Not only is this the last entry of this blog, but it's the last blog entry that I'll ever do.
Thank you.
Notes on Documentation and Librarianship - Archive 2010-2014
måndag 24 november 2014
tisdag 11 november 2014
Att bilda en bibliotekarie - new book in stores now.
Today, my new Swedish book Att bilda en bibliotekarie hits
the shelves of your favorite virtual book store.
Att bilda en bibliotekarie, published on BTJ Förlag, is a collection of popular essays on
cultural heritage digitization, information literacy, theory development in Library and
Information Science, and the history of librarianship education.
You can buy it here
fredag 26 september 2014
Creating librarians - erudite professionals or employable LIS students? Social expectations on future librarians and LIS curricula. Talk given at Göteborg Book Fair, 25 september 2014.
This weekend marks the annual Göteborg Book Fair, Bok och Bibliotek 2014. As part of the Linnaeus University programme, I gave a talk on
library education in a historical and social perspective. The book fair itself
was as crowded and horrendous as ever, but I was happy to see my own little session
turning out to be very nice and surprisingly intimate, with a small number of politely
engaged attendants. The talk was also promoting my upcoming Swedish book Att
bilda en bibliotekarie, which will be out within a week or so on BTJ Förlag.
The following is a short summary of the talk:
Librarianship builds on a long tradition of very stable
practices. It has looked fundamentally the same for at least five thousand
years. Very little has changed. This simple fact is something that many
librarians and library managers and funders today seem to feel a bit
uncomfortable with, since the norm in contemporary librarianship, as well as in
society at large, is to be as adaptive and innovative as possible. Of course we
see this in relation to new information and communication technologies. A
technological imperative has replaced a moral one, which could thrive in times
of less technological pressure on libraries. This change of imperative has also
changed the ways we see library education. The idea of specific education for
librarians is in itself not very old – it isn’t until the middle of the 19th
century that we find what could be described as ”modern” library education curricula,
first in central Europe, and somewhat later in the USA. In the very long time
that preceded these, librarianship was thought of as a highly intellectual
practice and there are many examples of erudite librarians working in close
proximity to various cultural, religious and political power centres. For
centuries the head librarian at the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican State
worked very closely with the Holy See, and in the 17th century France we find
librarians within the inner circles of La Républic des Savants.
The closeness to power was not entirely broken unil the late
19th century when we see the emergence of educational programmes for public
libraries, a completely new kind of library that on a local level needed
another kind of librarians that those of earlier times. Melvil Dewey set the template
for how these new curriculi shold be, focussing on a combination of literature
and library administration and techniques.
When the first proper Swedish library education took off in
1926, it was fully inspired by Dewey’s American example (as were most of the
ideas behind the public libraries). It attracted primarily well educated women,
who completed various humanistic courses with a library education that in four
month gave as many lectures as we today do in one and a half years in our LIS
programmes.
In a sense these librarians might be considered as erudites,
altough in another, more pragmatic sense than that of the 17th century
librarians. For most parts of the 20th century librarians were seen as
”learned” professionals, something which gave them a specific status in their
local communities or in their universities. It isn’t until we see the
paradigmatic shift of information technology that this ideal for library professionals
and the educational programmes that provided them starts to erode. Suddenly
other qualities than humanistic learning and erudite morals takes over – the
perceived needs of the ”user” replaces the authority of the highly qualified
librarian. From an educational point of view, the final turning point is the
implementation of the Bologna process which not only makes european Higher
Education Institutions more homogenous, but also focus more on employability
than morals and learning. Millennia of professional practice development was
thrown overboard in the name of technology and economic growth ideology. It
goes without saying that librarianship is a profession which is very badly
suited to fit this ideology since the very core of professional integrity
appeals to other ideals, now politically obsolete. The new librarians graduating from our LIS programmes, however, are of course
children of this age. Does this mean then that we should shut down our
libraries or change our LIS curricula even more? Well, this is a actually hard
to say, for as time rushes on, we are getting more and more aware of the fact
that the economic growth ideology, which is the foundation of the Bologna process,
is not very durable and that we need to find another path for social
construction. In the same way that the old national states finally seems to
crumble (it was bound to happen), the technological and economic imperative of
higher education – and librarianship – will crumble as well and make way for something
new. This ”new” might very well be a view on humanity as clever enough to build
on experience and a trust in knowledge as a base for building sound
institutions for the benefit of a more equal society, both economically and
culturally. When that time comes, libraries will still be there and we who
educate professional librarians will have a very strong tradition to fall back
on. We will know what to do. The erudite librarian is also a humanistic librarian
and when today’s society suffers its inevitable nervous breakdown, it might
very well be that we will turn to classic humanities to get us back on track.
