Revamped research project

Well, with only 6 weeks left in the semester, I'm finally getting down to some kind of research project I can take on with at least a modest level of interest. I've sort of given up on excitement. Maybe as I get better at coming up with ideas and translating them into doable projects, I'll be able to preserve some of the initial excitement, but for now, I just need to get started.

Of the 5 or so things that I noted in my last post that were interesting to me, blogs as scholarship was the one that simultaneously satisfied the requirements of rtf and drt (radio, television and film and doctoral research and theory), allowing me to do one research project that supplies the base for a paper on state of theory and research on the topic, and for actual field research after I finish my own experiment in blogging a research paper (The effects of mass digitization on copyright law and policy). So here's how it came down:


How are blogs affecting legal scholarship?

Legal scholars pursue different strategies to communicate with their peers and the public about their research during its various stages. Some methods of communicating are very informal; others, such as journal publication, are quite formal. Some are better adapted to early stages, for example, vetting ideas and finding collaboration partners; others are designed to facilitate the later stages of formal communication of the outcomes of research to the public or to other scholars. How do the unique qualities of a blog including, among others, its public, interactive nature, the typically short length of blog posts, the informality of blog communicative style, the ability to link to other documents on the Web (perhaps instead of providing full citations), and the ease with which blog posts may be published (constituting “instant” publishing) situate it among the various modes of communication already in use by legal scholars? How are legal scholars using blogs today, and in what ways might blogs expand opportunities to communicate more effectively or efficiently? How might blogs affect the forms of existing legal scholarship, such as the law review article, amicus brief, academic press monograph, or treatise?

Strategies to investigate the state of research and theory
regarding how blogs are affecting legal scholarship

1. Review class readings for theoretical perspectives most likely to aid the determination of the state of theory with respect to research on the effect of blogs on scholarship.

2. Conduct searches within the UT Libraries' databases most likely to contain the results of research on this subject (upon recommendation of Library bibliographer for information studies and my own experimentation): Emerald Insight; ERIC; Information Science and Technology Abstracts; Library Information Science and Technology Abstracts; Library and Information Science; Library Literature and Information Science Full Text; Primary Search; Communications of the ACM; Westlaw (law review articles).

3. Conduct searches on Google and Google Scholar; review Web pages I have bookmarked on the subject, including scholarly blogs and blogs whose authors are writing about blogs as scholarship (searches limited to blogs, on subject of blogs as scholarship).

4. Review the abstracts of papers prepared for the recent Association of Internet Researchers conference in Vancouver, CA that address blogs as scholarship, and write to the authors for copies of their papers, if any.

5. I have been reviewing this literature for about three weeks. Most of the papers I have found on the subject of blogs as scholarship do not appear to report the results of research. I would characterize them as thoughtful, personal observations and descriptions, even those presented within the context of scholarly symposiums devoted to the subject of blogs as scholarship. Some even explicitly state that they are not the result of "systematic study or theorizing" (Solum, 2006). There does not appear to be much, if any, research on the subject at this time. Perhaps I will be able to draw some conclusions about what questions could be researched based on what has been written so far, and what theories might be fruitful ones through which to think about the phenomenon (see below).

6. More general research on related subjects applies to how blogs are affecting legal scholarship. For example, there is a large body of research on the subject of how new technologies become integrated into practice; established and changing patterns of scholarly communication (including the concepts of the invisible and virtual colleges); the evolving business of scholarly publishing; investigations into the ways universities need to manage the research process and related information needs in light of technological change; and research into virtual communities, virtual teamwork and social software/social networking (Ginoni, Merrick, & Willson, 2005). Because these areas are much too broad as described here, I need advice about how to learn something about them without its taking the rest of my life, or indeed, whether I should be looking into these areas at all.

Schools of thought that may be helpful for thinking about the topic

1. Social constructivist approach to the study of how scholarly community deals with new forms of communication; the dialectical relationship between the individual blogger and the socio-cultural academic milieu (Talja, Tuominen, & Savolainen, 2005, p. 85); how the legal scholarly community constructs its information (documentary) universe (p. 86); studying legal information by thinking of knowledge domains as thought or discourse communities (p. 87)

2. Constructionist approach to scholarly discourse analysis (differences between or among forms such as the journal article, legal listserv, conference papers, blogs); focus on rhetoric, argumentation and language use (epistemological constructionism) (Talja et al., 2005, p. 91); or focus on language and the "scholarly organization, technical artifacts, economic and ecological structures" (ontological constructionism) (p. 91); analyze the discourse about “blogs as scholarship” itself; focus "on the institutional practices governing the production, interpretation, organization, circulation and availability of knowledge, interpretations and documents" (p. 92).

