FIS 1311H: Assignment #3 D-Lib Review

The following post is for my FIS 1311H Assignment, due on February 28, 2006.

Review: Dewey Meets Turing – Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Archive

Summary of Article:

In their article, Paepcke, Garcia-Molina and Wesley discuss the implications of the National Science Foundation’s Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI) for both librarians and computer scientists. Begun in 1994, Paepcke et al. explain that this project has had a fantastic effect on both professions, with the most important one being the union of these two seemingly dissimilar groups, which the scholars describe as a “matchmaking coup” (Paepcke, Garcia-Molina & Wesley, 2005).

They then describe what the precise expectations were for the outcome of this project. For computer scientists, this project was, at least in the view of Paepcke et al., a chance to have their area of expertise enlightened “by centuries-old discipline and values of librarianship.” While the scholars note that computer scientists have been trained to use the library since the days of their secondary education, it was emphasized that this group’s vision was the main reason behind the integration of computer technology with library functionality.

For librarians, expectations were apparently quite different. It was argued that this body traditionally had a more difficult time receiving government grants than their science-based counterparts. In other words, librarians assumed this pairing would provide their industry as whole with a much-needed cash injection. Outside of this aforesaid money issue, Paepcke et al. state that librarians were also aware of the positive impact their industry would have on scholarship as a result of this digital reform.

The balance of their argument, however, discusses how the Internet revolution affected this cooperative digitization effort. In essence, legal agreements got in the way of a true sharing of information between information institutions. In the end, only information teasers about collections could be displayed online on account of their contractual link to their publishers; otherwise, not only would confidentiality agreements be breached, but also the uniqueness of their respective collections would be put at risk through online dissemination.

This online communication revolution left librarians on the defensive. Paepcke et al. argue the thought of losing their collections to online intrusion made them think twice about their arrangement with computer scientists. After all, publishers were forcing many libraries to replace print subscriptions with online content.

In their view, the fundamental relationship between librarians, their collections, and academic scholarship was being threatened by the Web. The non-proprietary nature of online communities was creating a culture in which access to information was a gratuity; was the library profession being fatally compromised by their pact with computer scientists, an end or was the fact that they were viewing them as interlopers a gross exaggeration?

In their summary, Paepcke et al. attempt to get at the core of these misconceptions. For librarians, their side seems to be accusing computer scientists of somehow mismanaging the funds invested to them to help with redesign. In addition, they, as a group, feel they have been dismissed out of hand, and have had some of their responsibilities, like collections, denigrated. Computer scientists, on the other hand, seemingly cannot understand why librarians are so preoccupied with issues like metadata; they also infer that computer scientists consider the subject of metadata to be pedantic.

Paepcke et al. contend that these problems can be rectified by moving collections to information ‘hubs,’ which redirect users to websites which specialize in the same subject area. As for the scholarship issue, the scholars state this problem can be accommodated by forming direct connections between librarians and scholarly authors which thereby bypasses commercial publishers altogether. This, they say, can be accomplished by moving scholarly material directly online with the librarians acting as both curators of information and as hub administrators.

Response and Analysis:

On the surface, Paepcke et al. do seem to make extensive use of citations and provide enough references to support their argument. Their presentation of the challenges facing both librarians and computer scientists concerning the Internet’s affect on the domains of collections and academic scholarship is passable. Although the authors do not descend to the realm of polemics, they do, however, tend to reduce this complex situation into a bipolarized structure. I simply do not agree with the assertion that all librarians of this period thought computer scientists were purposefully mismanaging funds or attempting to eliminate their profession through an en masse redundancy scheme; this seems conspiratorial and smacks of fiction, not fact.

In the same breath, I also do not accept that all computer scientists thought librarians were dowdy caretakers of an antiquated method of cataloguing information. Their tendency to make broad generalization does slightly impair the overall argument that Paepcke et al. present.

The aforementioned situation is unfortunate because the issues confronting librarians and computer scientists wrought by the online landscape are ones that are often ignored by other information specialists. As librarians, we must strive to resist any attempts to make our holdings wholly capitalistic, and this can only be done with the assistance of computer scientists and their ilk to ensure that the fundamental right of free information for all is maintained. The technical solutions, which Paepcke et al. state as being either the hub information method or non-proprietary scholarship, are also a bit troubled. The challenge of preserving library traditions in the Internet age must involve computer science professionals, more specifically information system analysts. Furthermore, simply arguing that all information must remain free is noble, but it is difficult to envision an information community without some form of remuneration being required. Even if one subscribes to this notion, how does one go about promoting free information initiatives? This reality is something that Paepcke et al. do not discuss during the course of their article.

Another distinct problem is that the scholars reduce the number of stakeholders involved in the online information revolution to just two distinct groups: librarians and computer science experts. Where are the information systems professionals in this relationship? One would think that the public at large should also fit somewhere in this model in addition to this group,

In their summation, Paepcke et al. highlight the ACM Digital Library for its acceptance and promotion of free information and non-proprietary scholarship (“The ACM Portal,” 2006). This site, which contains a complete archive of its past issues, is free for anyone who wishes to peruse or download its contents. Evidently, there are a group of librarians, computer scientists, and information systems analysts who strive to uphold traditional values about the preservation and promotion of information. Much to one’s chagrin, the fact that this website seems to be in the minority indicates that tension still exists between librarians and computer scientists and that proprietary scholarship remains dominant.

References

Paepcke, A., Garcia-Molina, H., & Wesley, R. (2005). Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians,
Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative. D-Lib Magazine, 11(7/8).
(July/August 2005). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/paepcke/07paepcke.html.
Accessed 4 February 2006.

“The ACM Portal.” Association for Computing Machinery. (2006).
http://portal.acm.org/portal.cfm. Accessed 4 February 2006.