Technology, Scholarship, and the Humanities:
The Implications of Electronic Information
The Implications of Electronic Information for National Institutions
Lawrence Dowler
Associate Librarian for Public Services
Widener Library
Harvard University
Abstract
The future of research will depend on our ability to create a new concept and
definition of research resources and a new institutional framework for
addressing issues that will affect the quality and diversity of research in the
future. Traditional forms for supporting research resources are being
undermined by the convergence of three trends: 1) new economic conditions
affecting higher education and research libraries, 2) changing patterns of
research and inquiry that are increasingly incongruent with existing library
programs and services, and 3) the dramatic development of information
technology that is affecting the methods of research and challenging the limits
of existing institutions and organizations to operate effectively.
The confluence of these three forces is not only changing our understanding of
the scope and content of research resources, but is also doing something more:
it is challenging the fundamental assumptions that have successfully guided
universities and research libraries in supporting research in the past and
exposes the weak side of the voluntaristic ethos of American institutions that
values local autonomy over collaboration or national institutions.
Five issues will have profound implications for the future of research. First,
the competitive spirit that shaped academic institutions in America, including
libraries, is no longer adequate to preserve the resources needed for research.
Second, policies and decisions concerning access to, and the use of,
information for research purposes, previously matters of local concern, are
rapidly becoming part of a national agenda as a result of information
technology. Third, the reallocation of resources for information technology
that is occurring both nationally and within academic institutions could have a
profound impact on higher education and research, particularly in the
humanities. Fourth, information technology has had only limited impact on
research in the humanities, primarily because automated resources that address
the particular research needs of humanists have been slow to develop. Finally,
the changing conditions now affecting research raise important questions about
how to recruit and train librarians, archivists, and other information
professionals who possess subject and discipline-based knowledge and who can
assist scholars in locating and using information needed for research.
Future support for academic research, especially in the humanities, will depend
on the participation and leadership of universities in creating a new concept
and definition of research resources. We need to develop a cooperative system
of research resources to support inquiry that is fundamentally varied and
unpredictable. Finally, a national system of research requires a new
institutional framework, a national forum for research, to support the
diversity of research that a rapidly changing society will want and need.
© Lawrence Dowler, 1993
Information technology--the machines, processes, and knowledge required
to create, store, manipulate, disseminate, and retrieve information
[1]--has
captured our imagination and
inspired a vision of networked information as the library of the future.
[2] It is,
however, a flawed vision. It
is not only technology that will determine the future of research, but also
our ability to create a new conceptual model and definition of research
resources and a new institutional model for addressing issues that will
affect the quality and diversity of research in the future.
Libraries, Research, and Technology: A Changing Environment
The convergence of three trends is undermining traditional notions about
research libraries and has prompted the search for new models to support the
scholarly resources needed for research. These trends are: 1) new economic
conditions that are affecting higher education and research libraries, 2)
changing patterns of research and inquiry that are increasingly incongruent
with existing library programs and services, and 3) the dramatic development
of information technology that is affecting the methods of research and
challenging the limits of existing institutions and organizations to operate
effectively. We need to understand, first, how these trends, singly and in
combination, are affecting scholars' research and research resources and,
second, how these trends challenge universities' current assumptions and
policies for supporting research, particularly in the humanities.
Research Libraries: A New Economic Reality
A new economic reality is shaping the way we think about higher education and
library resources. Operating costs for colleges and universities have risen 23
percent more than inflation over the last decade, and tuition has risen twice
as fast over the same period. State support for higher education is now at a
30-year low, and federal support has also declined.
[3] Total
library costs are rising faster
than income, a trend that is not likely to change in the immediate future.
The cost of research materials is also soaring. Journal prices have risen
by 400 percent in the past 20 years and the cost of acquisitions is growing
by 20 percent to 30 percent a
year.[4]
Moreover, the quantity of publications is also expanding. An estimated
850,000 volumes are published annually and this figure is increasing at
the rate of 2-1/2 percent a
year.[5 ]
In fact, today research libraries are acquiring a smaller portion of
available publications and other research materials, and paying more for
what they get. At the same time, most libraries have insufficient space
for new acquisitions and, increasingly, must pay to store books that
cannot be shelved on site, a new and added expense in most library budgets.
