Marcus' World

Scholarly Work as a Public Good

Last week the faculty of UC San Francisco (my former employer) unanimously approved an open access policy, effective immediately.  Several years ago, UCSF faculty voted down a similar proposal.  Since then library staff, and UCSF faculty member Rich Schneider, have promoted the goals of open access publishing carefully and patiently.  The reward was last week's vote.

I think this is a great development.  Researchers at one of the nation's largest recipients of NIH funding have formally endorsed the value of maximal access to their work.  And UCSF is one of the few US public institutions to develop an open access policy, which till now has been the province of private institutions like Harvard.  That's especially important, because the public mission of the UC's remains intact (hopefully) even during these grim state budget times.

The proof will be in the pudding, as the policy is implemented.  Will UCSF researchers really utilize an addendum to the copyright transfer agreement that supersedes the terms set by publishers?  They've gone on record supporting this step, but who will enforce it and how?  This remains to be seen, once the excitement of passing the policy fades.

In my head I hear my good friend Scott talking about how open access is just the start and not the end, that we should set our sights higher towards building truly integrated digital libraries that exceed the narrow bounds of papers.  This is the point Scott made on Capitol Hill recently.  Kent Anderson regularly strikes a similar note on the Scholarly Kitchen.

Point well taken.  The paper is an antiquated delivery device, which takes no real advantage of the capabilities of the Web.  But it is still very much the lifeblood of academia; it's how research is reported and promotions are decided.  As long as this old-fashioned device has that much power then the best we can do is find ways to increase access to the scholarly literature. 

Increasing such access does not mean shutting down publishers because the information yearns to be free.  That rhetoric has faded, except among the staunchest open access partisans. As I learned in 2008, when I tried to move publication of Biomedical Digital Libraries from BioMed Central to other platforms, publishers add a great deal of value.  In my case BioMed Central offered immediate citation in PubMed and archiving in PubMed Central, none of which I could replicate on my own.

And yet...business models that rely on restricted access to publicly funded research are not just. We have to find a middle way.  I'm starting to starting to like the idea of treating scholarly work as a public good, subject to regulation that ensures very broad access but which still allows publishers to run a business. (Let's hope that business evolves to support publishing models that use the native capabilities of the Web.) This is like electricity or other utilities; access is regulated but private enterprise still exists.  The same thing could and should happen with scholarly publishing, at least for any research that is publicly funded. 

The New York Public Library Controversy

Thanks to Zite, this week I found myself reading Jon Reiner's account of the state of main branch libraries in many US cities.

Reiner begins by reporting on the controversy surrounding the New York Public Library's plan for re-purposing its iconic building at 42nd and 5th.  Fewer stacks, more computers and possibly even a coffee bar.  Just like everywhere else.  But to a greater extent than most everywhere else, the NYPL's main branch has a storied place in the history of libraries. Denunciations have been plentiful.

After setting this context, Reiner reports on his own tours of America's major public libraries.  A book tour brought him to many major cities, and in every one he stopped at the downtown branch. Without fail he noticed people congregating near the coffee bar and power outlets, and not a single soul in the stacks.

Reiner decides that libraries have sold their souls, and that if they'd only found a way to make print books cool instead of building a computer lounge things would be different.  Reiner: "Maybe the new libraries had gotten it all wrong. Maybe people would still touch the books if they didn’t look so pitiful compared to the shiny new objects decorating the atrium. A case of the tail wagging the dog that the NYPL would be wise to recognize. What did the social engineers of modern libraries expect would happen when they provided lounge chairs?"

I decided to be a librarian by wandering the stacks of the Northwestern University library.  Per Reiner I touched the books.  And through the wonders of "serendipity" facilitated by good cataloging and shelf placement, I learned about books I would never have known about otherwise.

But....ahem.  Those stacks were not exactly crawling with young student scholars.  I was usually alone, or at most one of the few people on the floor.  This was in 1996, when the Web existed but neither Google nor Wikipedia were household names.  I had a similar experience in 1986, when as a 9 year old I wandered the stacks of the Ohio State University library.  Back then there was no Web at all to compete with the books.  But suffice it to say I didn't face much competition for stack access. 

To blame Google and Wikipedia for a decline of interest in the printed word assumes that things used to be different.  Not true.  The 80/2o rule applies to libraries too; 20% of the collection gets 80% of check-outs. 

