The Reading
Experience Database (RED), run jointly by the Open University, UK and
the British Library's Centre for the Book, was launched on 23 November
1996. RED will record evidence of every type of reading experience over
the period 1450-1914. Initially it will be restricted to reading
experience in the British Isles and reading experience of those born in
the British Isles (so the reading of British travellers abroad and first
generation British and Irish emigrants will be included) but later we hope
to expand the range.
Printed forms on which a reading experience can be recorded are available
from RED. At the same time RED has been launched on the Internet with a home page that
includes an electronic
version of the form so that it is also possible to send examples of
reading experience to RED electronically.
Anyone interested in a particular individual who lived at any time in
Britain during the period 1450-1914 (and who left letters, diaries,
annotated books, etc. which contain evidence of reading experience) should
get in touch with one of RED directors listed below. RED is looking for
volunteers to work their way systematically through such materials in
order to record evidence of reading.
We aim to keep everybody informed of developments in RED by issuing
regular reports on its progress. Within a few years we hope to make the
growing contents of RED available to all those who have contributed to it.
Somewhat later RED will be made accessible to all interested parties.
Further information and copies of the RED record form are available from
either Simon Eliot or Mike Crump.
Dr Simon Eliot, RED, The Open University, 4 Portwall Lane, Bristol BS1
6ND. Internet address: s.j.eliot@rdg.ac.uk
For more information about RED, visit its home page on the Web at http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/RED/