Chapter one of Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age, by Michael Bugeja and Daniela V. Dimitrova, is now online:

Extinct Citations, Missing Links and Other Bibliographical Wonders

A decade ago, most research was done in the library rather than through its Web site, and scholars, editors, graduate directors and librarians were meticulous about the integrity of footnotes. They knew that citation was the backbone of research, from agronomy to zoology in the sciences and from art history to Zen studies in the humanities. The footnote upheld standards because it allowed others to test hypotheses or replicate experiments. Testing and replication are at the heart of the peer review and scientific processes upon which academe is based, from papers by first-year and transfer students to grants by postdoc and professor.

Because so much depended on the foundation of all scholarship, the footnote, academicians admonished students for sloppy or erroneous citation. This was the norm even a decade ago when most research was done in the library rather than through its Web site. Our discipline of communication scholarship was as exacting as any other in the academy, especially when it came to footnotes. Students submitting dissertations and faculty, journal articles, were fastidious about the accuracy of footnotes, knowing that their reputations relied on the fine print at the bottom of the page or at the end of the manuscript. Unacceptable were citations that simply named the source without specifying the document, as in “U.S. Mint, 801 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20220-0001.” The worst types of mistakes would contain particulars, including an article’s title and date of publication, but might locate it in the wrong volume and issue of a journal. Indeed, if dissertation advisers went to the stacks to verify citations, as they often did, they would be aghast at checking a citation and finding none in any volume or number, or finding it with wrong pages or other particulars, and discovering a journal with those pages ripped out and missing. Those mistakes could doom a letter of recommendation for a job or advanced study. More…

The 1980s began the “give ‘em what they want” era of library collection development, when it became irredeemably elitist for librarians to think they occupy some kind of teaching role as selectors and reference librarians for their communities.

In 2010, the war of the populist cultural conservatives against the latté sipping liberal elitists is wearing itself out as Palin and the tea partiers gradually grow too ridiculous to take seriously. (Those on the left who call anyone sexist who calls Palin stupid are only making things worse.) At least that is the hope of this latté sipping librarian whose strategy is to ride it out.

The questions I have are a rhetorical one followed by a philosophical one, going to our idea of our role in society as librarians. First, if one in five Americans believes that Obama is a Muslim, are we obliged to stock one book that claims he is a Muslim for every four that say he is a Christian? Or, to bring geography into the mix, swing the proportion higher or lower according to the community in which we work? Obviously not, but then the real question: On what basis do we claim to know more than our communities? I am looking for a positive answer, along the lines that we are professionals, trained to make selection decisions about books and other resources, that we are in a position of authority regarding what public libraries should contain. If you’re not willing to stand up and make that claim for the profession (at the risk of being called elitist by a political leader and Presidential hopeful who thinks “Americans should refudiate the ground zero mosque”) then what good are we?

More and more, I find that the library profession’s efforts to stay relevant in the age of information technology are in fact eroding our relevance. As a result of these efforts, it is becoming less and less clear what we offer that is different from what everybody else offers in the information economy. The reason is that our response to change around us has mostly been to repress those aspects of librarianship that are not directly reflected in new technological tools that other people claim as their domain more securely than we do. We keep saying that as librarians we are web designers, information architects, web searchers, information scientists, user experience experts, and on and on, when each of those things is already a profession filled with people who make a stronger claim to it than we do. What we can claim is librarianship, yet most people – not only outside but within the profession – have forgotten what that consists of other than “books.”

In ALA, accreditation standards for masters degree programs in library science still refer to areas of competency that can be taken to define the profession. Yet in nearly all other ways, ALA is attempting to sell libraries and librarians on the basis of skills that everybody knows other people offer more distinctly, and so, it seems, are most library bloggers and magazine commentators.

Despite the relative consistency in accreditation standards over time, it is presently a challenge to point to practicing librarians in order to demonstrate to people what it is that librarians do that others can’t do so well, simply because, and I hate to say it, most of us are not so exemplary. There has been intense pressure on librarians for decades to focus on technology at the expense of something that is now difficult even to remember, that being a set of intellectual components to what we do that concern our knowledge of what is IN our libraries (physical and digital) and a well-practiced insight regarding the connections to be made between that information and our users.

Consider the great and not-so-great librarians you have known. In my experience, the great ones are great (I am thinking about reference librarians here, just to be clear, because that is who I have worked with) because of a combination of an enthusiastic desire to help, good communication skills, insight, general knowledge (not to be underestimated in its importance), and a compound of skills at connecting the dots between the particularities of users, their needs, the clues, the relevant bits of knowledge in memory, the access points, the information structure, and the hermeneutics and heuristics of helping. A library school curriculum providing a mix of traditional librarianship and intellectually challenging multidisciplinary studies (instead of the busywork that is challenging mainly for the physical stamina it requires) can support these defining skills. (Even if there is no strong case to be made for the existence of a tested knowledge base that we can called “library science,” it is still necessary to support the work of librarians on the basis of relevant theory and research, and to teach it in master’s degree programs. Because of librarianship’s theoretical foundations, multidisciplinary though they may be, we are able to make a claim to professional status, and we are able to claim a degree of autonomy in institutions that allows us to do work that matters.)