True scholars can dig deeper today just as they always could, and in fact the Web enables this pursuit in ways never before possible.  Wonderful collections have been digitized, but those who care the most will still travel to touch the real thing.  And those who can't afford to travel to far-flung libraries can at least see the digital versions online.  To take one of hundreds of examples, the UCSF Library recently digitized Hahneman's Organon, a Bible for homeopaths. Those who insist on the primacy of physical objects would deny any access to Hahneman's treasure to all but the select few.

So Reiner misses the mark.  He hearkens back to an imagined era of stack crawling that never actually occurred, while overlooking the unique benefits of the Web for expanded access to information.

Was it all just a big mistake, this academic library thing?  If most books were destined to gather dust unread anyway, what was the point? The point was to provide access to a wide range of content just in case someone might need it, in a framework not dicated by the cruel pressures of the market.  Hear hear, now and forever.

The NYPL still wants to do this, actually; their plan merely calls for relocating books off-site, not getting rid of them.  But apparently it makes more sense to keep them on-site and un-read, because this is what we are used to and this is all a library can ever be.  That's the crux of the outcry--to keep things the same no matter what.  It reminds me of the wonderful cartoon that recently appeared in the New Yorker, with which I close.

 

Daniel Kahneman Take 2

Last week I offered my perspective on Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.  This week I can't resist offering another, now that I've finished the book.

Kahneman distills a life's worth of brilliant research (often with Amos Tversky) into three points:

• That our minds are alternately fast (System 1) and slow (System 2).  System 2 sometimes works as a check-and-balance to the automatic System 1, but that's hard work and System 2 is usually lazy.
• Classical economic theory posits a rational actor who responds logically to incentives.  Human behavior is far less logical than advertised.  People will refuse to place a bet if the terms are phrased one way, but will take the same exact bet if the framing is different.  Nothing to brag about here.
• Our memories are related to our actual experiences, but not really informed by them.  For any episode, we remember the end and the most intense moment.  We forget the rest. Our memories seem real but are just a mirage.

Last week I was struck by how random much of life is, a theme Kahneman stresses in the first part of the book.  Our System 1 reaches rapid conclusions that inform narratives about the events in our lives.  But really, life is just one damned thing after another.

Kahneman's deep probing of how our minds work is impressive.  He recounts experiment after experiment over more than 40 years, and also describes his own intellectual maturity.  Amazing work.  But there is so much that even this genius was unable to tackle.  How do we live a good life? How should we treat each other?  Kahneman has exposed the foibles of our minds, but it's up to the theologians and philosophers to guide us in how to live. 

Even the brighest theologians and philosophers can only move this needle a tiny bit.  What we do not know and will never understand will always outpace the knowledge we acquire.  This should be enough to keep us all humble.

As a writer who strives for coherent narratives I don't know what to make of the fundamental randomness of things. Narratives give us meaning and momentum even if they are illusory.  Maybe that's ok. Or maybe I'm unable to accept the cold truth Kahneman offers.  If that's being irrational I'll live with it.

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

Recently Pi Wen ordered Daniel Kahneman's 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow. After it sat around for a week I picked it up, and now can't put it down. I'm halfway through, so this assessment is provisional.

Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Science, for work he completed with his longtime collaborator Amos Tversky.  As David Brooks pointed out when Thinking came out, Kahneman and Tversky caused a revolution in understanding of how we think.

The main premise of Thinking is that we each have two mental "systems."  System 1 is automatic, fast, associative, and prone to error.  System 2 is slow, deliberate, and cautious. System 1 is easy, system 2 is hard. Ideally system 2 would check system 1's excesses, but-alas-system 2 is "lazy."  In many cases it simply endorses the biases and preconceptions of system 1.

To really check ourselves we must be very deliberate. Find people we disagree with.  Make sure we're not giving in to the availability of easy-to-accept-but-hard-to-justify arguments. This is exhausting but rewarding work, whenever we manage to pull it off.  This isn't often.  But all humans are in the same boat.

Kahneman also points out, with many examples, the limits of expertise.  For example, stock picking is no better than random coin flipping, even by seasoned advisors.  Simple statististical formulas better predict a student's success in college than in-depth interviews with a guidance counselor.  Innovative management stratategies may have some impact in improving a company's position in the market, but much less than commonly believed.  The world is mostly random and ummangeable, even though we all develop our own explanatory narratives to seek order.

