Zachowania lekturowe Polaków : problemy i kategorie opisu czytelnictwa

Abstract

The issue of current empirical and methodological self-awareness of bibliology in relation to the questions of readership and the direction of research was analyzed based on scientific publications from the past decade. The goal was to determine what contributes to the specificity and value of bibliological readership research, at the same time establishing the research needs in this area. Bibliology seems to synthesize the knowledge of other sciences addressing research of readership habits to the greatest extent. It incorporates reading attitudes of the audience (choices, preferences, competences — overall reading culture); aspects of social communication (the role of a reader in a book’s existence as its manufacturer, distributor, and consumer); and finally, symbolic culture phenomena (text valuation, creating relevant repertoires — individual, institutional, and national). Readership processes and phenomena mirror various aspects of book culture, and book culture itself is both a record of readership practices and patterns. The author postulates intensification of research - in both historical and contemporary aspects — on audiences, which are actual readership communities; exploration of these communities is necessary for a full, credible description of model readership communities (women, peasants, gentry…), as well as the general public (ethnic, local, national…). A narrow understanding of the anthropological approach to research of book culture phenomena (often limited in research to a singled-out aspect and type of sources — of biographical nature) is inappropriately narrow. According to the author, proper bibliology is — to some extent — anthropology of culture as well.