3. Pragmatist and neo-pragmatist + sociocultural approach -- what are the goals of scholarly communication and does blogging help to achieve them; blog as community, representing shared beliefs, as much as a means of acquiring/sharing information (Sundin & Johannisson, 2005, p. 37); who and what determines the value of a scholarly communication tool (p. 24); how does the legal system of creating knowledge, and a blog's role in it in particular, shape the way scholars act and think (Willinsky, 2006, p. 9)?

4. Documentalist approach -- the social life of blogs (the role of blogs in legal academic life); the practices that specify which kinds of statements can be used in which types of documents, and that can legitimate blogs as stable authorship (Frohmann, 2002, p. 6).

5. Blogs as boundary objects (Van House, 2004, p. 56): "plastic enough to adapt to local needs; have different specific identities in different communities; robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites and be a locus of shared work." Sounds like a blog to me.

References

Frohmann, B. (2002). Discourse and documentation: Some implications for pedagogy and research. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 42(1), 13-28.

Ginoni, P. W., Merrick, H., & Willson, M. A. (2005). Scholarly communities, e-research literacy and the academic librarian. Electronic Library, 24(6,2006), 734-746.

Solum, L. B. (2006). Blogging and the Transformation of Legal Scholarship. Paper presented at the Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship.

Sundin, O., & Johannisson, J. (2005). Pragmatism, neo-pragmatism and sociocultural theory: Communicative participation as a perspective in LIS. Journal of Documentation, 61(1), 23-43.

Talja, S., Tuominen, K., & Savolainen, R. (2005). “Isms” in information science: Constructivism, collectivism, and constructionism. Journal of Documentation, 61(1), 79-101.

Van House, N. (2004). Science and technology studies and information studies. In B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology (Vol. 38, pp. 3-86). Medford, N.J.: Information Today.

Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Fall semester's classes

Fall semester starts next Wednesday, actually, Thursday for me because I don't have a Wednesday class, but I'm already reading articles for the first day's meeting. Phil assigned 6 articles about research in the field of information studies. That and his 74 page syllabus round out a full weekend's concentrated effort. Nevertheless, I took off a full 4 hours this morning to work diligently in the garden. It was a beautiful morning, everything needed pruning, fertilizing and in some cases, transplanting, to prepare it for the 3 month-long fall growing season here in Austin (we expect first frost around Thanksgiving each year).

Now I'm reading, reviewing my fellow Ph.D. students' blogs and websites to find out what each one is studying, well, not every one, but the ones I know already, and others if they are into anything similar to what interests me, at the moment. So, I'm getting some ideas for how to tweak this blog to make it a little more useful as a collection of important information related to my work at the iSchool. I need to add some static pages, but I'm not sure Blogger does that. In fact, I don't recall anything about that. I'll check when I'm finished with this post.

For now, it's enough to get back into the habit of organizing readings, writing papers, and beginning the process of thinking about where my interests fit into the grand scheme of things within info studies. Some of the articles I read made me feel that I don't fit in at all. I seem to come at it from a different perspective than the articles indicate most people who are attracted to this field come from. I don't really think about representing information. I just think about supporting research and scholarship, and how that will change as the forms of scholarly communication change. I guess I'm not thinking about the mechanics of helping people actually, but whether that will be done in any way remotely like it's done today, say in 10 years or 20 years.

This doesn't seem to fit in with what I'm reading about research in the field. But then Lance Hayden's critical discourse analysis around red light surveillance doesn't seem to fit in either and he was accepted to candidacy on Thursday. I'm pretty sure there's room for people whose interests seem a bit tangential perhaps, but with the changes in the definition of what information studies is, should come changes in what kinds of people the field attracts. And these articles are all pretty old, at least by my standards (from the 90's). But that's another issue. Enough for now.

Summer session is over and maybe I'll have some time to think now

I just read an email from a fellow iSchooler, Maggie DeBaldo, asking about Marshall McLuhan, in particular, which of his books would we (any of us) recommend. I hadn't read his books, though of course, having grown up while he was most active, I knew who he was and what he believed. But, just to see what I'd get, I Googled him and there it was: everything I could conceivably want to read about him, as well as pointers to everything he ever wrote.

