January 15, 2008
Reading, Not So Dead After All
“To Read or Not to Read,” the NEA’s latest gloomy assessment of the state of reading in this country, has been roundly thumped in some quarters, notably in the digital-humanities community. (There is probably a better word to use here, but “community” will have to do for now.)
For instance, some of the folks at if:book, the blog of the Institute for the Future of the Book, have been mounting a pretty lively assault. Nancy Kaplan, who directs the School of Information Arts and Technologies at the University of Baltimore, took a look at the data behind the report and found it less than persuasive:
“Read responsibly, the data underlying the NEA’s latest report simply do not support Mr. Gioia’s assertions. Like many other federal agencies under our current political regime, the National Endowment for the Arts seems to have fixed the data to fit its desired conclusions.”
Sunil Iyengar, the NEA’s director of research, responded here.
Jennifer Howard | Posted on Tuesday January 15, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Chicken Littles are running rampant over the American landscape. Like sympathetic vomiters, shrill groups of catastrophic thinkers are multiplying in every quarter, preaching gloom and doom and pointing out the evil doers like so many Berliners turning in their neighbors to the Gestapo.
— marci Jan 15, 06:41 PM #