This is all very disconcerting.  Of course there's been a backlash.  One of Kahneman's friendliest antagonists is Gary Klein, who studies naturalistic decision making.  Where Kahneman is skeptical about the mind's limits, Klein is optimistic about the mind's strength.  Kahneman downplays the power of intuition, Klein sees its potential.  They recently set out to see where they agreed and where they disagreed, resulting in a harmonious collaboration even if they could not bridge the gap entirely.

As ever, much more work remains to be done.  Kahneman: "The line that separates the possibly predictable future from the unpredictable distant future remains to be drawn."  David Brooks predicts that Kahneman and Tversky will still be lionized centuries from now.  Maybe.  But Kahneman himself would surely state that that time-scale is part of the "unpredictable distant future."  In general all we can deal with is what's right before our eyes, even while knowing that this is not all there is.

 

The Rise of "Fingered Speech"

Kudos to John McWhorter for his hopeful essay about the rise of quick communications like text message and IM acronyms, or emails that do not evidence proper punctuation or capitalization.

McWhorter is a fairly rare academic type--the African-American who disagrees "sustainedly" with many tenets of the civil rights movement.  In this essay he also goes against the grain.  Rather than a harbinger of the death of English, LOL etc. are a new form of communication never seen before: "fingered speech."

As McWhorter reminds us, written communication of any type is a very recent phenomenon, "If Homo sapiens had existed for 24 hours, writing only came along after 11 p.m." Speaking is essential, writing is optional.  And our speaking tends to be brief, direct, to the point.  "Fingered speech" renders that type of speech--with all its shagginessm informality, and imperfectiosn--for reading. 

That's new, and that's all.  There is no risk that this type of communication will eliminate more rigorous forms of writing.  We now have a new communication tool at our disposal, but the older tools haven't gone anywhere. 

Clicktivism and Being Alone Together

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful all around the Bay.  Pi Wen and I walked around Lake Merritt, which we used to do more often but these days don't do as much as we should.

As we walked we saw several signs for the Kony 2012 movement, which seeks to rally the world to depose brutal warlord Joseph Kony.  There was a flyer on a building and stamps on the pavement.  Over the last few months Invisible Children, the sponsor of Kony 2012, has masterfully used social media to get the message out.  Overnight Kony's villainies--mutilations, the use of child soldiers--were an item of discussion.

But not, in many cases, actual face-to-face conversation; just digital bleeps as one more person added the Kony 2012 video to their Facebook feed.  As we walked I recalled last month's Chronicle piece about how some people see this movement as mere "clicktivism," posting something online in support of a cause rather than hitting the streets to make that cause happen.  Maybe Kony 2012 is feel-good more than effective.

Or maybe not.  According to Invisible Children, their efforts have prompted the African Union to act more concertedly to bring Kony to justice.  The Union has pledged more troops to hunt Kony down; but that could lead to more innocent people dying.   These are complex issues, which can't be mediated by viral video forwarding.  Even if the main aim of people who forwarded the Kony 2012 video was to feel good about themselves, they've done a service.  But it's just one part of what needs to be done to bring any cause to fruition, not the entire effort.  Turns out we'll still have to talk to each other, face to face, to turn the ever-too-slow wheels of justice.

That's Sherry Turkle's point in today's Times, that conversation is still very important in these digital days.  Turkle argues that we're more connected than ever and yet more alone.  We retreat to our own private screens wherever we go, as solipsistic kings and queens of our own tiny universe.  Sometimes we need to shut down, look up, and engage with the world before us.

Amen.  As long as we don't go overboard, and start pining for a good ol' days that will never return.  We should adapt, not retrench. Our digital toys are here to stay, so we need to figure out how to make them enrich our lives rather than consume them.   Easier said than done and I have no answers.  But I will be more mindful of my own absorption in my devices. That's a start.

Levon Helm

Levon Helm's death sent me to YouTube to listen to classics like "The Weight," "Up on Cripple Creek," and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." There's no sound like The Band's.

When I was a kid constantly listened to The Basement Tapes, that glorious collaboration between Dylan and The Band.  I could hear "Katie's Been Gone" over and over again.

I liked Levon Helm because he was the drummer.  Guitars scare me and I can't sing, but I have a great sense of rhythm.  If I'm ever in a rock band I'll be the drummer.  Goodbye Levon.

 

 

57 Channels (And Nothin' On)

Our TV was hooked up March 1, and since then I've become a fan of Mad Men even though all the characters are very hard to like.  Pi Wen avoids Mad Men, which is probably wise.

