I have the time and I have said this before. Ideas swirling around my head, wanting for a change, seeking a change and finding none. I sit not knowing what or how to do, mind empty made busy by busy work.
In Safiya Noble’s work she talks about how today’s search queries can appear simple to us but buried within those queries is an unawareness of the ‘cognitive and emotional processes embedded in them’ . This is because the machinery behind the scenes, the mechanism of searching for information, is quite complex. Contrast this to what the historical search was like. Then you had a very limited number of avenues to search. You have information collected, stored and organized with card catalogues, print indices and occasionally librarians. Here much more thought, planning and time had to be given over to the search process.
I’ve been working on a piece that talks about the impostor phenomena as it relates to academic librarianship. This is a last minute ‘jump into’ for me but I am learning quite a lot about IP and also wondering how cultural studies might help inform an understanding of IP.
Recently I’ve been reading a number of older papers from the field of library studies and I’m struck by the limits of the field of library studies. In particular I’ve read John M. Budd’s “Epistemonlogical Foundation for Library and Information Science” , Wayne A. Wiegand’s “Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: What the past tells us about the present; reflections on the Twentieth-Century History of American Librarianship” , Michael H. Harris’ “State, Class, and Cultural Reproduction: Toward a Theory of Library Service in the United States” , and Douglas Raber’s “Librarians as Organic Intellectuals: A Gramscian approach to blind spots and Tunnel Vision” just to mention a few.
Common with these articles is that they raise valuable questions regarding the direction of research within the field of librarianship. They notice a pronounce emphasis on the notion of the “practice” of librarianship and very little on how the library constructs its own discourse and what that discourse represents. In this regard the library is seen as a set of trade skills on how to do ‘things’. In of itself I don’t think there is a problem with this approach, but I do think it is too limited, too narrow a focus.
As a result librarians miss seeing the larger social cultural forces at work. For instance I would suggest we might want to see the question regrading Open Access not so much as a technical issue, or even an author’s rights issue, but more of a control power issue. Prior to the advent of our emerging networked environment publishers held the control and power over what was included libraries. The discourse of what was valuable begun with them and they determined the market place. Today its much more complex and no longer can publishers be the sole arbiters. Other publishing models are being explored and tested.
As a result the preexisting lines of control and power can be redrawn in different ways and so by doing so re-positions the library. The library can move away from an active consumer of published material to one that actively engages and supports the active of knowledge production.
Cited Works
What is the academic library? How do we understand this particular institution as it is situated within the American Academic Campus? Nestled within the much larger, more dominate, infrastructure the academic library is that unique conjuncture of the intellectual commons. The academic library can at times become that immediate link between all members of the academic community and that broader intellectual community. But unfortunately this says very little about the academic library and what it is, moreover gives no insight to any understanding this institution.
Commonly when examined the academic library is revealed to us through a number of different lenses. For instance through the lens of technology we see an institution in constant motion, adopting, morphing to the emerging instruments of content management and delivery. Through the lens of the various services offered by the institution (the collecting and organization of resources, the offering of reference/research services which support these resources, etc.) we see an institution unquestionably focused on meeting the day to day needs of those who enter either their physical or virtual doors.
Then there is the way in which the academic library is revealed from it’s place within the broader academic institution. Here, the attempt is to understand those who use the services provided by the academic library. We search to understand the “information gap”, the behavior of the user and to determine whether or not the content provided meet the needs of those who use it. In a slightly different way we also attempt to see the academic library within the context of the university or college mission. Here, understandably the library becomes an extension of the university or college, it becomes part of that larger institutional message.
But the question is, are these modes of understanding adequate? Are they in some way’s too limiting or too narrow in scope? I would suggest that this is indeed the case. While valuable, viewing the academic library through the lens of technology, or services, or within its context of the broader institution is limiting. It artificially narrows our horizon in such a way that we no longer see the forest, but only the trees.
Libraries of any type exist simultaneously within a much broader historical canvas and a cultural context. Libraries in general are, by their very nature, conservative. They not only become the keepers of the past but they also reproduce the existing culture. Maybe this is why when there is revolutionary change we see the destruction of libraries. This is my suggestion as to a direction we need to go in terms of understanding the academic library. In what way is it culturally constructed? What are the various lines force that come together and draw the boundaries of the library?
In a recent post in The Chronicle Hack Hugh Gunderson strongly made the case that its about time that faculty stop giving away for free their work and time to scholarly publishers. His piece is called What to Change Academic Publishing? Just say no and it can be found here: http://chronicle.com/article/Want-to-Change-Academic/134546/. To his broad point a whole heartily and absolutely agree. Any system where the creator gives away their work only to have purchase their work to reuse on something else is nothing more than madness. It is the definition of inefficiency.
More to Hugh’s point he’s absolutely correct, just say no.
And yet there is something missing from this sharp piece. There would be a direct impact is 1/3 or even 1/4 of scholars stood up and in unison said no, but how this might potentially impact academic libraries is another thing. Sure publishers might relent and agree to pay scholars a nominal fee for their work and time. But I can not imagine that publishers would just absorb to cost. No by no means. In fact I would suspect that new cost would be past on to academic libraries. Its the price of doing business.
I think Hugh is right but I also think the on going efforts with Open Access as a complement, an adjunct to an existing publication model, is the more critical piece to an evolving scholarly model.
4WCBX554
We are living in the time of self service. As consumers most of everything we do is centered around self service. Consider banking. With the introduction of online banking we can not only access our account information but additionally we can access many of the services that in the past required our traveling to a central location and interact with a real live human being. Today we can submit the loan application, check our account balances, transfer money and pay bills all from what every device we have at hand. Continue reading
Over the past several weeks a few books have landed on my reading table and like all reading material they come into my life in mid-sentence, mid thought; each demanding that I stop whatever I’m doing and pay attention to them. For many this is not an unknown phenomenon. Like you I always have a pile of reading material that I plan to read but never seem to get around to; every few months I clean out the pile, identifying what I think is important and what is obviously a passing thought. I wish I could say that I carry out this task with a great deal of thought and carefully selection. Like I said, I wish I could say this.
But anyway I digress: