Developing an International Digital Network in the History of Reading: collaboration between the UK Reading Experience Database and invited partners.

阅读是现代生活的基本组成部分；阅读能力和阅读行为在所有发达社会都受到高度重视。然而，阅读的实践并不是一个统一的或不变的：它有历史，就像任何其他人类活动一样。为了研究这段历史，我们不仅需要证据来证明过去的人阅读什么，还需要证据来证明他们是如何阅读的，在什么情况下阅读的，以及他们的阅读对他们产生了什么影响。阅读体验数据库（RED）由英国开放大学建立，作为一个开放获取的数字资源，为用户提供了从1450年到1945年国内外英国人阅读的可搜索证据（见http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/）。RED由AHRC资助，为期三年（2006-2009），目前拥有约30,000份阅读体验记录。每月的访问量超过3000次，使用率以每年50%的速度增长。RED不仅是书籍和阅读历史学家的资源，也是社会历史学家、地方和家庭历史学家、文学学者、传记作家、图书收藏家、图书管理员以及任何对读者和对特定作者或书籍的接受感兴趣的人，以及对特定读者或读者群体的活动感兴趣的人。为了RED的目的，“阅读体验”被定义为与书面或印刷文本的记录接触，而不仅仅是拥有事实。“书面或印刷文本”包括书籍、报纸、期刊、广告、节目单、剧本、小册子、历书、普通书籍和蜉蝣。RED所提供的证据来自自传、日记、旁注和信件等，以及诸如老贝利会议文件和大众观察在线等数据库。除了被阅读作品的细节外，RED还记录了有关读者的数据：他们的姓名、年龄、性别、职业、社会阶层、宗教和阅读发生的地点。这些纹理丰富的数据提供了微观和宏观的视角，使我们能够更接近个人阅读体验的认知和情感因素，并阐明阅读发生的历史环境和物质条件的更广泛变化。然而，阅读不受国界的限制。这是一种跨国现象，研究人员需要能够收集和分析来自不同国家的证据。这个新的研究项目旨在促进在澳大利亚、加拿大、荷兰和新西兰建立RED项目，并确保这些国家的RED与英国的RED相互兼容。目前的英国RED软件将免费提供给这些国家的合作伙伴，并将开发一个系统的、易于使用的“伞形搜索”功能，使一个RED的用户能够在所有其他的RED中进行搜索。我们将创建一个新的门户网站界面，旨在方便使用，利用web 2.0，并包括教学和研究工具（作为网络教程提供）。我们将在RED数据集中增加容量，以便将来能够纳入1950年以前出生的读者的口头证词，以及阅读照片等视觉证据。这些发展将增强red对各类用户的吸引力，并将促进阅读史方面的进一步国际合作。总而言之，目前的项目旨在：(a)扩大RED在不列颠群岛以外的使用和贡献，使其成为阅读史上的国际合作中心；(b)创建一个“伞形搜索”功能，允许一个RED的用户同时搜索所有其他RED；(c)通过确保red包括口头和视觉数据以补充文本来源，增加对阅读历史的理解；(d)与学术界以外的更广泛的公众对阅读史的兴趣进行接触。

Reading is a fundamental part of modern life; the ability to read and the act of reading are highly valued in all developed societies. The practice of reading, however, is not a uniform or unchanging one: it has a history, like any other human activity. To study that history we need evidence not only of what people in the past read, but how and in what circumstances they read, and what impact their reading had on them. The Reading Experience Database (RED) was established at The Open University as an open access digital resource offering users a searchable body of evidence of reading by British subjects, at home and abroad, from 1450 up to 1945 (see http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/). RED was funded by the AHRC for three years, 2006-2009, and currently holds about 30,000 separate records of reading experience. It attracts over 3,000 visits each month, and the rate of usage is rising at 50% per year. RED has been designed as a resource not only for historians of the book and of reading, but for social historians, local and family historians, literary scholars, biographers, book collectors, librarians, and anyone interested in the readership and reception of particular authors or books, and in the activities of specific readers or groups of readers.For the purposes of RED, a 'reading experience' is defined as a recorded engagement with a written or printed text beyond the mere fact of possession. Under 'written or printed text' we include books, newspapers, journals, advertisements, playbills, scripts, pamphlets, almanacs, commonplace books, and ephemera. The evidence presented in RED is drawn from autobiographies, diaries, marginalia and letters, etc., and from databases such as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers and Mass Observation Online. As well as details of work(s) being read, RED records data about readers: their name, age, gender, occupation, social class, religion, and place where the reading took place. This richly textured data offers both a micro and a macro perspective, enabling us to get closer to the cognitive and affective elements of individual reading experiences, as well as illuminating the broader changes in historical circumstances and material conditions within which reading took place.Reading, however, is not confined within national boundaries. It is a transnational phenomenon and researchers need to be able to collect and analyse evidence from different countries. This new research project is designed to facilitate the establishment of RED projects in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, and to ensure that these national REDs are compatible with the UK RED and with each other. The current UK RED software will be made freely available to partners in these countries, and a systematic, easy-to-use 'umbrella search' function will be developed which will enable a user of one RED to search across all the others. We will create a new web portal interface designed to facilitate ease of use, making use of web 2.0, and including teaching and research tools (offered as web tutorials). We will create additional capacity in the RED datasets to enable future inclusion of oral testimony of readers born before 1950, and visual evidence, such as photographs of reading. These developments will enhance the attractiveness of REDs to a wide variety of users, and will facilitate further international collaboration in the history of reading.In summary, the current project is designed to: (a) broaden the use of and contribution to RED beyond the British Isles, making it a centre for international collaboration in the history of reading; (b) create an 'umbrella search' function to allow a user of one RED to search all the others as well; (c) increase understanding of the history of reading by ensuring that REDs include oral and visual data to supplement textual sources; and (d) engage with the wider public interest in the history of reading outside academia.