I just finished my first summer session course on Systems of Human Inquiry (a prelude to more focused doctoral research methods courses) and for my class presentation, I chose to talk about Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard. It turns out that Baudrillard counted McLuhan as one of his influences. I was fascinated by Baudrillard and loved having the opportunity (ie, excuse) to learn more about him. I'll put my powerpoint online later. But, this prepared me to take more interest in McLuhan as a result of Maggie's question, so I read a little of a review of a 2002 book that contrasted "regular expressions" with McLuhan: O'Reilly Network: Marshall McLuhan vs. Marshalling Regular Expressions. Near the end of the review, I came across this quote by the author:

Given open standards, easy scripting languages, and cheap, versatile devices, digitization could allow users a degree of control over content never before imaginable in history. Conversely, given welded-case devices and access controls, they could allow the owners of content a degree of control over users never before imaginable in history.

Only 5 years ago, this was theory. Now it is fact. It's reason enough for me to pursue open access. It's not just about reading stuff for free. It's about processing stuff in new, unexpected ways. It's about putting together disparate parts into a new whole. Isn't that what libraries are about facilitating? A book on a shelf is not the same research resource as an open, accessible text (or other presentation format) online.

By the way, the review is fascinating in itself. It got me interested in things I didn't know existed 30 minutes ago. And it sends me off in new directions.

Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street

So, May is gone. I've been to France and returned. I had a great time. But I was happy to be back in Austin, especially happy to be able to understand everything everyone around me is saying. You just don't realize how cool that is until you don't have it anymore.

So I learned a lot of french, though it was an incredible struggle, mentally. The effort to understand is more intense than just about anything else I do these days. Not something that I am excited about doing again, though I'm convinced that it's the only way to really improve, at least if you want to do more than just read french.

The one thing that really surprised me though was that there's a whole 'nother (who else says that?) layer of things to learn about France -- the social rules. They are very different from American social rules. No matter what you can say or understand, if you don't know the rules of social engagement, you make mistakes. With as much as my life has involved teaching these rules to people (from pre-schoolers to grad students), it's really bizarre to be inept in this regard. How do you learn these things other than by experience? And what a painful way to learn when you think of yourself as fairly knowledgable, but in fact you aren't...

Well, I'm inclined to put it all behind me. Life is complicated enough right here and now in the USA. I'll write up my research results, opine about the future of libraries in Google's, Amazon's and Newco's world, an impossible task, and move on.

I am taking a course this summer that covers philosophers who have contributed to the research paradigms typically employed in social science research today. This has me thinking about how on earth I am going to structure research about the future of the book and of libraries in a networked environment. It's becoming clear that I can't just put videos/multimedia explications of my research out there and not care about their effects (my gut instinct). Credibility is going to be an issue, if not for me, for my committee and for the ISchool. People are going to care about the credibility of what I do and I have to start caring about the things that are the hallmarks of "good" research in the social sciences. I am curious, I want to know things, I want to know things that have practical value for the future of libraries, Presses and academe, scholarly inquiry, etc. But to convince anyone that my conclusions are worth their paying attention, I am going to have to adopt strategies and techniques, methods, paradigms, etc. that are credible.

I sort of learned about this on the fly in law, without explicit discussion of it. One just sort of comes to know what is credible, what is respected, and why. Here I have to learn it in the abstract it seems. Well, the philosophical underpinnings of scientific research are quite interesting, but in an "out there" kind of way. The idea that this applies to *me* and my research, well that's just a bit of a stretch right now. But I'll get used to it. I have to.

At least I am acquiring the vocabulary to talk about these issues with the faculty at the ISchool. This is just so reminiscent of the law school experience, the vocab, the "ways of thinking," what was important, what was less important, what didn't matter a hoot. But it's all quite different here. Very little seems to be transferable. But maybe more of it is than I currently think. After all, I never explicitly studied legal research in the same way I'm studying social science research. And besides, the primary research materials are so narrowly defined in law. They are, by contrast, all over the place in social science. Live and learn.