During a particularly busy stretch last month we didn't turn the TV on for days.  Pi Wen likes it for background noise, but that's why God invented NPR. Looks like for us the TV is an amenity and not a necessity, which is a good thing.  It has been helpful for watching sports, though, even if one of those occasions was watching my beloved Northwestern Wildcats lose a basketball game to Minnesota. 

Last weekend we tapped into a Frasier marathon on the We network that was hard to stop watching.  One night I stumbled upon M.A.S.H. at 7:30 PM, which brought me back to my childhood viewing of M.A.S.H. three times a day.  I'd watch from 7-8 PM after dinner, and then again at 11:30 before going to bed.

Last night I was coming down with a nasty sore throat, as the Bay Area was pummeled by lightning flashes that filled my Facebook feed this morning. TV to the rescue, as I was too tired to read or even get ready for bed.  Seinfeld was OK, but I felt better when Frasier came along at 10:30.

On a few occasions we've turned the channels and scrolled through the DVR logs, finding nothing that looks appealing.  Reminds me of Springsteen's classic 57 Channels (And Nothin' On).  Except that now there are 200 channels with the same result.  Back then 57 channels seemed the height of decadence, now it's not even possible to get a cable package that's so puny.  Progress?  Not really.

The Health Care Case

Last week's Supreme Court case about the health care law was enough to make many a-liberal queasy.  Myself included.  The robust questioning of the government case made it seem possible that the entire Affordable Care Act could be overturned.

It all hinges on whether people can be compelled--not by gunpoint, but by a tax penalty--to enter the health insurance market.  Conservatives argue this is government over-reach, liberals that the act of not acquiring health insurance shifts the burden to others.  The liberals are right, this is a totally interdependent system.

That's not true of the market for broccoli, which Antonin Scalia fears we will all one day be forced to eat if this law is allowed to stand.  Food markets really are independent of each other, and so the government should not intervene there except to ensure food is safe to eat (which is by no means a certainty, as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser remind us.)

I always supported a single-payer system rather than one dominated by health insurers, but that was a political non-starter.  President Obama already compromised by bringing insurers so tightly into the fold.  Yet it was still not enough, as this court case attests.  It remains true that the best ideas--in this case, that all Americans should have health insurance--start out ahead of their time.  We will get there, and look back in amazement that the journey took so long.

The Future of Scholarly Communication: Brief Report on Today's Congressional Testimony

This morning my friend Scott Plutchak testified before a subcommitte of the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology about opportunities and challenges for 21st century scholarly communication.  He was one of several panelists, all of whose testimony is collected here. 

Scott presented his usual argument--that we need to recognize and balance the legitimate interests of taxpayers, librarians, scientists, and publishers; and that most open access initiatives are tame despite all the radical rhetoric.  Open access doesn't really seek to change the publishing paradigm as we've known it, it merely seeks to get more PDFs into more hands more quickly.

To quote from Scott's testimony: "But framing the question as, 'How do we get better access to the peer-reviewed reports of research?' is merely a pale version of the question that we ought to be asking, which is, 'How we do we take advantage of digital technologies to develop a robust and innovative scientific communication infrastructure that fully takes advantage of the potential of 21st century digital technologies?'"

I agree with this completely.  The problem is that it is very vague.  Just like with the word "informatics," nobody knows what "21st century digital technologies" really means.  But we've all read PDFs and we all know this is what researchers want from the library.  And so we frame the debate in familiar terms, even if those terms are very small-bore.

At one point in his remarks Scott briefly recounted the inception of scholarly communication; born in 1665 as a public exchange of letters between scholars.  By 1665 we had movable type and binding, and thus the scholarly journal was born.  Scholarly communication arose from within the research community, and eventually an infrastructure of publishing and library services grew up to support it.

The only way things will change, the only way we will finally take advantage of those 21st century digital technologies, is if researchers once again change the paradigm.  There will always be a need for vetting and quality control, but that does not mean that the only conceivable way to achieve this is via a peer-reviewed journal.  We're still confusing form with function, because our mental models for what counts as scientific communication are so entrenched. 

But that will change--maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.  Ultimately, this change will have to come from researchers themselves.

What does that mean for librarians?  Do we just keep licensing big bundles of PDFs until the scholars tell us to stop already?  Do we wait passively for this tipping point to occur or do we actively help to tilt the scales?  I fear we're set up for passivity by personality, history and tradition.  But the only way for us to thrive, not merely to survive, is to become more bold and active.