As the quantity of publications grows and the proportion of the world's
publications that libraries can afford to acquire shrinks, new forms of
material that researchers may wish to use have proliferated. Still and motion
pictures, taped interviews, statistical data, government reports, pamphlets and
unpublished ephemera, maps, survey data, manuscripts and archives, artifacts
and specimens, and electronic information of all kinds may be important to
students and scholars, quite possibly for purposes totally unrelated to that
for which they were originally created or subsequently acquired by the
library.[6]
Even new information technologies, which some believe provide a model for the
library of the future, may also be seen as adding to the library's economic
woes. Although accurate figures are difficult to obtain, there can be no doubt
that library expenditures for automation are substantial and rising, provoking
fear among some scholars that the money spent on technology is being diverted
from books and traditional research collections. Moreover, although converting
the card catalog to machine-readable form and introducing electronic indexes
and bibliographical databases to the automated catalog are making researchers
more efficient, experience shows that these activities mean greater use of the
collection. And, as circulation rises, so does the cost of servicing and
preserving collections. New technologies also raise expectations for increased
library services, such as assistance and instruction in using information
technology, document delivery, greater capabilities for online searching, and
additional electronic products, all of which continue to drive total library
costs ever higher.
These changing economic conditions constitute a new reality that forces
librarians to think of strategies to reduce costs and limit acquisitions in an
attempt to maintain the library in its traditional form. Clearly, new economic
realities will diminish the ability of universities, as well as research
libraries, to operate as they have in the past; adherence to traditional
conceptions and aspirations will lead to diminished resources for research.
Scholarship in Transition
Research in the humanities has changed significantly over the past three or
four decades. There has been a shift away from interpreting canonical texts
and scholarship for the sake of erudition toward examining the context or frame
of reference within which a text, idea, or activity may be understood. There
is, too, greater emphasis on novelty and general theories, which are very often
focused on the present or recent
past.[7]
These changing patterns of research reflect developments in Western
intellectual thought that have created new academic disciplines and areas of
research.[8]
Several additional factors, by
accelerating these intellectual trends, have resulted in significant changes
in research after the Second World War. Quantitative methods gave new life to
the social
sciences,[9]
and increased federal funding tended to make research more
"result"-oriented.[10]
Social and demographic changes have
encouraged greater scholarly emphasis on expressions of everyday life--social
and cultural history, studies of women and families, popular culture, and
public perceptions and beliefs about a variety of issues.[11]
One consequence of these changes has been an increase in interdisciplinary and
cross-cultural research, which has led to a proliferation of new courses and
areas of intellectual interest that are more likely than did earlier academic
disciplines to reflect changes in society and culture. The sources for
documenting these activities are more varied, and scholars are now more
inclined to seek a range of nonprint materials that are only partially
represented in most library collections: images, including photographs and
motion pictures; popular literature; ephemera; spatial data; personal papers
and archives; and virtually anything that might reflect the attitudes,
activities, and culture of a society. Thus, it is not just the quantity of
information that is daunting to scholars and librarians; it is also the variety
of forms of sources that are increasingly important for teaching and research.
The extent to which libraries can or should collect such items, especially in
light of the escalating costs of acquiring conventionally published materials
and the ever-increasing demand on library resources for automation, is an
important question for both scholars and librarians.
Another consequence of the new patterns of research and scholarship has been
the diminished importance of the academic department as an organizational
entity within the university. Academic departments continue to exist, of
course, and to exert whatever influence they can within institutions. However,
they often no longer accurately reflect the research interests of their
members. Instead, research is often
interdisciplinary;[12]
individual scholars are linked across
departments into small communities of scholars, drawn to one another by shared
research interests to form an invisible college that is not reflected in the
formal structure of the university. Moreover, their research tends to be part
of a national system of research; the invisible college embraces national and
even international communities for whom automation and information technology
will become increasingly important.
