History of reading tutorial 1: Finding evidence of reading in the past

How do we know what people read in the past, and how they read it? This free course, History of reading tutorial 1: Finding evidence of reading in the past, is the first in a series of tutorials designed to help users of the UK Reading Experience Database (UK RED) search, browse and use the resource, and explores the types of evidence historians have uncovered about the history of reading. Tutorial 2 (Red_2) and Tutorial 3 (Red_3) look at how this evidence can be used to tell us about the reception of a literary text and to demonstrate the impact of a writers reading on their literary output. UK RED is a resource built and maintained at The Open University.Please note: this course contains some Flash content that no longer works. We are currently working to update this.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Debates about where to find readers
• 1 Debates about where to find readers
• 2 Evidence of reading experiences
• 2 Evidence of reading experiences
• 2.1 Diaries, journals, autobiographies and memoirs – the anecdotal sources
• 2.2 Inquisitorial sources – glimpses on common practices?
• 3 Using UK RED to understand reading in the past – collating the evidence
• 3 Using UK RED to understand reading in the past – collating the evidence
• 4 Conclusion and further reading
• 4 Conclusion and further reading
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements