Reading in the library: generative mediation and spaces of co-possibility in reading

Abstract

The article discusses several implications of the research project NEREIDE (NEw Reading Experiences In the Digital Ecosystem), with particular reference to the line of work developed by the Turin sub-unit. At the center of the analysis is the BiblioRAG prototype, conceived as an experimental mediation environment for access to the reading experience in libraries. The contribution starts from the tension identified between the normative models that organize bibliographic resources within library spaces and the situated, mobile, and plural nature of reading practices. Through a brief description of the RAG architecture and the integration of structured metadata with vectorized textual contents, the article shows that BiblioRAG may be configured not merely as a technological tool, but as a ‘dispositif’ capable of making observable new forms of mediation, and therefore new reading environments. Drawing on selected elements from the thought of François Jullien as an interpretative perspective, mediation is reinterpreted as a process of ‘generative mediation’ that renders relations between bibliographic models and reading behaviors ‘com-possible’.