Il silent book club, ovvero leggere insieme, in silenzio, in biblioteca

Abstract

The municipal library of Corbetta, which is part of the Milanese library system Fondazione Per Leggere, created, in September 2018, the first Italian Silent Book club joining a project born in 2012 in the United States on the initiative of Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich. The aim of the project was to engage readers who like reading in companionable silence the book they prefer, sharing their passion for books with others. The initiative is an original way to encourage individual and silent reading which requires time and concentration, skills that are not so common in the younger generations, because of the transformations of the neuronal circuits caused by digital reading. This experience can also help to conceive the library not only as a place where to borrow books or where to consult documents but as an authentic immersive reading space.