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have,escapedtodifferentworldsandallowedmyself thetimetorelaxwithagoodbook
withno feelingof guilt overnotdoing somethingmoreworthwhile.
While Ihad insistedonseeing responses like theseas complexnarrativesabout
thediverseusesofreading,Timwasable tosee themasbothstoriesandasdata.
ForTim, datawas somethinghe could structure intodifferent shapes byusing
various software andbywritingpieces of code, but that aspect of buildingwas
secondary to the emotional power of the stories andwhat quickly becameour
commonpurpose: to put those stories into the hands of readers as ameans of
connectingpeople, however ephemerally.
Timdesignedameansofenablingthereadertoshowthattheyidentifiedwith
a reading life experience by building a “that’sme” button that would appear
besideeachstory.Byinvitingidentificationornon-identification, thisparticular
designaspectof theapp–whichwasretainedinsubsequentiterations–reflected
ourdesire toforgeanemotionalconnectionamongreaders. Ifauserresponded
byclicking“that’snotme”thentheywereinvitedtowritetheirownminireading
life story which immediately became part of the app and the dataset. In the
second version of the app, theword cloud immediately changed to reflect the
wordsemployedinthenewentry.Whenweusedthisversionat theBirmingham
LiteratureFestival inOctober2014 thewordcloudchanged inreal timeover the
course of the festival in a way that we hopedwould be both aesthetically and
intellectually attractive.We also hoped that someparticipantswould complete
the short questionnairewehadbuilt into theapp, therebyprovidingmoredata
aboutreaders’practices,aswellasinformationabouttheiruseof theapp.Infact,
veryfewpeopleusedReadingLivesduringtheFestivalbutwelearnedagreatdeal
fromthat failure– somethingwhich Ihavewrittenabout elsewhere.19
Here, I want tomaintain the focus on building as a researchmethod. The
buildingandre-buildingofReadingLiveswasdrivenby theemotional tenorof
theoriginaldataset,aresearchquestionabouthowandwhypeoplevaluereading
as part of their everyday experience, and the realities ofmaking and testing a
piece of software. Tim’s technical skillset, his creativity and intellect were ger-
mane to the three iterations thatwemadeofReadingLives.AsMattHaylerand
GabrieleGriffinwrite in relation to researchmethods for creatingandcurating
datainthedigitalhumanities,techniciansareoftenleftoutofacademicaccounts
ofdigital projects.20 In theirwords, “theacademic-technician relation inpartic-
ularneeds tobeaddressed.”Ourcollaborativeprocesswasprecisely oneof co-
production and it also involved cultural workers from a regional arts organ-
ization,WritingWestMidlands, with whomwe co-designed our initial run of
testingeventsandthen, later, theuseofReadingLivesattheLiteratureFestival. I
19 Fuller2017,n.p.
20 Hayler/Griffin2016,p. 4.
“It’snotonmymap!”: A JourneyThroughMethods in theCompanyofReaders 225
Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0
Über Bücher reden
Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Title
- Über Bücher reden
- Subtitle
- Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Author
- Doris Moser
- Editor
- Claudia Dürr
- Publisher
- V&R unipress
- Date
- 2021
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-7370-1323-9
- Size
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 262
- Category
- Lehrbücher