The way to get there will, after this era of social media and pedagogical
experimentation, be through traditional libraries and library services – provided
by true, erudite professionals. That is, if they still exist. If it is not too
late.
torsdag 10 juli 2014
Dewey recital at alternative Swedish music festival
Truls, a friend of mine who lives a couple of houses away
here in Uråsa is, among many other things, a music creator. He creates sounds,
noise, music. A while back I was asked to take part in his current electronica
duo project DAt Harp for a one-off occasion. They needed a recital of some sort
and the piece should be performed at the Swedish alternative music festival
Säljerydsfestivalen in the beginning of july. As this annual festival is fuelled by visions of anarchistic freedom, I chose to read from the works of the
perhaps least anarchistic person that I know of: Melvil Dewey. I recited
Dewey Decimal Classification System (DDC), sections 612.17-612.19, Hart (Dewey
spelling) and 521.1-521.4, Theoretic Astronomy. Through these categories body,
love and celestial harmony were strangely united, all integrated into DAt Harp’s
music.
I used my personal copy of the legendary 8th edition of the
system, published in 1913. This particular copy was first owned by Swedish
public library pioneer Greta Linder. It contains several marginal notes made
by her on the pros and cons of the system – almost a century before it was
implemented in Swedish libraries.
The performance was, as is customary in these days of social
media horror, recorded.
So, here it is – enjoy:
Thanks to Truls and Mattias for having me on the set - I enjoyed it immensly.
fredag 9 maj 2014
Sexual diversity and the heteronormative library - lecture given at Växjö Pride 7 may 2014
This week, rainbow flags colour the city centre of Växjö.
Växjö Pride presents an array of lectures, films, debates, concerts and
lastly, a parade through town. I was happy to be invited to give a talk as part
of the Linnaeus University Pride programme. I chose to speak about ”sexual
diversity and the heteronormative library”. A point of departure
was taken in the social norm reproduction of public libraries, and how this affects
groups and individuals who are not heterosexual. The following is a summary of
the lecture.
Public libraries are political institutions, but not just
that; they are also moral and normative institutions, set to support the social
order of which they are part. It is only during the last couple of decades that
the traditional moral and normative aspects of libraries and librarianship has
been questionned by a more user orientated approach, pushing back traditional
preferences seen in acquisition and reference service in libraries throughout
the westen world. At the same time, the idea of public libraries ”serving all”
in society has changed. That an institution as the public library reproduces
certain values is in itself nothing strange – this is somenthing all public institutions
do. What is interesting to see is how those people, ideas, values and movements
that do not fit into the reproduced norms and values are treated.
Traditionally, public libraries have defined themselves as
extraordinary inclusive, stating ”all citizens” as their users. Norms and
values of the majority has thus been taken for granted and alternative views
and habits have been, basically, made invisible. That which is the norm is
everything, and deviations do simply not exist (officially). If an alternative wants
or needs to become visible in this enironment, it has to present itself as just
that - an alternative.
Today the situation is slightly different. Libraries refer
to ”all citizens” as their users to a much lesser degree than just a few
decades ago. Instead, citizens are divided into defined usergroups, that may or
may not be subject of certain attention and/or activites. Teenagers, book
lovers, small children, parents, immigrants, various minority groups, elderly,
homeless people and non-heterosexuals are just some of the groups frequently
discussed within contemporary librarianship. Not all of these groups
necessarily break with majority norms or values – but non-heterosexuals do. We
may call this trend of prioritizing specific groups ”inclusion through
distinction” or ”inclusion through separation”.
