I am impressed by the RAND report on digital preservation and scholarly communication. It has been researched and written by smart people who know this field and understand all the angles. I would happily use it in a classroom, and that’s high commendation—a lot of these report things don’t make any sense to someone who doesn’t already have the background. Well done, RAND.
That said, I’m not as enthusiastic about emulation as they are. I reluctantly admit that for some things we’ll have to learn to do it. However, a lot of the perceived need for emulation is caused by a dearth of proper open data standards. Give me those, and “emulation” becomes “manipulate and use the data in the best way possible,” which goes far beyond mere aping of obsolete systems.
I’m currently wading through the scholarly-communication SPEC kit 299 from ARL, and shaking my head at the surveys we’re apparently supposed to be spraying hither and yon. If I tried to have the liaisons at MPOW do the Opportunity Assessment Instrument, I’d be lynched. Or lynched and then fired. Or fired and then lynched; I’m not sure what the protocols are around here.
Whose tail do I have to yank before the reality of “no resources, no help, no buy-in” sinks in? Please, tell me, whose?
To be fair, ARL/SPARC does better than most. (Cough, cough, ALA/ACRL.) Less happytalk, more substantive attempts to help. But even they are a bit distant from reality. I appreciated, though I don’t entirely agree with, the snarktastic interviewee in the SPEC kit talking about how open-access pitches are so violently out-of-touch that they alienate the very faculty we’re trying to win over.
That’s reality. The snark, I mean. If you’re a repo-rat and you’re not even a little snarky by now, you haven’t been around long or you’re just not paying attention.