I'm starting a new blog for the Texas Digital Library on the subject of open access/ scholarly communication. Between that effort, the UMUC Collectanea blog and this blog, I'm going to really have to get back into the swing of things in a hurry. I haven't been paying any attention to things for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I actually enjoyed being out of touch a bit. It made me realize the degree to which connectedness has become, for me, addictive. Dennis complains about it (how much time I spend at the computer), but I've brushed it off until now. Now I'm really pretty convinced that it has gotten out of hand. That sense that there's so much I have to keep up with, and the good feeling of being on top of it all (an illusion to be sure...). Well, these realizations on vacation are always a source of resolutions, that, just like New Year's resolutions, come to not much of anything after a few weeks. Still, awareness is a good thing. Who would argue with that.

Interviewing the French Librarian about the Future of Libraries

I'm preparing for a trip to France in a little over 2 weeks and I'm just now nailing down my interview questions. I need to review a couple of books I've read earlier about the Google digitization project (Jeanneney's book and the book about Google and Libraries from a conference a year or so ago). I guess in a way I can't quite believe I am doing this. I've felt like I was in a dream for almost a year now, and going to France just seems like part of an unreal experience. And yet, I have a plane ticket, a TGV ticket, hotel reservations in Paris, a friend to stay with in Lyon, and a couple of libraries to visit and librarians to talk to. Wow, what a life.

This caps off my first year as a grad student. I will be writing up some sort of non-traditional report of this part of my research, in which I hope to include video, images, sounds, as well as text. I want to use some sort of innovative publishing mechanism. I was hoping to use Sophie, from Institute for the Future of the Book (if:book), but it is so alpha that it is hopeless for me to figure it out well enough to create a reliable presentation platform for a research project. So, I'll have to figure out some other platform. Bottom line though: no "paper." If I am going to research the future of the book for the next couple of years, I am going to practice what I preach, so to speak. Besides, it's more fun that way.

So, off to Paris and Lyon (and the Cote d'Azure, with Zarah, for a 4 day weekend in the middle of the trip), and then back to a summer class on Systems of Human Inquiry, which apparently is going to familiarize me with all the major philosophers, which sounds like a cool way to spend 5 weeks. Hope it sticks!

Some things read this week, 15 - 21 April 2007

I've been reviewing my rss feeds this evening and came across a post by author "Mark" who calls his blog, "Off the Mark," well, ok, but the post is about what he has read this week: Some things read this week, 15 - 21 April 2007. Seems like a fabulous way to keep your bibliography up to date and your annotations work from becoming overwhelming at the end of the semester.

I had originally conceived of this blog as a way to keep track of what I was reading and finding interesting on the Web, but with the time I need to devote to CIP Collectanea, I find I'm worrying a lot less about this blog. Additionally, this semester, which is 2 weeks from conclusion, was not at all about papers. It was about projects. No really interesting readings that were not way on the practical side, not the kinds of things that have a lot of relevance to the themes I'm interested in pursuing as I get to focus on research more. So, it's been like a little break from writing. Sounds good, except that I like writing. I have to be a lot more careful about what I take in the future. I really didn't have a choice about these 2 courses given that I was in the MSIS program and they were both required for my degree and my fellowship (digital libraries concentration), so there's nothing I could have done differently, but that is not the case now. Now that I am in the Ph.D. program, I really need to choose only courses that allow me to tailor what I learn to what I need to learn, for example, do research that is of interest to me, using what I'm learning in the class. Research methods courses are supposedly designed this way. We'll see. I have my first one this summer, starting end of May.

So, Mark's post was a pleasant reminder that I probably ought to go through the readings from this semester and see if any of them should make it onto my bibliography, end note, which I'm not all that impressed with yet, or noodlebib, which I really love, but which has its limitations. In either case, they are tools for documenting, but my blog is a tool for sharing, and that seems a lot better to me. Thanks Mark!

"Electives"

Ah, the semester draws to a close and it's time to think about what to take in the fall. I've gone from seeing all the world as my oyster (ie, I could take anything and it furthered my goals) to not being able to find a single course in the entire catalog of the University of Texas at Austin (we are talking a b*i*g place here) that really gets at what I want to know more about. I've seen idea after idea go up in smoke after writing to the faculty member teaching what looks like an intriguing course, when the response is pretty much forget about it -- either the course isn't really as relevant as I had hoped, it's really aimed at undergrads, it has a prerequisite that I don't have, etc. I have to take these electives from other schools, and that's a great idea, but trying to take a graduate course in a field where you haven't studied previously is kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack. Why should someone in the English department want me in a graduate writing seminar, when I haven't taken a writing course since I was an undergrad, 30 years ago?