Instead of making a normative deviation or alternative
invisible, it is instead the norm itself that hides behind these distinctions.
The heterosexual majority is not considered a ”group”, but instead an invisible
norm. Both of these approaches have their pitfalls, and the question is of
course which is most beneficial to the minorities and alternatives.
When Library and Information Science scholars study sexual
diversity and LGBTQ issues it is mostly within three different areas: knowledge
organization (documents and their classification/indexing); the reference
situation (focusing on librarian/user interaction and acquisition) and;
information needs of non-heterosexual groups and individuals (user studies). In
all, however, not much research is done, even on an international level, and
and it is not until the late 1990’s that LGBTQ issues become visible in
LIS research at all (but for some singular earlier exceptions).
Although public libraries have proven to be very important
for non-heterosexual individuals for their coming out process, for their own
identity shaping and as places where information and gay/lesbian (non-heterosexual)
fiction can be found and ordered without pressure, there are a number of things
that are still being pointed out by research as problematic. Classification and
indexing systems are generally exclusively heterosexual bias in tebles and term
choices, even if progress now is being made; when encountering librarians, the
best service is provided to those who are most like the librarians themselves
(in looks as well as in morals); information behaviour varies significantly
within the LGBT community - one thing we do know however, is that transgender
people have significantly more difficulties
to find their use of libraries comfortable in the way that cis-people* have.
Instead they turn to the Internet in a more exclusive manner than other LGBTQ
groups.
How then are libraries approaching issues concerning non-heterosexual
individuals and the LGBTQ community? As research and social development have
made librarians increasingly aware of the specific needs of gays, lesbians and
transgender people, we have slowly begun to see more and more attempts to
attract these groups into ordinary library activities. In some cases, the creation
of a ”rainbow shelf” is considered enough. This is of course not unproblematic
in that such a shelf (or corner, or place) on the one hand creates visibility
for these groups, but on the other separates them on a quite visible and
physical level within the library room. Is that really what the LGBTQ community
needs? What most people want, regardless of sexual, politcal or moral orientation,
is to be included in their local community without predjudice and without
distinction – to be like ”everybody else”.
Lately, a couple of libraries in the Stockholm area has
taken the question one step further and applied for a LGBT certificate. Such certificate
is provided by RFSL -The Swedish Federation forLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, and includes education and
critical analysis of the activities of the organization in the light of LGBT
needs and values. Even though there is always a risk that such certification
can be used to gain cheap political points, it is, if taken seriously, an
alternative that goes way beyond just putting up a ”rainbow shelf”. It remains
to be seen how this work will turn out in Swedish libraries. Perhaps it is indeed a way to include non-heterosexual
individuals in the general norm of society on the same terms as anybody else –
if so, that would be a significant step towards a new norm reproduction, not
only for libraries, but for society as a whole.
*cis-pepole = those who identify with their birthgiven sex –
the term is used to distinguish transpeople from those who are not.
tisdag 18 mars 2014
On the documentality of future libraries
It is quite popular to predict the future of libraries, not
least among librarians. Often we notice a kind of strange contradiction in
these predictions, of simultaneously being obsolete and at the centre of a
brave new digital world. In some cases this turns into a kind of institutional
schizophrenia, which is at best amusing and at worst destructive. Most likely
libraries will not be obsolete in the decades to come. Most likely some
libraries will change quite a lot in the decades to come. This is of course a
truism, but to understand the logic of future libraries, we must look at the
basic legitimacy of libraries as social and intellectual institutions. This can
be defined in many ways. One way of describing libraries – and librarianship –
is in terms of documentality. Documentality is in itself not an unproblematic
concept, but it is basically about what documents do and how they make us act.
