Building a Career on a Single General Research Question

From Information Science toLibrary Science: An Odyssey

Steven L. MacCall, PhDSchool of Library and Information Studies

University of Alabama

Fall 2013 SLIM Research ForumEmporia State University-KC, Overland Park, KS

My General Research Question

How best to cooperatively organize onlineresource collections for autonomous use in a designed environment outside of the library?

About Me

• Trained information scientist (PhD plus ALA-accredited MSIS) & self-trained library scientist.

• I am a generalist’s generalist.• I am an “experienced” entrepreneur.• My teaching and research aimed at developing

and improving library practice:– Library workforce (re)development– Cooperative organizing in the online environment– LIS research and its impact on library practice

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My Organizing Philosophy

• In his recent book The Social Transcript, Osburn centers the definition of library function on larger social processes rather than on the daily activities of librarians.

• These social processes manifest libraries as a cultural technology: “Those mechanisms created and maintained cooperatively that are intended to transmit selected cultural elements needed to sustain continuous adaptation within a society.”

Organizing Philosophy (cont.)

• Following Boulding, Osburn points specifically to the mechanism of the “transcript” of a society’s public image, which is transmitted in many cases over long periods of time:– Through oral retelling (in “pre-literate” times)– Through textual transmission (amongst other methods)

after the invention of writing• The library, as a cultural technology, functions to

select, organize, interpret, and preserve the social transcript over time.

• Library function as cultural memory mechanism.

Dual Nature of Library Function

• According to Osburn, it is important to note the dual nature of the library function:– Specific and predictable usage in the short term

(i.e., everyday library activities for the immediate pressing needs of individual societal members)

– Non-specific and less predictable usage over the long term (i.e., the needs of future societal members over centuries and millennia)

• But what about the social transcript published online?

Textual Formats Over Time• From library function perspective, social transcript can be

considered as texts published primarily in book form.

• Let us review the history of textual formats:Textual Format Inscribing Method Ontological Status Label

Tablet Imprinting Static “Tablet”

Scroll Script Static “Book”

Codex Script Static “Book”

Codex Print Static “Book”

Online Digital Static “eBook”

Online Digital Dynamic “Online book”

Specific Issues Arising• Of course, online texts already exist, but are

they optimally organized?• Using Osburn’s dual notion of librarianship,

this issue sharpens as:– Is that method for optimal organizing suitable for

immediate more predictable uses?AND

– Is that method for optimal organizing suitable for unspecified and likely less predictable future uses?

The Current Challenge Illustrated:What of Cooperative Human Organizing?

Organization now resides in a black box. The algorithms used by Google, Westlaw, and LexisNexis to connect the researcher with desired information are proprietary….

There is no point in lamenting this development. The battle is over and mediation of information by librarians lost [emphasis added]

Robert C. Berring, 2012

My Framework for Research into Cooperative Human Organizing

Libraries reside in networks.

Libraries as designed environments.

Published resources as designed environments.

My General Research Question

How best* to cooperatively organize onlineresource collections for autonomous use in a designed environment outside of the library?

*Twin measures of efficiency and effectiveness

Specific RQs: Cooperative Organizing

• SRQ 1: Past influences: How did we achieve today’s designed physical library environment?– 1876– Aspects of history of the book

• SRQ 2: Present day challenge: What will be our designed environment for the online library environment?– Library science versus information science– Invention and extension

• SRQ 3: Future work: Will the future designed online library environment scale to meet the varied needs of users?– Digital Inversion Theory– Entrepreneurship

Influences from the Past

• SRQ 1: How did we achieve today’s designed physical library environment?

• Those investigating cooperative organizing are interested in 1876 developments:– Cooperative cataloging (led by Cutter)– Cooperative classified shelf arrangement (led by Dewey)

• History of the book as text carrying format:– Book as organizing device– Book as aggregator of evidence (analytical bibliography)

Post 1876 Cooperative Organizing

• In the print book era, libraries developed various methods for organizing them as textual carriers

• By 1876, libraries had launched planning leading to present era of large-scale cooperative organizing

• Let’s call it the “Cutter/Dewey/Print Book (C/D/PB) Model” that included the following aspects– Cutter => cooperative cataloging– Dewey => shared classification for relative shelf

arrangement in directly accessible open library stacks– Print book => Book indexes, intertitles, and other

paratextual elements

Present Day Challenge

• SRQ 2: What will be our designed environment for the online library environment??

