A parallel universe? – Blogs, wikis, web 2.0 and a complicated future for scholarly communication

David Smith, Business Innovations Manager

The good ole’ days

For Publishers: They (that’s scholars) came to us. We determined if/how/when their work was published. We also held the keys that enabled access to the corpus of scholarly literature.

For Librarians: They (that’s scholars and students) came to you. You also held the keys that enabled access (after paying the publishers). After a suitable training period – a researcher was ready to search and discover information contained within the library holdings.

Between us – we built some great tools for resource discovery and dissemination – OR SO WE THOUGHT…

Then came…

The Internet…

And…

A really good FREE resource discovery tool…

And other (web based) tools for…Publishing

Collaboration (and publishing)

Social Networking (and publishing)

And now, users have a choice…How to find information…

OR

And now, users have a choice…How to publish information…

OR

“We’re doomed, all doomed!”

Private James Frazer (Dads Army)

The web is the most disruptive influence on publishing since the invention of movable type in 1450…And now we have at our disposal the most powerful information dissemination tool in publishing history. If that doesn’t make you feel excited then nothing will.Timo Hannay (STM News June 2007)

Scholarly Scholarly Communications: Communications: What we publish and What we publish and provide accessprovide access toto

Scholarly Scholarly Communications: Communications: The less formal stuff –The less formal stuff –Journal clubsJournal clubsLab discussionsLab discussionsMulti group projectsMulti group projectsConference chatConference chatNewsgroups/mailing listsNewsgroups/mailing listsStudent lecturer Student lecturer interactionsinteractionsEtcEtc

I don’t have any answers… sorry

But here are some issues that the scholarly use of blogs, wikis and other web2.0 tools put front and centre in my thoughts:

Identity Privacy Authority

Reputation Intellectual Property

Thought LeadershipCopyright

Harnessing the wisdom of the crowds experts

Useful wikis (not wikipedia then!)

If they can do it, why can’t we?

Blogs…

Back to the issues list…

Privacy

Identity

Authority

Reputation

Copyright

http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/04/univ_of_michigan_to_my_rescue.php

"If you rely on the activity of your community for your content - be nice to them"...Derek Powazek - Powazek.com

Where do we go from here?

Publishers (and librarians) must adapt.

Online communities require organisers, thought leaders, moderators and guides – stuff we’ve always done.

We are so well placed to figure out the trust metrics that are needed for this new world, managing the reputation signposts that scholarly communication relies on – it’s just a case of applying our knowledge and skills to a new environment

We have been the experts in information dissemination – we still are. We should be leading developments in the online world.

In the Information Economy everything is plentiful - except

attention"In a few years you may be able to carry the Library of Congress around in your hip pocket. So? You're never gonna read the Library of Congress. You'll die long before you access one tenth of one percent of it. What's important --- increasingly important --- is the process by which you figure out what to look at. This is the beginning of the real and true economics of information. Not who owns the books, who prints the books, who has the holdings. The crux here is access, not holdings. And not even access itself, but the signposts that tell you what to access --- what to pay attention to. In the Information Economy everything is plentiful --- except attention." Bruce Sterling

Thank You.

PS: your youtube video is…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo