Understanding reading, promoting reading and defending democracy

Comparable reading surveys in (European) countries have been something, researchers as well as industry practicioners have been aspiring to for many years. With ERICS (EuRopean Item Core Set for Reading Surveys), Aldus Up, the Network of European Bookfairs, has contributed to real progress in this area in the last years.

To undergird our appeal, not to let up on efforts now, we will put reading surveys in a wider context in this panel: in democratic societies, freedom of speech is an indispensable prerequisite - but to make productive use of this freedom, it needs insight and the ability to express oneself. Both can be achieved by way of reading - and hence is an important contribution to defending democracy.

With a panel of experts, we will e.g. shed light on the fact that any systematic reading promotion needs reading figures and that top-notch reading promotion needs also benchmarks from other countries on the basis of comparable reading surveys. Moreover, we will try to sensitise for the fact that reading promotion can appear with very different objectives and measures for different target groups.