The changes in research and the proliferation of nonprint sources for
documenting new forms of inquiry and research have important implications for
libraries. First, research libraries are organized to serve traditional
scholarship and are less effective in supporting the newer patterns of research
and instruction. The cataloging and classification of books, which reflect
traditional academic disciplines, do not provide the kind of subject access
most desirable for interdisciplinary research and
instruction.[13]
Librarians have responded to this problem
by automating the card catalog and offering other bibliographic databases in
order to improve access and research efficiency, but these measures also
increase library costs. Second, changing trends in research put a premium on
acquiring new research sources at a time when budgets are constrained. In the
short term, some libraries may acquire primary sources as a way of
distinguishing their collections from the homogenized library collections that
many fear will result from declining acquisitions. Most libraries, however,
are unable to maintain current serial subscriptions and new monographs, and
will not be strongly motivated to increase the diversity of their holdings
with new
sources.[14]
In the end, interdisciplinary research has resulted in a greater appreciation
for primary and nonprint sources, but these materials tended to be viewed as
peripheral to the library's primary obligation to collect "the accumulating
record of
scholarship."[15]
For some librarians,
automation and networked information suggest a solution to this problem and a
path to the future; for others, these developments portend a future in which
scholars may dispense with the library altogether.
New Technology: Impact on Research and Library Resources
There can be little doubt that new technologies are having and will continue to
have an enormous impact on libraries, although precisely what that impact will
be is less certain than many forecasters would have us believe. The key issue
is how information technologies affect, and perhaps change, scholarly
communication and research methods. What makes us think of the computer as
revolutionary, however, is not just the linking of text and images; it is also
the wedding of content and form into a single process that places in the hands
of the user the power to determine how, and for what purpose, the computer will
be used. In other words, the influence of technology on research depends in
large measure not on technology, but on how students and scholars choose to use
it. The future of research lies precisely here, at the nexus of the scholar
and information; the challenge for librarians and other information
professionals will be to devise the most effective and efficient ways to assist
in this process.
For more and more scholars, research has changed appreciably as a result of
technology. For some, technology has made research more efficient, but has had
only a limited impact on the kind of research they do. For others, however,
the nature of their research is being significantly altered because technology
makes it possible to explore issues that could not otherwise be explored.
Citation studies of words in literary texts or the use of parish and
census-like records for family and community reconstruction indicate the kinds
of scholarship that computers make
possible.[16]
The proliferation of electronic databases
and the ability to convert research sources to digital form could play a
significant role in academic research. The Medieval and Early Modern Data
Bank, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, and the Dante Project are only a few of the
better known projects that provide original data and texts in electronic form.
Moreover, there is enormous potential for transforming certain academic
disciplines. One can imagine, for example, the effect of having all extant
Babylonian texts available electronically; a lifetime of peripatetic
scholarship could never duplicate what one could conceivably have available in
a database. Equally important is the opportunity to link previously distinct
academic specialties. The Perseus project, for example, is a database of
texts, images, and sound on ancient Greece that will be useful to historians,
archaeologists, literary scholars, and etymologists. The questions are, who
will fund these projects and will libraries be inclined or be able to collect
the sources needed for these endeavors in the future?
Perhaps the most noticeable change in research methods (or at least in the
scholar's use of libraries) is electronic access to library catalogs and
databases. Over 200 major library catalogs are available on the Internet, and
many libraries are now making databases like Academic Index and Public Affairs
Information Service available through their catalogs. Scholars will no longer
be limited to using the catalog or the variety of guides and access tools in
the library. Moreover, the explosion of commercial services offering
electronic access to periodical literature and even electronic delivery of
full texts will also affect scholarly communication and the use of
journals.[17]
Dramatic changes have also occurred in
communications, and these changes could have a profound impact on scholarship.
E-mail and voice-mail are already transforming the ways in which we all work,
but the ultimate direction and value of list servers and electronic
conferences--still novel for many scholars--are unknown. Electronic
communication does offer enormous potential for collaborative research, but
in the humanities, at least, where scholarship is individualistic and highly
competitive, it is not yet clear whether scholars will choose to use it. In
addition, there appears to be renewed interest in hypermedia
applications:[18]
at the very least, these may replace
textbooks and play an important role in instruction; at best, they may finally
begin to fulfill the vision of Vannevar Bush and the prophecies of Ted
Nelson.[19]
One of the attractions of information technology is the hope that it will
assemble needed resources electronically, which will make research more
convenient and efficient. Under the dual pressures to publish and participate
in the governance of the institution, faculty may opt for sources that are
easy to use and readily at
hand.[20] For
the humanist especially--whose methods of research are associative, and for
whom browsing is important--proximity, as well as the richness of research
sources, will probably affect the direction and perhaps even the quality
of research. Improvements in the efficiency of research will increasingly
depend on information technology, not only as a way of locating needed
resources or retrieving books from storage, but also for examining texts
and images, the very sources used by scholars in research.