Maybe I should make up my own elective, the perfect class, and then find a teacher to do an independent study with. Yeah, like that's an investment of time someone who doesn't know me from Adam is going to want to make. This just isn't working out. I don't have the option to take more classes at the iSchool. I've already put in my 12 hours (16 actually) of iSchool courses. I need other electives, and methods courses. I can't find one of those I want to take either. I'm going to have to just settle for something in the end and that seems really wrong. I am here because I want to pursue things of interest to me, not because I don't have anything better to do than take courses I have absolutely no interest in just to punch a ticket somewhere. I think I'm just going to take what interests me whether it counts towards my degree or not. Yes, that's what I am going to do.

Artificial Intelligence, With Help From the Humans - New York Times

I just read an article that pretty much describes two of my three classes this semester: Artificial Intelligence, With Help From the Humans - New York Times. The article is about a micro-payments market for human intelligence. Amazon.com's founder Jeff Bezos (pictured, left) thought up one exemplar, Mechanical Turk, and in response to criticisms that it seemed like exploitation, he responded something to the effect of, "hey, it's a market... if people are willing to work for 1/2 cent, what's the problem?" Now, as to how that relates to grad school classes, ironically, I'm paying *them* to make me do exactly the kinds of inane things described in the article. I'm in the midst of two projects that are so tedious as to be insanely boring. And I'm doing this instead of writing papers. Somehow I had different expectations about the nature of research. Counting words, coding xml, calculating average word lengths, validating xml, debugging xml, it's all about as interesting as banging your head against a brick wall.

So if this is what research in the field of information studies is all about, I'm pretty sure I've made one very big mistake. Legal research, which I enjoy tremendously, gave me no insight into this aspect of the genre. Thinking of how I might like to spend my time over the next 3 to 5 years, counting black spaces in crossword puzzles, or anything remotely like counting black spaces in crossword puzzles, isn't on the list. There sure better be some other kind of research or this is not going to work.

Ok, enough complaining. I am sure I'm not the only person who feels this way. I think part of my problem is that I feel such tremendous pressure not to waste time. My mom. Alzheimer's. I'm scared to death of that slipping into incapacity. That's what it comes down to. So I know that there's something valuable to learn from coding xml for an image archive. I know that there's no better way to learn what's involved in constructing automatic classification systems than to try to construct one yourself. But damnit! I'd rather be writing papers and exploring the world of ideas that are more interesting to me in the time I have left on the earth. I just am not interested in automatic classification systems or encoding xml for archival projects. Thank God someone is, but it's not me. I have to find a way to balance this fear of wasting time (in other words, insistent impatience) with the realities that I have a lot to learn and I'm not in a field where I know what's best for me ("Toto, I don't think we're in the law library anymore.") Ok, so I need some patience. It's not like this is the first time I've recognized that. Somehow I have to pull a rabbit out of the hat...

The books done gone...

It is the last day of spring break, the mid-point of the semester, one of those dreamy timeless days, cloudy, moist, spring everywhere, but you can't tell what time it is unless you look at a clock. Dennis heads back to Houston today. I have a list of "must finish" items for school next week, but overall, it's a lazy, beautiful day, if not the sunny one I would have asked for.

I had a lot of time to think about what I want to do with my trip to France, with my research focus over the next 2 to 3 years. That reflective time is in short supply generally. I was talking with Peg the other day about the course lineup that is beginning to take shape for fall and spring for next year. It's entirely composed of research methods courses and research theory. Many of the methods courses involve implementing what you learn by doing small research projects of your own choosing using the methods studied. That should allow me to break down my larger research interests into small pieces that I can use to further the overall goals. I've been very frustrated by the lack of focus on research this semester. Neither of my iSchool classes lends itself to research papers. They are both project-based where the project is entirely defined by the professor. Practical experience is definitely a good thing, it's just that I'm anxious to get on to other things.

Anyway, I've got a lot to accomplish in the next 7 weeks, including making all the arrangements for the France trip. But, once I'm there, it should be a time for relaxation and enjoyment. I'm getting lots of practice reading French. All the information I need about what libraries to visit in France is in French. I found a great report that was published just this year, in January: Construire La Bibliotheque. It's about the architecture and the future, so there's a lot to learn from it about the French view of the future of libraries. The photo above, of the interior of the library at the universitaire du Havre, just blew me away. Most do not make that strong a statement, of course, but they speak nonetheless. I have to choose 3 to visit.

