Abstract

Reading has a multiple condition subject to very different interpretations depending on the perspectives from which it is approached, but there is a general consensus about its virtues and benefits for the population in general and for the development of culture in particular. The technological changes that it has undergone in the last decade, which involve all the actors in its value chain, have added functionalities, features and modalities that considerably expand the range of available content and its forms of consumption. One can speak of a reading in the open both to designate these new practices and to name the interpretation that is made of them according to the available measurement tools. The problem arises when analyzing the step from the act of reading to the affirmation of "I have read". And this is particularly important in the case of books, assumed in the collective unconscious as the most refined expression of reading practice, because given their chronodegradable condition, in terms of memory, statements about what is read can refer to non-existent works, from the point of view of its weight and the intensity of the memory, as numerous experiences and investigations have shown. Despite everything, reading books constitutes a mobilization of essential skills, especially in the university environment, in which the book is suffering an unappealable displacement in favor of other shorter and cognitively accessible genres, such as scientific articles. For all these reasons, the necessary procedures must be activated in the university to recover the role of prescription and recommendation inherent in teaching practices, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, in order to arouse interest and use by students. of a genre relegated to an increasingly less consistent voluntarism.

Abstract

The scientific communication habits and practices of the new wave of Spanish researchers are analyzed based on the results of an international survey (2019). The results obtained from 100 participants support those previously obtained from interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018 in Spain under the Harbingers Project, and show similarities to and differences from those collected from the mentioned survey in other countries covered by the Project in its second phase. Spanish researchers have two contradictory faces: They are innovative in their perceptions but slightly less so in their practices regarding open access and the use of social media. However, these new attitudes and habits are motivated by a desire to promote their own work and gain recognition; In this sense, they are conservative. The competition in which they are immersed regarding the achievement of tenure and, therefore, the need to focus on their abilities that will be evaluated represent a limitation on enjoying the learning process and dedicating themselves to the practices of open science to which their generation is naturally prone.