programmes can also be found in the UNESCO Effective Literacy and Numeracy Practices Database (LitBase). Hard copies of this compilation will be shared with literacy stakeholders at the International Literacy Day event in Paris on 8 September 2017.

Teen Use of Ebooks

An online survey distributed to librarians at public libraries across North America established some interesting trends in public librarians’ perceptions of ebooks and teens. Some of the findings of this study are that teen library users strongly prefer to read print books for their recreational reading and show very little interest in ebooks or ebook programs offered by public libraries.Even when public librarians offer ebook programs for teens through school outreach, these programs tend to focus on the titles in the collection and the download process, rather than the specific benefits of ebook reading. More active promotion of these advantages could potentially appeal to teens, especially to non-library users and reluctant readers.

Gray, R., & Howard, V. (2017). Young adult use of ebooks: An analysis of public library services and resources. Public Library Quarterly, 1-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2017.1316149

New UNESCO publication on 50 years of literacy efforts

A new publication of UNESCO “Reading the past, writing the future: Fifty years of promoting literacy” is now available online.
 
This publication takes stock of youth and adult literacy interventions which have been implemented since 1966, when UNESCO held its first International Literacy Day. It sheds light on the literacy-related challenges the world is now facing, as it embarks on the implementation of the2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
The publication begins with an analysis of trends in literacy rates at the regional and global levels, and identifies fifty countries that have made notable progress. It then reflects on emerging conceptions of literacy, from ‘literacy as a stand-alone skill’ to ‘functional literacy’ for work and livelihood, to ‘literacy for empowerment’ of poor and marginalized populations and finally to ‘literacy as social practice’, shaped by the cultural context in which it is applied. These four conceptions are illustrated by a wide range of literacy campaigns, programmes and policies, implemented within the fifty selected countries. Finally, the publication envisages the possible future of literacy from the perspective of sustainable development, lifelong learning and digital societies, with a focus on the need for urgency of action.