We may speak of documentary practices or of ontological documentality, where
documents are what de facto constitute institutions. In this respect libraries
are interesting, because they can be said to be built upon a double
documentality; 1. Documents that legally and administratively constitute a
library, and 2. Documents that constitute the library in terms of its
holdings. Without these two kinds of documentalities combined, there would be
no libraries, and there would be no legitimacy to uphold them as social
institutions. The same goes for librarianship. As a profession it is defined by
a set of documents; degrees from LIS educational programmes, codes of ethical
conduct, institutional or personal accreditations, memberships in professional
associations – all which are legitimized through the very existence of a
specific documentality. Traditionally librarianship has also been defined by a
specific (often custodian) relation to the holdings of a specific library, or a
specific type of library.
But, is it possible to speak of librarianship as a single
profession? Yes, I do believe it is. Conditions vary though, between different
library settings and types of documentary institutions, and so does the self-image fostered within them. It is interesting to see that the anxiety over
professional identity and the future of libraries are very much tied to public
libraries. In for instance academic libraries we don’t see these kinds of
discussions. I believe that one of the reasons or this is to be found in the
documentality of libraries and librarianship.
Public libraries are
a relatively new phenomena related closely to western democratic ideals,
stemming from the 18th century Enlightenment movement. The legitimacy of public
libraries are tied to a specific form of documentary practice that we find in
20th centrury democracies. The documentality of this form of democracy, that is
the basic structure of its institutions, includes public libraries as providers
of documents reflecting views and cultural expressions of these societies.
Academic libraries, on the other hand, relies on a much
longer history and are related to a specific documentary practice, namely that
of scientific communication. Scientific communication has gone through several
changes during the last three hundred years, all related to technological
innovation, infrastructure, methodological changes in research, and social
demands on sharing of results. The ontological documentality of academic
libraries are thus much stronger than that of public libraries. The structure
of scientific communication is in thorough and rapid change, but still there
are several components that safeguard a kind of documentality that secure the
role of librarians and libraries. Academic libraries are not threatened by the
future. Instead it may even predict it – even if predictions tend to stretch
from a total collaps of the system to a maintained status quo, due to the
conservative systems of scientific quality control and structures connected to
social and academic status and benefits.
If we look at it from a documentality point of view this
leads us into an interesting situation. Public libraries may suffer from
decreasing public support, and thus being forced into developing into something
that differ from the ”original” intent of librarianship. On the other hand, we
don’t see the ”end of books”, we don’t see user behaviour that differ much from
what we might describe as traditional. So the ontological definitions of
libraries based on stocks and holdings and activities tied to these seem, at
least for the coming decades, to be secured. The threat instead comes from the
socially constitutional documentality where local governments and society as a
whole will fail to recognise the significance of libraries in future political
development.
Academic libraries, on the other hand, face a situation
where they, through an increased significance to university management and
evaluation practices (for examples through bibliometrical resposibilities) find
their ontological documentality intact, but an increasingly lack of holdings.
Already today many university libraries spend less than five percents of their
media budgets on physical materials. The rest is directed towards licences and
subscription fees for journals and publishing services that are placed outside
the libraries. Contemporary academic libraries have never offered so much and
had control over so few documents as today. The documentality of academic
libraries are in a process of being de-institutionalised.
These things are of course not new. What we might anticipate,
however, is a reinstatement of documentality as a basis of legitimacy for
libraries in the future, when documents come into a more general sphere of
interest in society. The retrieval of documents is not the same thing as the
retrieval of information, and I believe we already see a shift toward a more
document conscious environment, in libraries as well as in society. Information
is not free flowing, it is not like air. It is always bound in documents. In a
society overflowing with documents, the need for, and recognition of,
insitutions that may use this to further scientific knowledge, cultural
expressions, ethical diversity and democracy will increase, and libraries will have that ability.
