When reading the prompt "What is the Reading Culture like in your Country?" I thought I have nothing more to say than I can fit into a comment. Thinking the reading culture in my country 'The Netherlands' is decreasing by the day. On the news we hear from time to time, youngsters read less as time progresses. Additionally, the number of youngsters being able to write correct Dutch is decreasing as well. They say: This may have to do with the spell and grammar checks that are built in the most used document editors. I suppose chatGPT will add to this since from some tests I ran, chatGPT can re-write pieces of text taking out most of the grammar errors. I do wonder what will happen when we are a few iterations further down the line. I suspect we can give apps a task to write something in the style we like, or perhaps the style the AI app learned by analysing our own historical written text. This could have an enormous effect on our writing abilities, and perhaps it will also result in all of us reading even less. Anyways, AI isn't what I want to talk about in this post.
Let's start with the comment I wrote to the "Community Contest #9" post, copy/pasted below...
Super nice prompt: Reading culture in my country. Well, am living in this country of the low lands, the Netherlands. I wonder if we have a reading culture these days. For one, used to read a whole lot of books when I was young, though these days seems I hardly touch a book, though I have plenty of them stacked up, close for grabs. Seem to get distracted by all sorts of other things, including HIVE and whatnot. Having said that, most of my friends don't read books. None have an e-reader. I suspect, our reading culture is diminishing. It's very unfortunate, but I suppose that is the fact. Ah well, can't be a fact without proof, so I shall rephrase: It seems the Dutch reading culture isn't that great anymore. Fortunately, still, some bookshops around, and still some authors publish books. I shall up my game regarding reading again, that is a kinda promise to myself for this spring and summer.
Still, the same day I posted this comment, my consciousness was slowly bombarded with all sorts of book experiences and memories collected throughout my life. More about that very very soon, just hang in there for a small-ish paragraph 😉
I had to do some research; Basically through PreSearch-ing the gigantic universe of the web aka The Internet. I came to some interesting results. Apparently, since 1975, the average time spent by a Dutch resident reading is slowly decreasing year-on-year. I guess I tried to balance that since it was around that time I started increasing the amount of reading, a whole lot. End of the 70s and most of the 80s, I read tons of books. I guess round about the time I went to Uni, I slowed down again. Magazines I rarely read in my life. Newspapers I read when I was in my 20s and early 30s before I stopped my daily subscription. In the meantime, WWW was born. I saw myself spending more and more time reading through the digital highway. Mostly news I suppose, at first at least. Later when The Internet got more interesting with tons more content, I started to read almost anything, from background in-depth news articles, research papers, to online books and whatnot. Owww, I shall not forget about HIVE blog posts 😉
Addressing the Writing Prompt
As mentioned I did my research. And yes, reading time has been in decline for the last 50-odd years. However, still today on average Dutch residents read 50 minutes a day, of which newspapers (16min), books (12min), the Internet (7min), News-sites and apps (6min), magazines (5min) -- source 1 (master website) -- source 2 (research paper in PDF).
Uhm, this is where I learned reading the Internet also counts as reading. Not sure why reading e-mails isn't part of the breakdown. I have days I read tons of them 😂
Note: I hyperlink all the sources. Don't worry. They are real. No scamming intended. But be careful! A lot to digest and all in the Dutch language. If you ask me, don't click them, it'll eat too much of your free time. I'll feel bad when taking that from you 😉
Somewhere else I read the average Dutch resident reads about 9 books a year. Uhm, interesting. Assuming the average book has 250 pages, this counts to 2250 pages a year, which equals around 6 pages a day. 12 minutes reading 6 pages. That feels like pretty fast reading. Well, it all depends on the font size and paper size I suppose. I must admit, last so many years (say: last 2 decades) I balanced this number on the negative side. Perhaps 1 maybe 2 books a year? Tops! I suppose ok since I need to balance the 1 to 3 books a week in my kid, child and teenager era. Back then the Library was one of my biggest friends.
A few years ago, I made it back to a Library again. Nope, not to read, or collect books to read somewhere else, but to get some work done with a colleague when the country was in lockdown. Plenty of room back then, since most peeps didn't dare to enter the massive building. I was told by those visiting more regularly, usually mucho more busy. I never checked to be honest. I suppose, am too lazy? 🙃 Soon after we started working, we were asked to be quiet. We couldn't since we had to work out certain things and wanted to use sound instead of text to discuss and agree on how to progress. We found ourselves cut short on our afternoon session in the Library itself. The Library bar gave us relief though. Talking was allowed. The coffee was decent enough. We could progress and achieve our goal of the day. Thank you, Library Bar 🙇
Kinda interesting I never visited the Library anymore for proper reading or lending books. Since my Uni years, I don't have subscriptions anymore. From time to time I buy books. Sometimes fresh from the press. But more often from this second-hand book shop around the corner where I live. Tons of good books this guy has. All the classics I learned about when in high school, and mucho more! On offer for 1 or 2 Euros only! Sometimes 3, 4 or even 6 Euros, but rarely at the higher end. Regularly I see myself flipping through the books in carton boxes in front of the shop. From time to time I buy a book or two. Some of them are in the piles in the photograph that serves as the thumbnail to this post. Unfortunately, I don't have a photograph of the shop's interior. Completely loaded with books. Almost no room to manoeuvre. The walls aren't visible. All books, books and more books. In cupboards, stacked up from tables and even from the ground. Amazing how the owner knows exactly what he has and where to find it!