In sum, the financial problems afflicting higher education are structural and
will not vanish with the next upturn in the economy; both universities and
their libraries are reallocating resources to adapt to these new economic
conditions. Changes in research have led scholars to seek a variety of primary
and nonprint sources that expand our understanding of what is meant by
"research resources," even as it puts greater pressure on libraries to support
them. Finally, information technology not only compounds the financial burden
of libraries, but also promises to further change the scholar's methods of
doing research, perhaps even the way we think and
know,[21]
which further undermines some of our assumptions about the kinds of resources
needed for research.
Implications of the Changing Environment for Higher Education
and Library Resources
New economic realities, changing trends in research, and the emergence of
information technology are changing our understanding of the scope and content
of research resources even as the ability of research libraries to support them
declines. But the confluence of these three forces is doing something more:
It is challenging the fundamental assumptions that have successfully guided
universities and research libraries in supporting research in the past and
exposes the weak side of the voluntaristic ethos of American institutions that
values local autonomy over collaboration or national institutions.
Five issues that have emerged from this new environment will have profound
implications for the future of research. First, the competitive spirit that
shaped academic institutions in America, including libraries, is no longer a
viable way to preserve the resources needed for research. Instead, we need
cooperative approaches that rarely worked in the past and that are contrary to
our competitive values. Second, the autonomy of academic institutions and
libraries is being undermined by information technology. Policies and
decisions concerning access to, and use of, information for research purposes,
previously matters of local concern, are rapidly becoming part of a national
agenda. We need a national forum to represent the varied interests of the
research community, a notion that runs counter to local autonomy. Third, a
substantial reallocation of resources for information technology is occurring
both nationally and within academic institutions, and this trend could have a
profound impact on higher education and research, particularly in the
humanities. The very structure of support for research is under discussion,
and the humanities, as far as I can tell, do not have a "place at the table."
Fourth, and perhaps not unrelated to the previous point, information technology
has had only a limited impact on research in the humanities, primarily because
automated resources that address the particular research needs of humanists
have been slow to develop. Consequently, some scholars view computer
technology as a threat to humanistic values, not without good reason. Finally,
the changing conditions now affecting research raise important questions about
the recruiting, training, and role of librarians, archivists, and other
information professionals who possess subject and discipline-based knowledge
and who can assist scholars in locating and using information needed for
research, regardless of location or format.
Higher education in America is competitive, and universities, even public ones,
are essentially autonomous institutions. Indeed, these very characteristics
may have contributed to their
success.[22]
To be sure, government support has played an important role in supporting
research and academic programs in both private and public institutions, but
universities are essentially independent, competing with one another for
students, faculty, and financial resources. One of the ways universities
compete for faculty is by their support for research; for the humanities, this
support is usually focused on the library. Competition among libraries for
prize collections or the largest number of volumes is simply an extension of
the competitive model that is intrinsic in American higher education.
The problem with the competitive model is that it no longer works. A number of
factors have diminished its usefulness. Chief among them is the fact that
research is now more responsive to changes in society and the world at large
and the rapidity of social change exceeds the ability of libraries to respond
in an equally timely fashion. A recent example is the disintegration of the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which has altered scholarly inquiry and raised
a host of new questions requiring documentary sources not previously available
nor easily assembled by research libraries and archives in either the West or
the Eastern countries themselves. Moreover, the continued growth of
interdisciplinary and problem-oriented
research[23]--a
trend that is likely to continue with
the growing interest in ethnic and gender issues--expands the quantity and
variety of sources that are important for research. But, as the potential
sources for research expand, we will not only need to revise our conception of
what constitutes research resources, but will also need to devise a new
strategy for preserving them. Competitive collection development by individual
institutions will not satisfy this objective; we will need to develop a
national, cooperative strategy to support the expanding needs of research, a
strategy that has been notably unsuccessful in the past.[24]
A second consequence of the new environment is the decrease in local autonomy
over some issues that are important for research. Information technology is
undermining the local decision-making mechanisms in both research libraries and
universities and will ultimately require the creation of a different structure
for deciding how to support academic research. Decisions that have
traditionally been viewed as local ones will, increasingly, be decided at a
national level. In large part, these changes result from the upsetting of
existing understandings and accommodations made over the years. Just a few of
the many issues that must be decided nationally are questions concerning
copyright, what constitutes a publication or fair use of networked information,
equity of access by scholars to networked information, generic software
developments that would be beneficial to academic research, and, perhaps most
of all, appropriate representation and influence on those bodies that will set
standards for electronic
information.[25]
The very fabric of institutional support, and agreements about the use of
information, have been torn apart, and neither libraries nor universities can
decide independently how to resolve the resulting problems.