They will have it through a documentality that is both ontological and tied to
practice. What form these documentary practices may take, however, is difficult
to predict. Two decades ago, who would have thought we would be where we are
today, with a web full of dynamic documents and thriving libraries - side by side?
måndag 10 mars 2014
iConference in Berlin or "Starving with Dinosaurs"
I am back in office after a week in Berlin, attending the
iConference, the now annual meeting of the iCaucus, an international
”association” of Information Schools and Library and Information Science
Departments. The iCaucus started off about fifteen years ago as an informal
netwok between a number of US LIS schools in an attempt to find ways in which
to address contemporary information problems and development. During the last
few years the concept has spread internationally as well, and there are today
55 iSchools in the US, Europe and Asia. In Scandinavia, there are three member
departments; at University of Borås, University of Oslo and Akershus, and
University of Copenhagen.
My own department at Linnaeus University is not a member,
but this does not stop us from having a lot in common with these schools in
terms of interests and collaborations. The reason I attended the conference
this year was much out of curiosity, as it was the first time it was held in Europe.
I remember that the iSchool concept, when it first appeared, was hailed as
something completely new and now I wanted to see for myself what it had to
offer as an alternative to, for instance, the CoLIS or ASIS&T conferences.
Not much, it turned out. A slight emphasis on ”the digital”, yes. A slight
leaning towards the computational, yes. As a whole, though it proved to be a
rather ordinary LIS conference, with pretty much the same people circulating
the coffee tables as on CoLIS or ASIS&T, and by all means, that is not a
bad thing.
None the less, the quality of papers and presentations
varied significantly. At the welcome session, Michael Seadle of the hosting
Humbolt University, mentioned that more and more papers are being rejected in
the peer review process of the iConference. Normally that is a good thing, but
as the days went along, I started to think about those papers that didn´t make
it. Were they rejected purely on the basis of poor quality? If so, there is quite a lot of really bad research
out there right now. That might be, but here I do not think that is the case. I
don´t think I have ever been to a conference that has suffered so much from the
obvious need of, primarily American, demands of publication by numbers. There
where several papers that held a quality no higher than that which I expect
from my students at our LIS bachelor program at LNU. Typically, and sadly, most
of these proved to be American doctoral thesis projects. Presumably, these papers presented little
snippets of more substantial studies, because a number of them were, to be honest,
pure rubbish – limited exploratory, statistical or experimental designs with
little or no ambition beyond the obvious outcome of the measures used. It
really makes you wonder about the general state of US LIS research today.
Needless to say, the doctoral students themselves are not the ones to blame.
Instead one must consider the judgement of supervisors and departments. As it is
likely that several of the papers, notes and posters that where rejected were
both strong and relevant, the organizers really need to think over the review
process for upcoming iConferences. A conference is never better than the reserach
presented and in this respect iConference has quite a long way to go if they
want to be in the same league as for instance CoLIS and ASIS&T, and I see
no other ambition in the programme.
Of course there were highlights. The two keynote talks,
given in the wonderful Audiomax at Hegelplatz, where Albert Einstein once gave his
famous public lectures on the theory of general relativity, were very
interesting. Tony Hey of Microsoft Research Connections gave an interesting
account of the development of Big Science and Open Data as the new challenge
for companies and institutions of the magnitude of Microsoft and its likes.
Melissa Terras of University College London held an intriguing talk on the
possibilities of, and challenges for, digital humanities. Among the session
talks I heard, Ronald Day of University of Indiana, Bloomington, stood out as
the unique voice in LIS that he has been over the last fifteen years. He
presented his forthcoming book Indexing it all: the subject in the age of
documentation, information and data. I look forward to reading it. For my own
part, I chaired a nice session on ”Culture studies and digital challenges”,
discussing political bias in Wikipedia, the character of Edward Snowden, and
Florida school libraries.
Was the iConference worth attending? Yes indeed. I see no
reason not to consider it when planning my annual conference attendances.
Perhaps I’ll even sign up for next year’s event – in sunny southern California.
Pictures:
1. The Audiomax auditorium during Melissa Terras' talk.
2. The conference "dinner" at Naturkundemuseum.
3. Dinosaurs. Two real and two in the making: Fredrik Åström and Joacim Hansson.
4. Hegel. No less.
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