The Manifesto of the Future of Books is born. Delivered today to Minister Sangiuliano

After a year of appointments and initiatives around books and reading, Ivrea Italian Book Capital 2022 today presented the Manifesto for the Future of Books, handing it over to Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano representing the entire country.

Divided into 22 points and 99 keywords, the Manifesto for the Future of the Book is the legacy of Ivrea Italian Book Capital 2022 and intends to focus on the most essential issues for the contemporary publishing world as it looks to the future of reading.

The document has been one of the central themes of Ivrea’s project since its candidacy, so much so that it was among the cornerstones of the dossier with which the City presented itself with the goal of being, for a year, a true national platform for discussion around reading and the themes of the publishing world.

The Manifesto is the final outcome of a path of analysis and confrontation that involved more than 150 participants (representatives and professionals from the publishing and cultural world) divided into four meetings held in collaboration with the Turin International Book Fair and Ipsos; in addition to these are the appointments held for the preparation of the dossier with the participation of eighty representatives of the book communities: publishers, writers, readers, booksellers, librarians, teachers and digital operators. The reflection developed around three lines, already drawn in the application phase and a common thread of the activity throughout the year: quantity/quality, physical/digital, iconic/didactic.

The Manifesto for the Future of the Book.

From access to reading to cultural welfare via dialogue, languages, and resources, the Manifesto for the Future of the Book offers a concrete contribution as it touches on the indispensable issues for book policies and actions to engage and develop reading.

Reading has long been an action for a few, for the privileged, for men, for adults. Then reading went the way of democracy; the Enlightenment and encyclopedism were the basis of the French Revolution, and dictatorships have always, first, tried to destroy the passion for reading. Today reading is synonymous with democracy and freedom; it is the tool to grow humanly and socially, to gain true independence of self. Always thanks to books and reading we learn, explore new worlds, travel through history, push our thinking beyond the expected and derive pleasure from it. A pleasure repeatedly recounted and analyzed, which piques curiosity, an engine for the discovery of self and society, of looking beyond the mirror and into the mirror.

This is why Ivrea Italian Book Capital strongly believed that a manifesto for the future of books and reading was useful and necessary: to never forget how much freedom and awareness, in a unique and not otherwise comparable way, can give us this extraordinary object and action that identifies us as human beings.

The final text was drafted by Paolo Verri (Coordinator of Ivrea 2022 Italian Book Capital) and Enzo Risso (Scientific Director of Ipsos and professor at La Sapienza University of Rome).

The Manifesto for the Future of the Book will be public and anyone can download, use, publish and share it. The open file will be made available on the official website of Ivrea Italian Book Capital 2022 https://ivreacapitaledellibro.it/.

The year of Ivrea Italian Book Capital.

Designated on Feb. 16, 2022, actually taking office the following June, Ivrea Italian Book Capital has built a program that has placed books and reading in dialogue with art, music, and the performing arts, according to the dossier’s design lines (quantity/quality, physical/digital, iconic/didactic).

More than 250 events were held during the year, 40 of which were organized directly by the City of Ivrea, plus 120 supported within the calls for local involvement, and more than 70 sponsored. The program also counted 17 exhibitions, 11 of which were directly organized. Also counted were more than 50,000 total attendance and about 1,000 releases in the local and national press including articles, reports, radio and TV interviews.

The thanks of the City of Ivrea and the Book Capital organization go to all partners and supporters, both public and private, whose contributions made the event possible.

The title of Italian Book Capital will pass to Genoa, designated for 2023 and represented by Mayor Marco Bucci present at the delivery of the Manifesto for the Future of Books.

Research on reading habits.

To support the project, Ivrea Book Capital commissioned Ipsos to conduct research on reading habits, conducted in February 2023. The data tell what readers Italians are, what they look for in reading, what influences their choices, what relationship they have with libraries, book influencers, the price of books, whether they like physical or digital books more. In addition, the data brings into focus some generational differences between baby boomers and Generation Z providing interesting data on the evolution of reading choices.