One of the implications of information technology that ought to be of great
concern to the scholarly community is what appears to be a major reallocation
of resources for information technology occurring both nationally and within
many academic institutions. The promise of its benefits have been widely
touted with little attention to its costs. Technology, however, is not the
villain. Rather, it is our failure to ask a simple question: Who pays for
information technology and, indeed, information, and whom does it benefit?
Nationally there appears to be a fundamental change in the way resources are
allocated. Government support for NREN will be essential for academic
research, but thus far it is not clear whether academic research, especially in
the humanities, will be supported. Moreover, even if education and academic
research is finally included in national network developments, it is not clear
who will speak for the varied research interests. No single agency can
adequately reflect the myriad constituencies concerned with research and the
resources required to support it.
The same kinds of financial issues that have emerged nationally are operating
within universities. As technology commands an increasing proportion of
shrinking library resources, it also taxes the ability of libraries and the
universities to allocate resources to support faculty research. For the
university, the need to build a campus-wide electronic infrastructure and
support academic computing adds another burden to an already strained budget.
For the library, improving the efficiency of research by means of information
technology will raise total library costs at a time when the library is
struggling to maintain current acquisitions. A fundamental question is how to
support and service new electronic sources on campus networks. Who will
provide instruction and help students and faculty to locate the electronic
information they need or support faculty who wish to create electronic
databases? If a separate operation is created to meet these needs, libraries
can expect to lose staff and financial resources in order to support this
service. If, on the other hand, libraries take responsibility for supporting
electronic information, they will need to assign significant resources,
including appropriately trained staff, to this function. Whether support
services are provided inside or outside the library, the result is the same:
a reduction of the traditional library resources that are still vital to
scholars in the humanities.
Another area of concern is the limited involvement of humanists in making
information technology serve their own research needs. Put another way,
information technology, in its current form, threatens to undermine the values
and purposes of research in the humanities. Computers and information
technology were conceived and designed by engineers and many of the touted
benefits of technology derive from an understanding of the way scientists and
engineers, not humanists, work. The sciences are paradigmatic and science,
more than the humanities, is based on a common understanding of methodology and
research goals and norms. Scientists rely primarily on journal articles, while
the monograph, presenting the context for research findings, is the form of
choice for humanities research. Scientists are more inclined to work in teams
and to engage in collaborative work; humanists tend to work alone. Humanists
seek primary sources, not yet widely available in electronic form; scientists
seek data, and computers provide a powerful tool for analyzing data and
creating models that emulate
reality.[26]
In fact, computers provide a tool for "doing" some kinds of science. This
is not to say that information technology is only for scientists and is
incompatible with the aims of research in the humanities. There are, as
we have seen, a number of important databases in the humanities and we
can expect many more in the future. But if electronic information is to
play the important role we believe it can and should for research in the
humanities, we need technological tools that are designed by, or at least
for, humanists.
Technology--any technology, including mechanical printing--does what technology
does best and tends to discount what it does not do well. There is something
to the notion that information technology can change our perceptions of
information and our analysis of problems, and therefore the way we make
decisions. But in acknowledging this, we also ought to be aware of the
possibility that we may lose something distinctive, a way of viewing the world,
a perspective that is quite possibly embedded in the humanities. The very
power of technology can influence and redefine what we mean by "original"
research. In other words, the methods supported by technology deal best with
phenomena that lend themselves to quantification and computer manipulation.
Important variables may be ignored, and there is a danger that technology may
dictate the kinds of questions to be asked. This is not a new danger, nor one
that is inherent only in information technology, but it ought to be a matter of
concern to humanists, not as a reason to oppose or ignore it, but as a reason
to attend to and adapt it to their own purposes.
