Page - 225 - in Über Bücher reden - Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften

© 2021 V&R unipress, Brill Deutschland GmbH ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239 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