From Books to Shelving a Concept
It was this shop that gave me an idea back in 2014. A year after I heard about Bitcoin. 2014 was the year I got in contact with an Israelian company (AppCoin) that just launched a community marketplace. With their own token. A white-labelled service. The latter inspired me, and almost immediately thought how cool it would be to have a second-hand marketplace based on tokens. Especially since the tokens didn't have a bridge to fiat currencies, intentionally. Since the concept was to offer a community token to support in-community tasks and transactions.
Back then, our own 'Craiglist' (Marktplaats) listed a bit more than 1 Million books for sale. 1.121.013 to be exact (yes, I found my research on an older laptop). It was the second category, just below children and baby stuff. One million books in an online marketplace sounded super cool to me. Funnily enough, today Marktplaats lists over 2M books, to be more exact 2,35M in total. More readers? More peeps selling their books because they don't want to read? Or just that Craiglist type of marketplaces are more used by a larger part of society? I suspect the latter.
Anyways, back in 2014, after several discussions with the AppCoin team, having signed an NDA in the process, I felt the whole second-hand book market is super interesting but super hard to activate. Did a lot of business case calculations, using cheap labour to digitize books from eg second-hand book shops and a student-based delivery service on bike and train (back then, students could travel with public transport for free, or almost for free), I decided it was still hard to establish, would cost quite a bit of funds, while the service itself wouldn't generate any fiat money. AppCoin didn't want to build a bridge to the fiat world. Rightly so for them, but for me it wasn't the solution I needed. Then I wandered off to focus on other things and never ever thought of that episode in my life anymore. Until after I dropped the comment to this HIVE Book Club contest 😉 Somehow I still feel the urge to bring second-hand books to some web3-based marketplaces with a super simple web2-like user experience. But the manual work to onboard much of the content of second-hand book shops, to kickstart the marketplace, is still tremendous therefore I still keep this idea shelved. Perhaps in a decade or two; When paper books become a rarity; When bookshops are closed; When AI made me unemployed; I rethink this proposition 🙃
Bookcase Rooms
Don't mind me, I had to include this paragraph (and the next one) after I thought I finished the post. I'll be brief. In 2016 I got involved in an hotel. Don't ask me how, but let's say I helped out. By now, two hotels, one in Amsterdam and one in Rotterdam. "Why do I mention these hotels?", you may ask. "What does this have to do with books?" Well, both hotels have these corridor-long bookshelves with hidden doors to rooms. The so-called bookcase rooms. The founder is a kinda hustler and was offered for no apparent reason to collect tons of books. Like hustlers are, he jumped on the opportunity and subsequently had to find a solution for all these books. Together with the interior designer, the bookcase rooms were invented. Now it's part of the concept. The second hotel in Rotterdam also got corridor long bookshelves. The third, fourth and fifth will get them for sure as well. Soon and the world will be swamped with books 😂
Libraries Everywhere
Throughout the city of Amsterdam, we have book fans offering books to peeps in the street. Free to take. Free to fill. Honestly, I sometimes wonder why these are not all taken, or even worse, vandalised. But I suspect, even those that make amok, respect the written word so much, they leave these street libraries untouched. Some of the bookcases are so beautiful... Don't you think?
'Boekenweek' for Children and one for (so-called) Adults 🙃
Back to the topic... Reading Culture. Every year we have the week-of-the-book, promoting the act of reading books. Each year, one of our Dutch writers write a special book for this event, sold against cost price. To entice peeps to start reading books. The official website: Boekenweek. Boekenweek = Book Week in Dutch. At the end of the Boekenweek, the insiders, writers, publishers and whatnot are gathering at the so-called Boekenbal, Dutch for Book Ball. Plenty of them hit the late news, some even drunks and all. Fun to see. I sometimes ask myself to take on the adventure to try to get in myself. Since HIVE (well the predecessor of HIVE) am a writer myself, therefore they should let me in to allow me to get shitfaced and subsequently appear on television 😂
Every year a similar event is held around children's books (official website: Children Book Week). With all sorts of adventures and tours through Libraries and book shops for children and their parents to enjoy 'the book'. It is said the number of children's books sold during and weeks after the event, increases quite a lot. Six out of 10 parents with children up to the age of 12, know about this children-book-week (source). 50% say they bought a book or lent a book based on this campaign. One-third of the parents engaged with one of the planned events. Quite nice numbers! And all stimulated not only by Libraries but also by private donations and even our government, local and national. I suppose our politicians like us to read. Perhaps not too bad to have politicians 😂
Almost Endnote
Long story short, though the youngsters in my country seem to read less and less, the middle age to elderly age groups seem to read more or continue to read as much as they did decades ago, kinda. Saw so many graphs and numbers. My head is spinning. And is also a bit boring, perhaps. Therefore I won't bore you with more of these 😉
Belonging to the middle age group myself, I shall get myself to read books (of the paper kind) more often again. That's a promise I made myself. Time will tell if I keep my promise 😉 Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. It's kinda random 😂
Some Questions for You
What books are you reading at the moment?
Do you read more than one book at a time?
What is your favourite cultural element around and about books?
Do you think scenario writers are writers? They seem to like a writing stop pfff 😂