There is, finally, reason to be concerned about our ability to recruit informed
librarians and others who, in library jargon, "mediate" the scholar's research
for information. A common perception, supported by a number of studies, is
that humanists don't consult general reference librarians to find sources, and
are more inclined to consult colleagues and follow the footnotes of other
authoritative scholars in their
field.[27]
But other discussions with scholars suggest that humanists do value the
expertise of archivists, curators of manuscript collections, and librarians of
small subject or discipline-based
libraries.[28]
This disjunction between the humanist's need for expertise, particularly
in the area of primary sources, and the
tendency of libraries to seek managers and generalists for the profession is an
important one. The sheer size and complexity of modern research libraries call
for management skills rather than discipline-based skills. Moreover, as
financial resources shrink, a premium will be placed on an aptitude for
administration, skills not always displayed nor often valued among academically
inclined individuals. The continued implementation of technology in libraries
will only compound this problem. Certainly, in this changing environment,
recruiting librarians who are technically competent to help scholars make
effective use of information technologies will be important. But in making the
transition from the traditional library, in which acquisitions determine the
allocation of resources for programs and services, to the library in which the
uses of the varied sources of research is instrumental, the most important
ingredient for success may be the professional who is conversant not only with
the process and discipline of research itself but also with the variety of
sources needed to nourish
it.[29]
Attracting such individuals to library and other information professions
may be the greatest challenge for the future support of research in the
humanities.
In the remainder of this paper, I will explore the first two issues outlined
in this section and attempt to answer two questions: First, given the new
economic and intellectual environment, how can we redefine research resources
to ensure the quality and diversity of research in the future? Second, what is
the rationale for a national institution or forum for research, and what are
the essential issues that such an institution would need to consider?
A System of Resources for Research: A Cooperative Approach
It was a little disquieting to read the results of a recent survey of Library
Directors and Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) aimed at assessing their
perceptions of campus priorities. Although there was surprising agreement in
the responses of CAOs and Library Directors, both groups showed little
enthusiasm for developing either national or international research and
telecommunications networks. Response to a question about developing greater
access to electronic information fared slightly better, but ranked well below
the highest priority, which was managing budgetary
issues.[30]
The results of this survey are troubling
because they illustrate that budgetary constraints force universities to look
inward at a time when all indications are that they ought to be doing the
opposite. Although I am less enamored than some with the idea of the "logical
library" as the solution to research library problems, I am persuaded that
preserving the quality and diversity of research will depend on a cooperative
plan for a national system of research resources, an increasing proportion of
which may consist of electronic data and information.
A system of research that is national or even international in scope requires a
system of resources to support it. Currently, the system of research sources
exists as the aggregation of collections held by research libraries, historical
societies, archives, museums, and electronic information, both networked and
local. In fact, it can be defined as the aggregation of all information and
materials, regardless of form or genre, that can be used for research. By
limiting our concern, however, to particular forms of research materials
(whether print or electronic), we fail to see the bigger picture of research
and the variety of resources that are needed to support it. We end up devoting
limited funds to those research resources for which we have a chosen allegiance
when scholarship might be better served by caring for the whole system of
research resources in order to maintain the full diversity of research in the
future. "The historian," writes one scholar, "can rediscover the past only by
the relics it has left for the
present."[31]
But now that the competitive model of acquiring them is no longer adequate to
the task, who will preserve the relics in a growing variety of forms for
research that are required? To answer this question we need a plan and, even
more, a new understanding and definition of research resources.
The idea of a national system of sources for research has something in common
with the environmental argument for biodiversity, a central tenet of which is
the need to maintain genetic diversity, the biological "information" that is
essential to all
life.[32]
In libraries, as
in the environment, the question is, what do we value and how do we allocate
limited resources to support it? In environmental terms, we have lavished our
resources on preserving "charismatic megafauna"--bald eagles and elk--instead
of aiming to preserve global biodiversity, including the fungi, microorganisms,
and "creepy-crawlies" that may be far more important to the quality of life
than the glamorous species. One does not have to push this analogy too far in
order to understand that a variety of formats and species of research sources
will be important for research, and that our primary objective ought to be to
preserve a diverse population of them. By limiting our efforts to preserving
charismatic sources, whether a first edition of a literary work, a new variety
of electronic information, or scholarly publications, we will limit and define
the kinds of research we can do in the
future.[33]
There is a certain irony in calling for an expanded notion of what constitutes
research resources at a time when most research institutions are cutting back.