Prominent among the data that emerge is that on text comprehension: while 32 percent of respondents read without difficulty, as many as 17 percent struggle to understand what they read. This percentage rises for younger age groups, reaching 30 percent among those between 25 and 34 years old.
Thirty-seven percent describe themselves as avid readers, and only 18 percent feel that they fall into the big readers, with a slightly higher peak for women reaching 22 percent. The biggest brake on reading seems to be laziness, cited as the cause by 11% of respondents.
Reading is a relaxing time for 35 percent of respondents, escapist for 30 percent and educational for 28 percent, a figure that drops 10 percentage points in Generation Z.
Classic novels top the preferences except for Generation Z, which prefers fantasy, science fiction, mystery and crime.
Another chapter of the research concerns ebooks. The passion for the paper book remains firm both as a medium and more generally as an object, so much so that it is preferred by 70% of the sample and appreciated by 89% for the possibility of being leafed through. Despite this, 63% of respondents are confident that ebooks will become the most popular form of publishing in the coming years.
The survey also delves into the motivations behind the choice of books. While the national average points to exposure in bookstores (27%), recommendations from friends (25%), reviews on websites (22%), and reviews in newspapers or magazines (20%) at the top of the list, the figure changes in Generation Z, which relies on different sources. Reviews on websites (23%), recommendations from friends (23%) and those from family members (21%) remain the same, while bookstore displays (17% vs. 27% national average), bookstore reviews (6% vs. 15% national average), bookseller recommendations (7% vs. 13% national average) drop considerably below the national average, perhaps highlighting a difficulty in the relationship among the under-25s with bookstores. Also worth noting is the low influence of TV tips (8% vs. 12% national average), perhaps linked to a low enjoyment of traditional TV by younger groups.
The relationship with libraries is also complex for Generation Z: in fact, only 45 percent consider it useful to support them for the future of the country, a figure that reaches 70 percent in the national average. Italians imagine the library of the future as an open and multifunctional place: a point of reference to find paper books of all kinds, even the most unobtainable ones (50 percent); in close synergy with schools to educate citizens about culture from an early age (44 percent); a place where it is possible to participate in events and courses (37 percent); smart and with a wide digital book lending offer (27 percent).
What drives people to bookstores? At the top of the list we find the desire to spend time among the shelves and be attracted by the covers (39 percent), followed by flipping through the book and even starting to read a few pages (34 percent).
A relevant fact concerns book influencers. If 34% of Italians know book influencers, the percentage rises to 55% in Generation Z, confirming the influence of digital in the choices of this slice of the public, so much so that 38% of the under-25s interviewed confirm that they play a fundamental role in pushing teenagers to read.
The research was curated by Enzo Risso, Scientific Director of Ipsos P.A. and professor of audience studies Sapienza University of Rome, and Eva Sacchi, Research Director of Ipsos P.A.

Statements

“A noble project, the one curated by Ivrea Italian Capital of the Book, which in this year has managed to distinguish itself by achieving a twofold objective: to put the City back at the center of citizens’ cultural life and to strengthen the value of the book as a tool for civil growth and social integration. The book is not an object, the book is a world: between the pages of so many volumes lies the collective memory of our nation, and it is therefore crucial not to disperse the transmission of this knowledge, especially in the digital age. The marriage between books and technology can be a happy one, but we need appropriate tools to make this relationship a virtuous example. These days we have marked a first success in Parliament in the fight against piracy, which is also publishing piracy. This important step forward, together with the Manifesto presented today, help us chart a successful course,” said Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano.

“An exciting year for Ivrea Italian Book Capital is drawing to a close; in these months books and reading have dialogued with visual arts, sculpture and music, and now, in the presence of Culture Minister Sangiuliano, we deliver our Manifesto to the future,” said Ivrea Mayor Stefano Sertoli. “Once again Ivrea knows how to be a vanguard of reflection and a forge of innovative proposals as demonstrated by its history of thought, innovation, design, community involvement and recognized by UNESCO as an exceptional universal value.”

“We have fulfilled the mandate that the Minister of Culture gave Ivrea for the whole country,” highlighted Costanza Casali, Ivrea’s Councillor for Culture. “Ivrea has been the heart of a national reflection on books, precisely at a time when, also because of the pandemic, the habits of Italians have greatly changed. A reading survey was conducted on a large representative sample of the whole of Italy. Today, after a busy year of high-level events with great public participation, the Italian Book Capital leaves a city where cultural ferment is tangible and has increased exponentially. In addition, urban regeneration interventions have been carried out, made possible also thanks to the achievement of the title. In addition, long overdue interventions have been initiated. For example, we have begun work on the Olivetti Library’s Fund A donated to the City 50 years ago: cataloguing and inclusion in the national library network is at an advanced stage. Another important legacy of this year’s Capital is the GROMA Study outlining the guidelines for the new Ivrea Library, a new cultural heart of the city whose work will begin in the coming months.”

“I am satisfied because with the presentation of the Manifesto we have completed to the best of our ability the commitments we had made with the candidacy dossier, which has been carried out in its entirety,” concluded Paolo Verri, program curator of Ivrea Italian Book Capital 2022. “Now we need to work on the legacy of this project, starting with the new library and the use of redeveloped spaces such as Palazzo Giusiana. It will be possible to continue thanks also to the well-established collaboration with Cepell and the Piedmont Region, as well as with the city of Genoa to which we hand over a title rich in value and future.”

Photo by Ernani Orcorte

The Manifesto of the Future of Books is born. Delivered today to Minister Sangiuliano

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