Now, we all have good days and bad days, but how many of us know as much as we really should to be good at the “librarian” part of our jobs? I have a good idea of how I use my knowledge of our resources, and I know that I wish I knew more. I don’t wish I knew more about our search tools – those are designed to be easy to use for librarians and the public alike, and I don’t regard our ability to use them as anything special. Where I feel that greater knowledge would help me to be a better librarian is across the board – within my assigned subject areas, yes, but in all subjects, and particularly about things like scholarly communities, the research into reading behavior, learning theory, media studies, and all of those fields that are connected to what we do. I think that improving my general knowledge and working to improve my insight into people are the most effective ways I can work to become a better librarian.

The place I return to for an idea of librarianship that is singular yet multidisciplinary, and humanistic yet technological, is Jesse Shera’s work in the field, specifically his text from the early 70s, The Foundations of Education for Librarianship. Shera had his greatest impact as an early developer of library automation systems in the 50s and 60s, but following that he worked to define librarianship per se in its new technological context. His view of librarianship was in part based on the idea that automation should give librarians time to focus our attention on the problems of communities and their information needs, and how to connect to them, freeing us from technical busywork. He lived long enough, however, to see the profession become machine-oriented and dedicated to refining these tools of efficiency. As he wrote in the decade before his death, “Librarians would do well to remember Moses or Pieta and think somewhat less frequently of Shannon and Weaver,” and “Librarians persist in sublimating librarianship to the lure of the machine.” (From “Librarianship and Information Science,” in The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages, ed. by Fritz Machlup and Una Mansfield. Published by Wiley, 1983.)

There is no Jesse Shera for our time, but I can echo Juris Dilevko’s call to “re-intellectualize the profession” (The Politics of Professionalism: A Retro-Progressive Proposal for Librarianship) and recommend Richard J. Cox’s thorough diagnosis of contemporary library education (The Demise of the Library School: Personal Reflections on Professional Education in the Modern Corporate University). I recognize that librarianship should be different from what it used to be, but I think it ought to be more than what it has recently become.

Richard J. Cox of the University of Pittsburgh i-School has posted a review of Michael Bugeja and Daniela Dimitrova’s Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age to the group blog “What SIS Faculty Are Reading. (Full disclosure: Dr. Cox is the author of two books for Litwin Books/Library Juice Press.)

By the end of the file one walks away with a profound respect for Zinn and a deep distaste for the buffoonish goons in the FBI who followed and monitored him. There is no reason, with the massive expansion of our internal security apparatus, to think that things have improved. There are today 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States…

There was a good article about WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Paul Assange, by Raffi Khatchadourian, in the June 7 issue of the New Yorker.

As technology is more and more the means of surveillance and control and not just information access and interaction, the role of the Hacker has become central to new scenarios of freedom and rebellion. That’s why I’ve always loved 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. I recently saw the Spring 2010 issue and was glad to see the journal is still being published.

I bring it to your attention now because that issue contains a one-page article (in print only) about the potential to hack Endeavor’s Voyager Library Information System. The article describes some of the data that should be accessible to a hacker with moderate skill. (The point of this article and many articles in 2600, and to a lot of what hackers do, is to point out security holes to the public, rather than to exploit them for private purposes, but it is conceivable that an ILS could be used by the state, and the PATRIOT Act certainly pushed in that direction.)

A Space for Hate: The White Power Movement’s Adaptation into Cyberspace

Author: Adam Klein
Price: $25.00
Published: June 2010
ISBN: 978-1-936117-07-9

A Space for Hate speaks to the media and information topic of hate speech in cyberspace, but more specifically, how its inscribers have adapted their movement into the social networking and information-providing contexts of the modern online community. While many books in recent years have addressed the notable ways that popular internet culture and cyber trends such as blogging have democratized the community of information seekers and providers, little research to date has addressed the darker element that has emerged from that same democratic sphere. That is, the huge resurgence and successful transformation of hate groups across cyberspace, and in particular, those that promote white supremacist ideas and causes. In 2009, hate speech and white power movement organizations in the United States are on the rise once again, fueled by new issues but with familiar themes. Among them, the nomination of the first African-American president of the United States, a national economic crisis that has triggered ethnic scapegoating, and an immigration debate centered largely on illegal Hispanic immigrants. These are just some of the emerging social issues by which today’s hate groups have framed familiar messages of blame, anger, fear, resistance, uprising and action.