There are also several implications for accepting the priority I have given to
preserving a diverse population of research sources and treating them as part
of a system. First, if competition among research institutions is no longer a
viable option for sustaining research, then we will need to devise a new model
to address the disjunction between the lofty rhetoric of a national system of
research resources and the needs of local institutions that must support it.
There is little incentive to maintain a common good for which the costs will be
borne by one, while the benefits are enjoyed by all. Second, to speak of a
system of resources for research, whether national or international, begs an
important question about what the system comprises and, equally important, what
portion of it should be saved. Clearly, not all information is equal, and not
all of it can survive; the challenge will be to develop strategies for
evaluating information and research resources and determining which small
portion of it ought to be preserved. Put in another way, the fundamental
question we must address is what information and what sources for research
shall not
survive.[34]
Nobody wants
to play God and decide which relics should survive, but pretending we can save
everything is intellectually dishonest, and leaving such choices to chance will
result in an overabundance of some sources and a scarcity of other specimens
that may be invaluable for future research. Triage is central to a national
system of research resources; the future diversity and quality of research will
depend on it.
A commitment to a national system of research resources and, specifically,
cooperative collection development cannot be a marginal operation. To be
successful, the national system of resources for research must be a core
activity of the research community. And to persuade local institutions to
commit resources to support such an enterprise, there must be cost incentives
for doing so. Access to an expanded pool of information and research materials
may be attractive, but it will not be enough to ensure the cooperation of
administrators confronted with diminishing funds and rising expectations for
services, including increased access to information technology. The linchpin
of any cooperative agreement will be reduced storage and preservation costs,
reduced acquisitions and all of the subsequent costs every acquisition incurs,
and, if possible, reduced staff costs. If the enterprise is conducted as a
core enterprise, that is, as an integral part of each local institution's
operation, then cost incentives are possible. Without such incentives,
cooperative collection development will fail and the sources available for
research, especially in the humanities, will
decline.[35]
A National Agenda: A New Forum for Decisions
One of the major problems in setting a national agenda for research in the
humanities is the absence of a national forum bringing together the appropriate
people for a discussion of issues of importance for research. Librarians talk
to librarians, archivists talk to archivists, college and university
administrators commiserate with one another, and occasionally scholars talk to
colleagues about common interests, but almost never about the general problems
of their research. It was remarkable that at a recent conference on research
and library resources, participants, who were drawn from a variety of academic
disciplines, noted that this was the first time they had ever discussed with
other scholars the issues and problems concerning their research. It became
apparent that not only is there no national forum for such discussions, but,
astonishingly, there appears to be no forum for such discussions within most
universities.[36]
What is needed, then, is a national association, an umbrella organization, to
bring together scholars--the consumers of research sources--and the various
groups responsible for preserving information--the providers of research
sources--to address the research needs of scholars. Cooperation rather than
competition is the only way we can marshal the resources that will be required
in a highly competitive economic environment. The professional associations,
both those representing scholars and those representing the providers of
information, are, like the humanities themselves, too fragmented to preserve
the sources that will be needed for research. We need an organization that
brings together scholars, administrators of research institutions, and
representatives of all the associations representing professions dedicated to
preserving some aspect of our intellectual and cultural heritage--museums,
archives, historical societies, libraries, and groups devoted to particular
formats, such as visual, sound, computer data, and artifacts of one kind or
another. What I envision, however, is something more than another library
organization or scholarly association. I am talking about something Herbert
Butterfield once described as "picking up the other end of a stick," a process
that entails "handling the same bundle of data as before, but placing them in
a new system of relations with one another by giving them a different
framework."[37]
What he is describing is a paradigm shift which can only be performed by
universities with the support of
a powerful coalition of interests committed to the support of research in all
its various forms. This is not a question of technology, but a matter of
politics, in the broadest sense of the word. To be successful, we will need
extraordinary leadership to change the venue of academic research from the
exclusive purview of the campus to a national concern and, second, to persuade
the nation of the value of research in the humanities to the commonweal.