• Library science versus information science:– What is library science?– Why did information science emerge?

• Invention and extension:– Who is doing library science?– Designing the designed online library environment

Library Science Before Williamson

• In 1876, Melvil Dewey referred to “library science” in the context of the body of knowledge required to optimize shared library management under library economy:– Existing library network (over 3,000 libraries in 1876)– All libraries are branches in a single system (Cutter)

• By the turn of the century, it was apparent that cooperative organizing methods worked for books, but they failed to scale to all published materials:– Bibliographical methods (i.e., analytical cataloging) failed to

scale up to all published materials, esp. articles– Bibliothecal (i.e., classified shelf arrangement) methods

required user visits to libraries

The Information Science Century

• With the early 20th century failure of cooperative library organizing methods to scale, there was an opening for SLA and for a new “information science” (IS) to develop:– In 20th century, IS became heavily concerned with

improving search through algorithmic indexing– During this period, IS research came to dominate LIS

schools as measured by doctoral student research output and the recent rise of the iSchool movement

• Where is the library science research occurring for the future designed online library environment?

Invention and Extension

• Inventive librarians have taken the lead in evolving library practice across the network of libraries:– Large-scale digital special collections efforts (e.g., DPLA)– Large-scale book digitizing and access efforts (e.g.,

HathiTrust)• How can these efforts be extended through additional

research? That’s where I want to be. Proposals:– A new theory based on textual studies, not info science– A design based for a new online cooperative organizing

environment based on the affordances of the online book as the newest evolution of textual carrier format.

Future Work

• SRQ 3: Will the future designed online library environment scale?

• Digital Inversion Theory to guide further research:– Provides basis for cooperative organizing incorporating the

evolution of textual transmission to online formats– Also includes aspects of special collections organizing

• Entrepreneurship:– Making an economic case for library services as optimized

distribution and documentation channels for publishers and their online published texts

– Cooperative special collections organizing: Monetization and the case for adopting a Digital Asset Management model

Textual Studies as a Framework

• Textual multiplication: The distribution of copies of texts to different contexts.

• Textual generation: The creation of a new text by an authoring entity.

• Textual documentation:– Of reception: Impact of texts on readers (e.g., annotation)– Of use: Outcome of the use of texts (including generation).

• Textual transmission: The publishing history of a text as it is updated, edited, and/or reissued:– Into new editions published using same document format as

previous edition (often accompanied by new paratext)– Into new editions published using different type of document format

(e.g., from tablet to scroll to codex or codex to electronic book).

Textual Formats Over Time

• Let us review the history of textual transmission:

Textual Format Inscribing Method Ontological Status Label

Tablet Imprinting Static “Tablet”

Scroll Script Static “Book”

Codex Script Static “Book”

Codex Print Static “Book”

Online Digital Static “eBook”

Online Digital Dynamic “Online book”

Digital Inversion Theory Developed for Guiding my Research Program

• Locational inversion: Online infrastructure provides for on location services (i.e., BDLs “branch digital libraries”) rather than physical library services.

• Ontological inversion: An online publishing infrastructure provides for textual updates as needed rather than having to wait for the publishing of new physical editions.

• Temporal inversion: First develop cooperative methods for organizing born digital collections for on location use then design for textual transmission from codex to online.

• Bibliothecal (classification) inversion: Browse over search

A Role for Entrepreneurship

• The possibilities afforded by an online publishing environment enables on location services (BDLs) by libraries for the first time in a long history of managing access to and preservation of the social transcript.

• The key is cooperative organizing:– Across libraries– But also across publishers, authors, and readers

• Publishers are under economic stress … can we provide a lifeline with our network of libraries?

Entrepreneurial Example:DIT & Digital Asset Management

• Archival methods are also undergoing changes in the online era based on born-digital materials.

• Documentation strategies can possibly benefit from application of digital inversion theory:– Currently investigating the documenting of football

games efficiently and effectively (“maximal indexing”)– Maintaining the dual library function by providing for

immediate on location and long term usage scenarios– Seeking to develop a generalized documentation

strategy for deployment across library network

Revisiting my General Research Question

How best* to cooperatively organize onlineresource collections for autonomous use in a designed environment outside of the library?

*Twin measures of efficiency and effectiveness