An approach to Don Quixote de la Mancha to illustrate the use of conceptual cartography in the study of reading as a historical-cultural practice.

The aim of this work is to suggest some keys for using the new conceptual cartographies for studying reading as a historical and cultural practice. After a brief overview of reading practices, from classical literacy to its new roles in the twenty-first century, an examination ensues of conceptual cartography as a research methodology, focusing on the specific procedure of domain grids linked to information and documental resources for producing advanced information instruments. An analysis of reading of Don Quixote based on this methodology serves as illustration. In this case, domain grids complement a thesaurus made ad hoc in such a way that the superordinate domain grids (Creation, Instruction, Materiality and Preservation) match the hierarchy headings of the thesaurus. As a result, a symbiotic cartographic-documental language is materialized in an integrated information system.