ithaka s+r
The ITHAKA S+R Faculty Survey (April 2010) reflects responses on the role of the library, influence of digital research methodology and trends in scholarly communication. An assumption of transition from print to digital resources is projected.
The analysis can be considered skewed in terms of questions posed and results interpreted without due qualification. Skewed emphasis is illustrated by a focus on search and discovery components of research confirming that research begins with on-line resources but without due regard to subsequent components of the process.
The skew is also apparent with an assumption that monograph transition to digital equivalents will follow a model of journal transition. Here inertia, rather than circumspection, is attributed to faculty preference. The transition is represented as incomplete rather than conflicted. A logic of preference for screen access is quickly extended to a logic of format super-cession that extinguishes the function of print.
Consideration of an entire anatomy of interdependence of print and screen, of source and surrogate is avoided in this survey interpretation. The possibility that digital access augments the authentication role of print is absent. Just such a transaction from source to representation has long been modeled by language translation and the layers of such transaction, from underlying code to legible screen access or from print source to screen parsing, is avoided.
Another inversion of interpretation is support for preservation. Here a faculty advocacy for preservation is turned to advocacy for digital preservation without regard to distinction between owned and leased resources. The institutional burden of preservation has been assumed as a corollary of outright ownership of print collections. Subscription access re-transacts this logic of sustainability. Faculty advocacy for digital preservation may actually reflect a longing for institutional ownership of library resources.
Another amusing misconstrue is apparent in the positive faculty response for preservation of e-books even though there is little interest in their use. The reason that dedicated reading devices which most closely simulate their print sources are not preferred over print sources is just that; that they are most equivalent, yet inferior. As with surviving microfilm copies of disappeared newspapers there is a desperate need for preservation of the simulation.
Finally there is the ultimate skew of the digital transition. Here the advance of digital transition in scientific disciplines is posed as a challenge in library service. The libraries must not only chase the new paradigm of digital access to serve science, but also prepare for the on-coming “wind down” of print and super-cession by screen reading for humanist disciplines.
Has it ever occurred that scientific disciplines and practitioners may now lack exactly the humanist access and perspective that libraries are encouraged to discard? David Levy recently lectured on the topic and a larger challenge for scientific data sets posed by their very commodification of questions of source and simulation.
two nicks
There is a flurry of excellent provocation and excellent commentary at Rough Type. Discussion includes the advent of the post book where the book becomes an app or way of reading rather than the object for reading. The i-Pad is emerging either early or late in the evolution of personal electronic connectivity and the cloud indicates the storm of the digital darkage.
As a preservation prophet Nicholas Carr begins to appear as the digital Nicholson Baker. He senses threats and risks of culture transmission and sides with most precarious patrimony. But now the loss is not just the authentic newspapers but the authentic news; the actual truth or actual author’s intent or actual authentic source and trustworthy re-access. Nicholson and Nicholas suggest that we need to preserve preservation as a logic.
authentication
The authentication role is not as apparent when the focus is on outright paper to screen transition. However, the physical original will sustain continued forensic and bibliographic investigation. Another attribute of this capacity is the overt nature of physical evidence; the feature is either present or not present. Screen representation of documents cannot fulfill this role, even with more elaborate description.
In various sectors, from credit finance to elections to automotive controls, we have noticed a subtle and then devastating influence of loss of trust in products that transition from physical to electronic delivery. Libraries, archives and museums should be attentive to such outcomes.
As we move forward with certification of repositories, collections and items as accessed on the screen, we should also be alert for the efficient and economic roles that source physical collections can play in exactly that certification.