I also have started a list of US libraries I need to visit and chat with those who were or are responsible for their design, about their concepts of the library in 20 years. Here in Austin, we have a central public library that will be built anew starting soon. I can get in on the ground floor, so to speak, of what Austin imagines for its library in 20 years. But on the other hand, the current building was built only about 30 years ago and many have said it was obsolete almost from the start. Will that experience have taught us a lesson, or is it inevitable that we can't plan that far ahead? Is the key going to be merely, "be flexible?" Could it come down to that? I don't think so, because the whole question of the bricks and mortar is on the table. There has to be a vision of what the space will be useful for.

You know, we have buildings on campus that have undergone modest renovation, but are more or less as they were built 100 years ago. Classes need rooms. Departments need offices. Hallways connect classrooms. That's been fairly stable for a long time. But the library. It's all in flux. The big open spaces filled with shelves nearly to the ceilings. Gone with the wind, or in the vernacular, the books done gone.

That reminds me, however, of Brewster Kahle's summary talk at the DeLange conference last week at Rice where he noted that it's now cheaper to print (print on demand) books as needed (he says a buck a book) than to buy, maintain, catalog, shelve, etc. over and over again, a book for lending. Books aren't necessarily going anywhere, well that's not exactly correct either. We may not need to keep copies to lend. That's what's done gone, the lending library's done gone. The research reference books are all online, the novels and such that people want to hold in their hands are print on demand. What's not to like? Hmmm.

So much for that paper...

Lorcan Dempsey pointed to a paper written by David Lewis, Dean of the IUPUI University Library (A Model for Academic Libraries 2005 - 2025), delivered to an audience in Southern California in late January this year, that pretty much nails everything I was thinking about (and had written about in a preliminary manner last semester for Knowledge Management class). So it seems, as I felt last semester, and as other readings keep confirming, none of my conclusions about what's happening or the likely consequences are new. Folks who have been deeply involved in running libraries for decades have come to the same conclusions. From my perspective, there's little need to say the same thing others are saying ("me too -- what he said"). But if many people, even those in positions to act on their beliefs, are aware of the need to gear up for the inevitable, why is there such complacency, such staggering passivity? Lewis himself points to many of the reasons for inaction in an earlier article where he applied Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" teachings to the library, (The Innovator's Dilemma: Disruptive Change and Academic Libraries).

I read Christensen last semester and indeed, his observations were central to my analysis, along with Anderson's "Long Tail." We come to slightly different conclusions about how libraries can escape the inevitable failure that results from too comfortable a focus on one's high-end customers' needs, but all the options are on the table for all to see. There's no mystery about it. Still, as I read over Lewis' suggestions, I could see how counter-intuitive they must feel to those who have been operating within the library culture for most of their adult lives, certainly for the span of their careers. From the outside (i.e, to me), it looks like people are having tea on a railroad track with the locomotive in plain view bearing down on them. I just don't know what to think about it or what to do about it.

I wonder if Christensen's newer works focus more on success stories where large comfy corps actually managed to thrive in creatively destructive environments? More to the point, where are the libraries that are embracing innovative low-end services, displacing old expensive little-uses services (whether their prime customers think that's a good idea or not), repurposing space and funding, retraining staff, etc. (all the things Lewis indicates are needed to get from 2005 to 2025 successfully)? Maybe I need to study actual instances of successful transition rather than just be part of the bell-ringing. There must be big, well-run libraries that are finding their way around the mechanisms that Lewis describes, mechanisms that paralyze in most cases. Enough describing the problems. I sure am not interested in chronicling declines. Maybe I should focus on those who have found solutions, not in theory, but in practice. Perhaps I should start with Lewis, though it isn't inevitable that even in his own library he can do what he thinks should be done. Library directors don't hold all the cards -- nobody does. But even if IUPUI isn't there, he may know who is, or who is headed in that direction.

The idea of writing a dissertation seems daunting right now. I can't imagine that I could narrow my interests down to some kind of niche statistical study, but who knows? I'll have to figure that out soon enough.

Ah, Spring...

