Last Friday I went up to Eau Claire with a pair of colleagues to say hello and help talk about what the unit I work for has to offer. It was a fun trip; Eau Claire has a new library director who impressed me mightily with his vision, engagement, intelligence, and affability. That last, in a library context, is crucial to making best use of the other three. My lack of it costs me dearly; don’t think I don’t know it.
Still, I have my moments. I heard some of my own desiderata for the IR coming out of my supervisor’s mouth. I hadn’t known anyone had actually heard me until then, to be perfectly honest. Maybe I’m no good at selling my own ideas—but it’s something that they’re good enough to sell themselves in spite of me.
More and more often these days, I’m having that weird cognitive disconnect I get when I see my own thoughts and conclusions coming from other people who have no reason to have gotten them from me. Whatever I’m thinking, I’m not the only one thinking it. A little validation is a wondrous thing, in information policy as well as in markup.
I spent a good deal of this morning catching up on reading. The Bankier/Perciali article actually sounds more like Sarah Shreeves than me: it embodies the realization that IR technology is worthless without a service model founded in real needs. The IR only addresses part of the problem (whatever “the problem” is, be it journal prices or preservation or whatever your favorite hobbyhorse is), so it can only be part of any kind of real solution. Even so, bits and pieces of the article sound quite a lot like the conclusion of Roach Motel.
And then there was this, from which I quote:
- Scholarship and research are becoming more conversational, with less reliance on formal publications, more on e-mail, preprints, and monitored blogs.
- Formal publications, as static representations of a research program that often can extend over the lifetime of a scientist or humanist, are seen as an increasingly artificial construct.
- Most importantly, there is evidence that the once conjoined functions of delivering valuable content to specific academic fields and serving as a means for credentialing authors for the purpose of promotion and tenure are coming uncoupled: the journal article is seen increasingly as a credentialing mechanism, while the intellectually vital contributions to a field are posted elsewhere.
- Networked technology and the Web are seen as more accurately capturing and recording the research process.
I said much of this over a year ago in London. Maybe it’s even true! (Also, the title of that article made me sporfle. Fluids met keyboard. Bravo! I love me a good article title.)
I sense that I’m sounding triumphalist. I don’t mean to. I don’t feel triumphant. I’ve just been feeling disconnected from my field, shouting uselessly in the waste, and it’s good to see that perhaps I’m not a wild raving lunatic after all.