The author’s interest in this book project evolved from examining the powerful effects of what many media scholars commonly deem the “hypodermic needle” of mass communication – propaganda. Being the grandson of two Auschwitz survivors who documented their stories through oral and written tradition, his research in the modern day forms of hateful propaganda emanates from a desire to pursue the unanswered question of how the fever of racist sentiment can sweep over a civilized society as it has done so brutally in the past. A Space for Hate focuses on the white power movement, in particular, by using hate-based websites as a concrete and measurable field for examining racial and ethnically targeting messages in the age of information and technology. Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon more widespread today than within the unguarded walls of cyberspace. The increasingly acceptable domain of racist and anti-Semitic expression within such commonplace websites as Wikipedia, an “information” tool, and YouTube, the younger web community’s digital hub, initially suggested the need to further research the way that cyberspace was allowing blatant hate speech to once again flourish within mainstream popular culture. That investigation led to an investigation of white power movement websites where the new face of hate, in fact, does not resemble the book burning rallies of the neo-Nazi banner but rather the popular forums, media convergence centers, and information tools of social networking websites.

A Space for Hate speaks to the interests of readers of media and information studies material by focusing on three central spheres of hate speech in cyberspace: the legal/ethical concern, the cultural context, and the information aspect, each of which leads into the main body of the study of a series of hate group websites. First, any work on hate speech must begin by addressing the ‘free speech versus hate speech’ debate that has always surrounded the issue of hateful rhetoric in the media, and is further currently being tested on new ground in the World Wide Web. Tied into the legal debate of hate speech on the web are the ethical issues of the internet space itself such as its unregulated content, decentralized and unaccountable domain, and limitless exposure to younger audiences. Second, and perhaps most relevant to this topic is the cultural youth element of cyberspace, specifically those popular trends that have allowed hate-groups to adapt and flourish often under the camouflage of a “user-friendly” social network community. Finally the book investigates exactly how these hate groups are entering into the mainstream media culture by playing on traditional formats which convey their movements as tools of information – educational, political, spiritual, and even scientific in nature.

There is a hot issue in librarianship that I think has great significance in terms of how society and the institution of libraries is changing. The issue is how the profession will deal with claims by native cultural groups who desire that their cultural works, documents, and artifacts be kept in public libraries, but with special access restrictions that respect their cultural traditions. ALA Council is presently debating a policy document on these “traditional cultural expressions” (TCE’s), but the topic needs attention from theorists who can see the issue for what it is: a site of postmodern, multicultural challenge to to the European Enlightenment foundations of librarianship and, and the changing reality of the public sphere.

I asked Wayne Bivens-Tatum, who is working on a book for Library Juice Press about the Enlightenment foundations of librarianship, for his take on the ALA’s draft TCE document, and he posted his thoughts on it today.

Lawsuit Challenges Police and Secret Service Crackdown on Journalists Covering Protests at Republican National Convention

CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org

May 5, 2010, Minnesota and St. Paul, MN —Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) with co-counsel De Leon & Nestor and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, filed a federal lawsuit against the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and officers, the municipalities, the Ramsey County Sheriff and unidentified Secret Service personnel. The lawsuit challenges the policies and conduct of law enforcement during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in 2008 that resulted in the unlawful arrests and unreasonable use of force against the plaintiffs, three Democracy Now! journalists: Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

Said award-winning journalist and plaintiff Amy Goodman: “We shouldn’t have to get a record to put things on the record. This is not only a violation of freedom of the press but a violation of the public’s right to know. When journalists are arrested, that has a chilling effect on the functioning of a democratic society.”

Goodman v. St. Paul seeks compensation and an injunction against law enforcement’s unjustified encroachment on First Amendment rights, including freedom of the press and the independence of the media. Attorneys say the government cannot limit journalists’ right to cover matters of public concern by requiring that they present a particular perspective; for instance, the government cannot require journalists to “embed” with state authorities. Goodman further asserts that the government cannot, in the name of security, limit the flow of information by acting unwarrantedly against journalists who report on speech protected by the First Amendment, such as dissent, and the public acts of law enforcement.

“The media are the eyes and ears of the American people—that is why there are laws to protect them,” said CCR attorney Anjana Samant. “Law enforcement and Secret Service agents are not exempt from those laws in their dealings with un-embedded journalists who are documenting peaceful protestors or law enforcement’s use of force and violence against those protestors.”

“The protests on the streets outside the convention center are just as important to the democratic process as the official party proceedings inside,” said journalist and plaintiff Sharif Abdel Kouddous. “Journalists should not have to risk being arrested, brutalized or intimidated by the police in order to perform their duties, exercise their First Amendment rights and facilitate the rights of others to freedom of speech and assembly.”