Today is just incredibly beautiful here in Austin Texas. It's in the 70's, clear, crisp (low humidity), and spring is just bursting out all over the place. I spent a good part of my afternoon sitting outside on the deck, doing readings for class, but allowing myself to be distracted by just about everything. So, I'm not making alot progress through my readings on "machine learning" for my organizing and providing access class, but it's fantastic that I have the prerogative to while away an afternoon half-heartedly studying, and taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of spring at the same time. I love gardening and even with a full-time job I always managed to devote enough time to it to create a space where I feel like I'm in heaven on earth.

Spring break and the half-way mark for this semester arrive in just one week. This semester has been so completely different from last. I don't know why I expected them to all be more or less the same, but I did. This semester I don't have any papers to write. I found this somewhat disappointing at first, because I have lots of ideas for papers I want to write, but it gives me more time to reflect on the papers and hopefully, they'll be better for my having spent more time thinking about them and talking to others about them. The projects that have taken their place are of a practical nature, not particularly compelling, but I did come here to learn things that I don't necessarily know ahead of time that I need to learn, so I am into just doing these things and seeing what comes of it (digitization projects, classification projects).

But all that is fading from my thoughts as I contemplate 1 full week off starting in just 7 days, one full week of gardening, walking, hanging out at the coffee houses and reading, spending time with Dennis, who is getting his MFA in Houston while I pursue this degree here at UT. I could not ask for anything more than I have. It is so amazing.

if:book: ecclesiastical proust archive: starting a community

This fascinating post, if:book: ecclesiastical proust archive: starting a community got me thinking about the nature of my research at UT's ISchool. If I want to study the future of the book, and I want to explore it not only theoretically, but practically, every paper I do while there should be in some way a step forward with that process. Blogging "On the Case for Fair Use" was helpful and I learned a lot, but I don't necessarily want to just repeat that for each paper. What is the next step?

I've been casting around for a paper to write about the Google Book project, now that UT is a participant, and I am just so constantly thinking of how the library can further Library 2.0 projects, somehow it seems like this could integrate into a very nice paper that actually exists in a collaborative space. For example, what are the other research libraries participating in Google Book thinking about the issues that concern me? How do we see Google Book fitting into our overall "library future?" I should be collaborating with them, instead of trying to figure it all out myself. But how interested will they be in collaborating in a more open conversation? If they are exploring Library 2.0, they will certainly be very interested, I would think.

There's the issue of Google's confidential information, which we all must honor, but I am confident that there is much to discuss that does not delve into trade secrets. We have this obligation with all the companies with whom we collaborate on projects that look to the future, or involve us in the company's business operations (beta testing, for example).

Oddly, I have an attorney's role in the Google project, but it's a library's perspective that I want to explore, so my first instinct, which is to approach my lawyer buddies at the other universities, is probably not the right approach. On the other hand, we may have much to discuss too, but it's probably not going to inform my paper.

I also want to talk with the folks at the Institute for the Future of the Book, since they are working so steadily on the applications that would make this kind of collaboration easier, but it seems to me to be too early. I am still focused on absorbing, reading everything I can get my hands on, thinking, talking. I'm far from the point of even having a subject on which to write. But, seeing future step, directions, etc. is very exciting.

Class assignment: play around on LibraryThing and Amazon...

Yeah, that's really the assignment. This is pretty amazing. The class is organizing and providing access to information. I'm quite wary, being a Googler from way back, and having done all my legal research for the last 20 years on either the open Web or on Westlaw. So, full text is my mantra. But I'm taking this class and I'm going to figure out what the deal is with catalog records, Dublin Core, xml, metadata generally, etc. etc. So, with the intro to xml readings, we are instructed to check out LibraryThing and Amazon as two different approaches to recommender systems. LibraryThing is just so much fun, it's hard to relate it to xml and metadata. I can't get below the surface of just being amazed at all the cool information I get back for having entered 31 titles into my "library" with a couple of tags on each one. Too easy. So, I just want to read and read and read now. Of course, I have to read, tons of stuff. So this is working out really, really well!

This semester is soooo much better than last

No fog! No maze! No haze! It's amazing how quickly you can get on top of things when you know what's coming at you. It was tremendous fun last semester, even though I was overwhelmed for quite awhile, so it's really fantastic this semester, to be just as amazed at all the neat connections and threads that run through everything, but not to be feeling like I'm being run over by a steamroller at the same time.

