This movement was created by Claudia Gilardoni in July 2011, starting with a mere blog, that soon became a web site, and later coalesced into a social movement for the promotion of Reading. From her position as creator of the site, Claudia has coordinated and oriented all the efforts during the last six years, bringing together educational, social and cultural actors and agencies. A tireless worker, she has devoted most of her professional career to the creation of working networks for reading and the promotion of reading amongst the young in our country. Formally trained as a librarian at the Playa Ancha University in Valparaiso, she later took a Masters degree in administration and business management at the USACH in Santiago. Equipped with these tools, she soon started to lay out plans for improvements in whatever libraries she happened to be working in. At this time, she formed a passionate interest uncovering the true nature of young people’s complex relationships with books and reading.
Starting in 2005, the need to satisfy this curiosity led her to do research for the Consejo de la Cultura y las Artes, on the subjects of Reading Habits and Reading Comprehension amongst Chilean Students. One of her papers was published in the 2006 edition of Calidad de la Educación.
Later on, she was accepted for internships at Cornell and Washington universities. Her most recent internship abroad was in Finland, soaking up knowledge and experience on Reading Habits and the Promotion of Reading at FIER, University of Jyväsklyä’s Center for Education Research.
Currently, she is director of the integrated libraries system of the Universidad del Pacífico, in Santiago. From this position she has been able to contact a variety of relevant actors: foundations, reading referees, culture promoters, editors, etc. Every conversation and work meeting with these actors has led her to see the need for a platform such as Leamos Más: a site in which anyone interested in books, reading promotion, reading comprehension, and other related subjects, may concur, either to gather information, to share their experiences, or meet other interested parties.
Why do we need editorial management?
While considering the creation of a social movement around reading issues, such as Leamos Más, you need the participation of a wide variety of actors, related, either because of their work or their lifestyles, to books and reading. Teachers, editors, academics, writers, students, illustrators, etc., they all work, from their particular angle, for the promotion of reading.
We believe that the ever growing specialization in our fields has brought knowledge, but also isolation and dispersion of efforts while applying it. Therefore, at Leamos Más we value teamwork; we know that, even though specialists from different fields may have dissimilar views, our joint efforts will prove more productive than individual endeavors. We are convinced that useful applied knowledge is built through discussion, participation, and above all, the will to contribute to collective learning. This is why coordination is required in order to bring together multiple inputs and build up a working network that will facilitate and optimize our work, avoiding unnecessary duplication of efforts. Good practices, examples, successful case studies – and also failures – will be presented to all parties interested in learning and perfecting their skills.