01 Sep The DERT Manifesto
Our name is DERT. We are reader activists here to campaign for change in the field of literacy. To revive literacy, we first call for books to be curated locally for community enrichment. We propose a model of book-selling to help communities rediscover books not through genres but by displays and treatments which draw out themes that interconnect among books. These themes are not categories but nothing less than authentic human visions.
DERT in principle stands for the essence of book culture: literacy, print, iconoclasm, and now, crucially, book interactivity. A holistic future for literacy depends on a fast and seamless delivery of books with dynamic learning features. DERT is the movement to revive the beauty and materiality of books as means to spread literacy. Accordingly, we will treat our online store as a hub for dynamic enhancement of the book in the 21st Century.
Literacy is now digital and social instead of just cognitive. So, to revive literacy through book-selling we should re-align selling as innovative and interactive. Instead of selling stacks of books as artifacts, we will integrate into our physical spaces design and technological treatments to enhance human interactivity with books. We will focus on deploying these tools on behalf of our primary cause to teach interactive literacy. DERT stands for a 21st Century activism that will guide the unfolding of the future of books. Only a human social project–a movement–can reawaken holistic book culture. This project demands the networked expertise of our reader activists: book lovers, artisans, technophiles, educators, and entrepreneurs, all across global communities. Our activists will build bridges among communities to marshal the fight to curate books. The end goal of this group is to declare, convey and instill passion for all forms of books, whether print or virtual, as objects of true learning and technologies for advancement.
