Reading for Learning
A Reflection by Roger
Sween, August 1998
Instead of going to Paris to
attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty
years if you really wish to learn.--Leo Tolstoy
The time was when a library was
very like a museum and the librarian was a mouser in musty books. The time is
when the library is a school and the librarian is in the highest sense a
teacher, and a reader is a workman among his tools.--Melvil Dewey
Imagine a world in which knowledge
depended only on experience and speaking of experience. Such has been the story
of humankind for most of its existence. And orality remains a primary and
universal mode for people to communicate, one to one or in groups. Spoken
communication makes the core of all cultures; for some it takes precedence over
written and visual forms. Even after several thousand years of graphic
representation, scattered peoples throughout the earth remain within their oral
traditions. Yet wherever they are--though they may not or cannot read
themselves--few people remain outside the influence of literacy. If the
invention of language turned the key to making us homo sapiens,
"knowing humans," then writing and its twin endeavor, reading, gave
us the civilization that comes from knowing one another over time and over
distance.
For it is
writing and reading, these skills in parallel, that cleared the way for
knowledge to build beyond the moment and beyond memory. Writing and reading
created not only history--the stories that humanity thinks important--but the
consequent accumulation of knowledge. Writing and reading turned experiential
and orally communicated human knowledge into comparison, argument, and
continuity. Discourse beyond the person to person or local group here and now
became long term. A dialogue began between authors and readers which even in
ancient times our forerunners had with their predecessors of hundreds or
thousands of years before.
The pasts of
reading and of libraries are intertwined, equally dependent on the technologies
of written communication and the social structures of learning and the
educational development of learners.
Literacy as a widely practiced cultural
phenomenon is hard to realize when production of writing is limited. The
ancients posted their most important messages in stone for all to see. Those who could read interpreted for
those who could not. Writing on clay then on paper moved literacy even farther
afield, and little by little the need to write
and read moved from the noble and priestly classes to widening circle of the
elite. Not, however, until the invention of
printing (ca. 1455) and its hundred year progress through Europe was there a
technological basis for widespread literacy. While manuscript remained the principal
means of recording knowledge, the spoken word still held sway--the professor in
the university lecture hall, the priest in the pulpit. Printing made possible
multiple copies and numerous readers. The presses, their broadsides, pamphlets
and books set the stage for the reformation, for science, and ultimately for
democracy. And libraries kept pace, diversifying in
content, becoming increasingly public, opening to all classes, to women as well
as men, to children as well as the adult, to the illiterate as well as the
scholar.
Looking back
on these eons, we tend to see ourselves as the beneficiaries of all good things
which have converged to give us a burgeoning language, bounteous knowledge,
alphabetic writing, advanced literacy, mountainous printing, and public
education.
Completely unrequested by ourselves, the knowledge treasures of the
globe and of past times wait teeming at our very doorsteps, just beyond our
consciousness. Yet none of this enormous capacity to deliver the wealth of all
the questions, answers, dialogues and narratives that have gone before make
much difference I themselves. As long as anyone ignores it and contents
themselves to the level of our most remote talking ancestor, knowing confines
itself to what we hear and experience, even in the glow of that twentieth
century hearth, the television set.
What reading
offers to the learner is something no other mode of communication
does--practically unlimited choice into what is known and at the discrimination
of the learner. Reading puts learning at the demand of the learner. Although
reading has its requirements, because the technicalities of reading are
rudimentary at the basics and developmental in the long run, reading liberates.
The failure of many to read is less a question of obtaining skill as it is a
reluctance to read from lack of enjoyment or ignorance that reading is a
discretionary tool. The habits of reading depend upon the reader
gaining pleasure or meaning, or--most--likely--some happy combination of these
two. When the potential for both is so great, that any fledgling reader finds
reading to be drudgery and confusing ought to alarm and pester us all to get
reading off to its most profitable start for every person. Reading does take
effort, ad continuing to read means finding that effort rewarding. Being a
learner by reading means a background of success as a reader or a realization that
out there in the vast cosmos of print is something so to the point of what I
want that I can overcome any past dissatisfaction with reading in order to find
it.
The allure of
reading is the inner expectation that we are always on the verge of delights or
significance that we would otherwise miss if we did not read. The reader is
after a better life, one that they imagine is richer, fuller, more pertinent to
themselves as a person, than they would otherwise have from some other
occupation of their time that reading takes. The typical disclaimer for why one
does not read is the competition for time. Yet we all have the same twenty-four
hours per day, and the issue is how we choose to use that time. Inveterate
readers snatch time in the minutes they find--while commuting, while waiting,
before sleeping--or choose to read instead of some other occupation--Tolstoi
over television, Burgess instead of bridge--whatever makes the difference for
us. No doubt many are pressed for time: whether attorneys who work 80 hours a
week, parents of young children or those who commit to other demands, time is
precious. Yet similarly preoccupied attorneys and parents find the time.
Amazingly, one can read several books a year at twenty minutes per day. What
one reads does not have to be Ulysses,
better that it be something the reader finds rewarding.
Learning by
reading not only offers vast choices of content, but great flexibility in
getting the job done. Perhaps the greatest stricture to unlimited flexibility
is the lending periods of libraries from which books must be borrowed and
returned in a timely fashion for the benefit of other readers. Where
interlibrary loan deadlines are a factor in one's reading, advance planning and
ability to follow a plan become important. Still, the reading plan means the
learner deciding when they can fit to their objectives, not what they have to
do to meet telecast, workshop, or class session schedules. Reading to learn is
an individual endeavor that is not only asynchronous to whatever else is going
on in the world, but atemporal; the reader's time is their own.
