House of Reading: much more than a literary club for the University of Cundinamarca

This year at the Facatativá campus, we were fortunate to open a space for a book club. It began with a small pilot group, followed by a survey to assess its relevance. The virtual space was then offered through the Teams platform so that interested individuals could connect. For the opening process, Jaime Alberto Gómez Barbosa, the leading knowledge and learning manager from the Humanities Department, implemented a series of steps and activities to promote reading. These activities benefit both the University and the region, as promoting reading also fosters a culture of listening and social dialogue.

The sequence of activities to open the literary club and implement other related activities had the support of the leaders of the CGCA and University Welfare of the Facatativá extension, Carolina Guzmán and Alejandra Bonilla, who provided supplies and spaces for the meeting and have been key allies for different activities.

The phases that were developed were:

1) Dissemination and piloting through in-person workshops during August, with a control group. This allowed for the design of activities and the collection of feedback. It served as a pilot to open the space to the entire Facatativá campus. With the interested student groups, the schedule was agreed upon for Tuesdays from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm; however, this conflicted with many people, so it was later migrated to a virtual format.

2) A diagnostic assessment of reading habits, educational interests, and virtual learning communities was conducted through a survey and various interviews. We found that reading practices vary between programs and platforms (Wallpad or Godreads, for example), and also that Mario Mendoza and Gabriel García Márquez are the most recognized authors overall. Based on these findings, the advertising and logo were designed, and the campaign was launched.

Dissemination and the launch of the digital format on Thursdays from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Since suspense and horror are highly requested genres, and it was October, we had the perfect opportunity to discuss horror, the stories of Poe, Lovecraft, Bloch, Maupassant, and others. We discovered that The Simpsons has a very literal episode about E.A. Poe's "The Raven"; serial killer podcasts like "Serialmente"; TV series; and punk rock music that evokes some of these stories.

What skills does reading develop in human beings?

Reading is much more than reading books, and the House of Reading is much more than a book club. Reading is about taking a stand, feeling it, imagining it, projecting it. It is the act of making sense by formulating hypotheses, verifying them, and moving forward following the traces left by words imagined by an author imagined by something else. Reading is the act of nourishing oneself, of feeding dreams in order to find one's place in the world, to know how to make decisions in this drama that is life itself.

To project our existence, to speak with our own voices to see if we can reach an understanding within ourselves. Reading is the best tool for making good decisions, for navigating the labyrinth of reality, for untangling it. To open the world to expand our own frame of reference, refining our taste. For this reason, and because we all bring it to life together, and because we all have something to contribute and something to learn, we invite everyone to participate next semester.

In addition to this reading project, which is narratively called "Thematic Labyrinth" because the world is a labyrinth, the House of Reading, led by academic manager Gómez, includes the Grammar Olympics and some related activities. During the first semester of this year, Laura Bonilla, a psychology student from the Facatativá campus, won the first Grammar Olympics.

In this second semester, the winner was Bodereck Triviño from Zipaquirá. Among the related activities, we held the "Resisting with Letters" Hackathon at the CGCA, as well as story reading sessions for children and families on Sweet Day, October 31st, film forums with horror short films at the CGCA, Pensador, and the opportunity for everyone to listen to each other and find common ground.

People and interests similar to our own. Remember: your interest, your passion, your need, your problem; whatever it is that keeps you up at night, that's your key to developing critical reading. Surely there's someone, just like a book, with whom you can express it and find it. If you can do it with us, even better.

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