Mita Society for Library and Information Science 195th Monthly Meeting: "The Computational Study of Reader Response" (Speaker: Dr. Federico Pianzola (Assistant Professor of Computational Humanities, Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, The Netherlands))

2025/03/24

Abstract

Collections of printed books have been developed and maintained for centuries, but ordinary readers’

responses to books have rarely been documented in a systematic way. As a consequence, we know very

little about what people think and feel while reading, and about the impact that books have on them.

However, in the 21st century, there is a wealth of data coming from digital platforms used for reading or

posting book reviews that offer an unprecedented insight into the lives of readers. In this presentation, by comparing various platforms and languages, I show what online comments and book reviews can tell us about how teenagers read and what impact fiction has on their lives. I use computational methods

that allow me to extend the analysis to thousands of comments and reviews, revealing general patterns

and differences across platforms, reading communities, languages, and cultures.

Collections of printed books have been developed and maintained for centuries, but the responses of ordinary readers to books have rarely been systematically documented. As a result, we knew very little about what people think and feel while reading, and what impact books have on them. However, in the 21st century, a wealth of data has become available from digital platforms used for reading and posting book reviews, offering unprecedented insights into the lives of readers. In this presentation, by comparing various platforms and languages, I will show what online comments and book reviews can reveal about how teenagers read and the impact fiction has on their lives. Furthermore, by using computational methods to analyze thousands of comments and reviews, I will reveal general patterns that transcend differences across platforms, reading communities, languages, and cultures.

Biography:

Federico Pianzola is Assistant Professor of Computational Humanities at the University of Groningen

(Netherlands), where he coordinates the Master’s in Digital Humanities. He is the Principal Investigator

of the ERC Starting Grant project GOLEM (Graphs and Ontologies for Literary Evolution Models) and

previously completed a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship at the University of Milan-Bicocca

(Italy) and Sogang University (South Korea). He is member of the scientific advisory board of OPERAS

(the Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and

humanities in the European Research Area) and president of the International Society of the Empirical

Study of Literature (IGEL). He is also managing editor of the journal Scientific Study of Literature and he

is on the editorial board of two other journals: the Journal of Computational Literary Studies and the

Journal of Cultural Analytics.

His most recent book Digital Social Reading: Sharing Fiction in the 21st Century has been published by MIT Press in January 2025.

Federico Pianzola is an Assistant Professor of Computational Humanities at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and serves as the coordinator for the university's Master's in Digital Humanities. He is the Principal Investigator of the ERC (European Research Council) Starting Grant project GOLEM (Graphs and Ontologies for Literary Evolution Models) and previously conducted research at the University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy) and Sogang University (South Korea) under a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship. He is also a member of the scientific advisory board of OPERAS (the Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities in the European Research Area) and president of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL). Furthermore, he serves as the managing editor of the journal Scientific Study of Literature and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Computational Literary Studies and the Journal of Cultural Analytics. His latest book, "Digital Social Reading: Sharing Fiction in the 21st Century," was published by MIT Press in January 2025.

References:

Pianzola, F. (2025). Digital Social Reading: Sharing Fiction in the 21st Century. MIT Press.

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14588.001.0001