“The video of my arrest and of Amy’s mobilized an overwhelming public response,” said journalist Nicole Salazar. “The public has both an interest and a right to know how law enforcement officials are acting on their behalf. We should ask ourselves what kind of accountability exists when there is no coverage of police brutality and intimidation.”

For more information on the case, visit CCR’s legal case page.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

A very intelligent op-ed on Truthout about the present situation for public intellectuals: Lewis R. Gordon, “The Market Colonization of Intellectuals.” I’m not a regular reader of Truthout, but maybe I will pay more attention to it now. Gordon is writing about the new economics of academia, and intellectual work within and outside the academy.

To be engaged it’s necessary to see things as they are now and not get stuck in picture of how things were. Not that studying the past is not important, but old habits don’t fit the always-new world. This article by Lewis Gordon helps make it plain how the situation has changed for intellectuals. But what should we do?

Thanks to Barbara Fister for the link.

Today’s New York Times has an informative little item comparing the environmental impact of producing an ipad versus that of a paper book: “How Green is My iPad?“

I just bought a Motorola Droid, which is Verizon’s Android-based smart phone, Android being Google’s OS for mobile devices. Its integration with Google gives me a lot of “power” to integrate my online tools with my mobile device, which is very satisfying. I experience it as empowering, and my attention is focused on learning what it can do and then on using it. My attention is not focused on Google itself and what its growing ubiquity may mean.

I am paranoid by nature, but I don’t have a vision of what Google’s growing power is going to mean decades from now. I know, however, that power corrupts. So I think I should be more scared than I am about the fact that:

• Google records my search data
• Google data-mines my email
• Google tracks my visits to sites that use Google Analytics
• Google is buying more and more websites and services and integrating the data it collects on them
• Google maintains a database of my contacts
• My Droid has a GPS that tells Google my location (I have the option to share it or not share it with friends – thanks for the privacy feature)
• The usability and power of Google’s services compel me to share more and more of my own information with them – calendar, finance, shopping, documents, email
• Google is exploring a service to manage our health records; I think it’s already available in beta
• I can see my house on Google, from the street and from the sky
• Google is becoming hungrier for financial returns. Its ad service is becoming more profitable, but if they can think of more ways of making money from their data, they will.

As I said, I don’t have a vision of the shape that all of this power will take. But it unquestionably adds up to power. Technologically, there is an economy to data integration that lends itself to Google growing larger and making competition more difficult. It is not like a dot com that can disappear when the fickle public notices a different one, because its strength lies in its huge database of user information. It is not so easy to migrate away from Google at this point.

The talk I gave in Alberta on February 5th was recorded. The recording is now on the web in mp3 form. Toni Samek’s introduction feels a bit grand, but the real me will be on the mic shortly. The recording itself came out all right. Not all of the audience questions are audible, but as a whole I think it works well enough to post:

• Podcast
• Slides
• Event information

Notice that I am not using the word “ontology.” I’ll get into why later, but if you’ve read any Heidegger you can guess…

Hope Olson, Sandy Berman, and many others who have done work based on theirs, have shown how classification systems tend not to represent all users well. Hope Olson has described the problem in terms of its philosophic roots by deconstructing classification systems using methods that come from Derrida. I think it is clear and very interesting the way classification systems reflect positivistic assumptions about reality that lead to a presumed “view from nowhere” that reflects the dominant culture. I’m glad that there is a lot of work being done in this area right now, and especially the way people are tying these ideas to new topics like folksonomies and contemporary identity issues.

However, I can’t help thinking that an unjust “official” classification system is not a big problem as long as it is transparent to the user. Let’s say I’m deviant in some way, and I want to find information that is relevant to me using institutions that are connected to the Library of Congress through its standards. Am I really going to expect the Library of Congress to be hip to my understanding of things? No, I am not going to expect that. I am going to do what I am accustomed to doing as a deviant person, which is my choice anyway: I am going to translate the official language, in which I am fluent, into my own deviant street language. That kind of translation skill is part of daily life for anyone who negotiates between formal and informal contexts, streets and offices, subcultures and dominant cultures. The official classification system may reinforce a sense of alienation, but as long as it is transparent to the user, I would not agree that it presents a barrier to access. The cognitive skills involved in making use of an imperfect classification system are very interesting to me (whether we’re talking about reference librarians or end users).

The next plateau of information technology, which we are beginning to reach, is, as I see it, presenting a new problem concerning these issues. Simplified interfaces with artificial intelligence under the hood are “freeing” the user from having to understand either the mechanism of the search or the underlying organizational system, but one thing that this means is a loss of transparency. The user is expected to trust the virtual helper to understand his or her information needs, and it is likely that this virtual helper is going to make assumptions about the user and the context that stem from the assumptions that are embedded into the official classification structure. Without access to the official vocabulary or the mechanism of the search, the user is less able to adapt the tool to his or her needs. Without access to the original text, the user doesn’t have the opportunity to do a translation…