Reading to
learn also permits any scope. The learner may have a concrete question or a
specific area pertinent to themselves. What they want to know may be complete
in itself or a part of a larger project of research or study, a course or
assignment. Similarly, what a reader seeks may be conceptually large,
exploratory, even unanswerable. What is gained then through reading is a
larger, better understanding of a field or issue, an area or subject. Reading
to learn means the learner needs to set out what they want to accomplish. Such
reading can be open-ended and unlimited. Often, however, reading to learn
projects have stated objectives and expectations of timeline.
What the
reader wants to know is what is important to them, either in terms of an
interest or what becomes an interest because they know they lack a piece of
knowledge and want to obtain it. Fitting knowledge in, pursuing one's
education, is a typically adult endeavor after some period of formal learning
or length of life experience is already behind the learner. It has been said that
one of the few benefits of longevity is learning; the ability to learn has a
longer life than teeth, eyesight or digestion. Therefore, the learner has
questions and seeks what is unknown or unresolved or missing in an examination
of what they do know, and what remains to be learned in their work or life.
Of course,
the professional is always learning, and reading can have a current awareness
function central to that ongoing learning . It is impossible to ask leading
questions about what is in state of continuous happening about us. Regular
attention to newspapers, magazines and professional journals intend to keep
readers abreast of what is going on, the substance and direction of which they
cannot readily predict. Such reading is the equivalent of having one's antennae
going, taking in what is new, important or useful and should be integrated with
what the professional already knows and does in their work and service to
others. The choices that the reader makes to keep such current scanning
relevant is in what media to read on a routine, ongoing basis. Choices, if they
are to fulfill the objective of keeping aware of what one does not or cannot
predict knowing, mean throwing the net of regular reading in a way that is
productive and pertinent to what one is doing.
For the
library worker, a comprehensive journal that treats the U.S. library world
gives a unity to related specialization. Library Journal is a likely
candidate, or American Libraries; additionally one would turn to a
journal for their particular type of library of specific line of library work,
whether that is Public Libraries, Voice of Youth Advocates, or whatever
applies. Since we all operate in a larger political and social context, library
workers need to know what is going on in the world around them. This means
regular reading of their community publication, usually a local daily or weekly
newspaper, one of wider state, U.S. regional, or national coverage. Weekly news
magazines serve the same purpose--Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report--to
name the most obvious examples. The branch out to magazines that give greater
depth to issues--Atlantic, Harpers, New Yorker--for example, or
publications with other perspectives such as The Utne Reader, World Press
Digest, The Economist, or others.
Over a
lifetime of such current awareness reading, the learner amasses a great deal of
knowledge, and depending upon their ability to integrate it and to follow-up on
loose ends becomes educated in the well rounded sense important to the
individual, citizen and professional. This well-roundedness is of essential
benefit in library work where the ability to "relate many things to many
things." is the hallmark of the
competent generalist.
But for the
learner, whether by choice or assignment, reading often takes a targeted
approach. The learner wants to know something they don't know or know only
part. Reading can fill in the gap when that approach fits individual learning
preferences, time schedules and location (printed materials being the most
portable means of distance learning), course availability, or even whether any
single person can tell you what you need to know. For learners who target their
reading, they need to say to themselves, "I want to know…," and begin
to fill in the blanks.
Choosing the
materials that are appropriate for the learner's quest by reading begin from
the current state of knowledge and lack of knowledge on the subject. To be
totally ignorant of an area, strangely, offers little clue of how to begin. The
unfamiliar with a topic often do not know what questions to ask first. Being
clueless, calls for reading an overview first. Just as young students launch
into a new subject with the summary assistance of a textbook chapter or encyclopedia
article, library workers can do the same. An overview could come from a recent
professional journal, particularly if the topic is new, a general introduction
to the field or subject, or from a library related handbook or encyclopedia.
When not
knowing any specific title to give this start, a search can prove helpful.
Currently, online catalogs are as ready as the Internet, one's home public
access catalog, or that in a neighboring library. Searching the book literature
of the library field productively through online catalogs depends upon some
familiarity of appropriate terms and their manipulation. The wonder of online
catalogs is that they foster multiple approaches to searching but skillful
searching is more of knowing what terms bring the desired, precise results as
directly and quickly as possible. Unless learning by hunting around is desired,
the library worker unfamiliar with the niceties of electronic catalog searching
may be most expediently served by the help of more experiences staff or by
asking the question of a librarian who specializes in such questions.
The ability
to search books as needed, especially once authors and titles are known, is
readily achieved. Searching the periodical literature of the field, however, is
at present another matter. Outside of visiting a professional library
collection equipped with printed or online search tools, searches of relevant
literature are possible through request. Whether conducted oneself or through
an intermediary, searching succeeds based on the definition of what is wanted,
knowing what is pertinent and what is not, and generally having a time limit if
currency or a range of dates are appropriate.
When the
material is at hand to be read, the pieces are not likely to fall into place in
the logical or sequential order that makes most sense for learning a new topic.
That integration has to e made in the readers mind or, likely, through studious
note-taking of the parts before they come together down the road. Reading means
looking for sense and continuously testing the information or arguments
presented before accepting, even tentatively, that one is convinced by what one
has read. Reading for learning is critical reading that means looking for
evidence, logical and grounded argument, the relevance of detail and example to
conclusion, and detection of conjecture, theory, or unanswered questions as
such.
None of this
is to say that reading takes place in a vacuum or that the learner must pursue
what they want to know totally alone. Most readers want to discuss what they
find and read and think with others. They want to test what they think, or to
form their thoughts out loud through conversation with others. Readers want to
share, and sharing what one reads definitely encourages reading and leads to
other avenues of reading on the recommendation or enthusiasm of others.
Following the
path of reading to learn develops reading and learning skills in library
workers and equips them to promote reading and encourage other readers.