Digitization class has a project orientation, but we spend the first part of the semester getting the theory down. Megan Winget is tossing out very interesting contemplative assignments and study questions. She seems to be extremely open to thoughtful analysis. No pat answers. At this point I'm finding that things I did last semester are directly relevant to what we're doing now. There's very little if any barrier between classes, not just this semester but between semesters. It all starts to merge. So, the paper I did for Don last semester, on the serial futures of libraries, is directly relevant to our discussion tomorrow. I talked about the implications of innovator's dilemma, the long tail, small pieces loosely joined, etc. It all comes up again and again.

In the few months since I wrote that paper, I've read so many pieces by others who have said not only what I said, but a whole lot more. I thought I was being provocative, but I was barely scratching the surface. I found a blog entry today referring to a recent grad's thesis on implementing Library 2.0 in an academic library setting (Michael Habib). I need to read it, obviously. It sounds like it's focused on the short term future, whereas I am more interested in long-term future, but it's interesting to contemplate this idea that we are either kicking or screaming, or willingly, happily, going to our demise. Shall we have fun along the way or not? Let's do Web 2.0 stuff and have some fun. I am all over that.

The other class I have is organizing and providing access to information (Miles Efron) where I'm going to get into xml, oai, and a hundred other acronyms for technologies that I am clueless about. Well, I shouldn't be so harsh. I was posting web pages back when there was no such thing as a wysiwyg editor. So I am not clueless. It's just that I haven't focused on technical stuff for a long time. Anyway what's really interesting about this class is that it will help me finally to get a handle on what the deal is with catalogs and indexes and metadata. I'm a hopeless Google addict and frankly can't imagine limiting myself to searching someone else's ideas (vocabulary) about the resources I want to find. But I'm going to find out about it and figure out what you do with it.

So, then there's french. I am learning to pronounce whatever it is I already know (grammar and vocabulary are not an emphasis of this class). First test is on Friday. Test. That's going to be a trip. Well, I need to learn this stuff. I'll be in France in just about 4 months.

Most exciting thing to happen so far this semester has to do with work, not school. I got to participate in the Library summit at Google last week, UT having joined the book search project the week before. Nothing has blown me away like that did in a long, long time. Google is doing or plans to do everything libraries should be doing but are not and never will. They have the agility, creativity, and resources to make magic happen. Geez I wish I could work there for like 1 month. Just to be in that environment where making things happen is the norm, not the exception. So I'm going to do a paper on our part of the project as it unfolds, sort of a documentary of the process and the interaction with Google (being ever mindful of the things that are confidential). My intent is to, without being too defensive, try to understand and explain how a Google project fits into the larger picture of this library's future. It's not like other digitization projects. Its goals and objectives are totally different. People don't seem to see that. These two classes I'm taking and the roll-out of the Google project at UT are all one to me. They are all about the same thing, the future of the book, the future of the library, the future of publishing. It's like triangulating your location -- in the future.

Tomorrow is first day of class

And we're off --

Another semester starts tomorrow. I'm ready for the whirlwind this time, at least I know what to expect. I've got both my ischool schedules scoped out. One of the classes is about organizing and providing access to information (what used to be cataloging, but isn't anymore); the other is about digitization. Both fairly technical, but both squarely touching on the themes I am getting more into: what changes does the fully networked environment presage for the book, the publishing industry, the library. And, of course, how is the way we are handling this different from the way it's being handled in other parts of the world.

I spend a lot of time over the last couple of weeks reading blogs, news reports, conference papers, books, and really, anything that touched on these themes. There is so much out there once you get started looking. Thank God it's so incredibly interesting, downright fascinating, or I would be overwhelmed. The only thing that's overwhelming right now is the thought that I have to narrow down my interest at some point. I can't imagine how on earth I could do that, but I know I will.

As for french, I've been listening to the audio that accompanies my book, am listening to rfi and tele 5, reading the text of the book and an occasional news feed (I get my Google news in french), so I'm prepared for that too. Hopefully I'll be able to attend le cercle francais this semester to add an additional hour each week to my practice schedule.

So, if it weren't freezing right now and raining, thus making it iffy whether classes will actually go forward tomorrow (UT will call the shots on this early in the a.m. they say), I would be more excited about it, but as it is, it's really Wednesday that I'll have my first class, the digitization class. So, 1 down, 6 or 7 to go...