Creating an institutional framework for a national agenda for research will not
be easy because it runs counter to the competitive and voluntaristic ethos of
the country; persuading the country of the value of research in the humanities
cannot be presumed at a time when the country is most concerned with increasing
its productive
capacity.[38]
A new national organization, perhaps a National Research Council for the
Humanities and Social Sciences, might serve as an umbrella for allied
associations and agencies concerned with preserving a system of research
resources. In addition to promoting a common vision of the value and need for
research in the humanities, a national association will need to address a
number of other issues if information technology is to become an important
instrument for research in the humanities. Most of these issues are matters of
general concern to anyone, regardless of academic discipline, although active
participation by scholars in the humanities will be critical if information
technology is to be successfully adapted to the needs of humanists. The
following delineates some of the issues to be considered by existing national
associations or by a new organization, should one be created.[39]
- The permanence of information stored electronically is a major issue facing
everyone who uses it, but it may be a matter of particular significance to
humanists who tend to use older sources and to use them for a variety of
research purposes. Basically, the problem is that electronically stored
information can become useless because of media decay or because the technology
becomes obsolete. The preservation of electronic information is probably an
issue for the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), but the peculiar uses
of information sources by humanists may add a level of complexity to this
issue.
- Planning for the development of a nationwide electronic infrastructure is
being actively pursued by CNI, a coalition of EDUCOM, ARL, and CAUSE. Nearly
everyone agrees that the development of the infrastructure--the National
Research and Education Network (NREN)--should be guided by the users of
information technology in research rather than by technical experts.
Currently, however, humanists do not appear to have a strong and certainly not
a concerted voice in these developments; they will need to do so, if NREN is
going to support their research needs effectively.
- One of the problems facing all users of electronic information is equity of
access to electronic information. Libraries and universities vary widely in
the electronic sources they support. Moreover, in the future, access to
electronic sources will be via the network. The level of support and, indeed,
even access to networked information varies from one institution to another.
The fundamental problem is money; the question is, will access to networked
information be available to humanists? What about unaffiliated scholars,
students, and researchers?
- A major problem confronting researchers in all fields is finding the right
software for their particular research. Commercially available software is
frequently unsuited to the specialized needs of researchers. Consequently,
home-grown applications are developed for a specific project, often without
regard to standards, documentation, or transportability to other computing
environments. Moreover, the methods for storing, organizing, and indexing
information are largely idiosyncratic, which means that the information
produced is essentially inaccessible to other researchers. EDUCOM has
indicated interest in this issue, but humanists need to consider these issues
in a more systematic fashion if they wish to have software programs that are
useful for their research needs.
- Another large issue that seriously limits research use of information
technology is the difficulty in communicating across research communities via
file transfer technologies because of the incompatibility of systems. Anyone
who has ever tried to use the Internet can attest to the fact that it is very
rough terrain, quite inhospitable to the novice. No doubt this is another
issue for CNI, but ease of use and the development of common, "user-friendly"
protocols will be essential if information technology is to play a significant
role in research in the humanities.
- The one activity that would surely encourage the use of electronic
information by humanists is the conversion of older texts, journals, and
primary sources to electronic form. Commercial firms will skim off the most
popular current journals and even some backfiles, but there is probably an
insufficient market to encourage commercial vendors to convert very many
sources in the humanities. Finding the resources to undertake imaging projects
is a problem, but humanists could help themselves if they developed a
systematic plan that identified priorities and offered a rationale and proposed
a strategy for converting important sources. At the very least, we need to
produce tables of contents to older journals, many of which are not indexed, to
provide a useful level of access to these older materials that will
increasingly be in storage. In fact, the success of cooperative collection
storage may depend on enhancing access to articles in older journals.
[40]
- The development of standards makes it possible for every telephone in the
world to communicate with every other telephone. The absence of commonly held
and implemented standards for computers and information technology is a major
stumbling block to scholarly communication. Developing and implementing
standards is a slow and costly process. Some organizations, like the American
Library Association and the Society of American Archivists, have developed
procedures for monitoring and influencing the standards process. The problem
is there needs to be a much wider involvement in these issues and most provider
and consumer associations are too small to be effective. Influencing the
development of standards for information technology cries out for cooperative
efforts involving both the information consumer and provider communities. We
need to speak with one voice in order to influence the standards bodies and
vendors who are the major players in the standards-setting process. The cost
and efficiency of research will ultimately depend on our ability to play an
effective role in influencing the development of standards in information
technology.
Conclusion
To maintain the richness and diversity of research in America there must be
dramatic changes in the ways we currently support research. A fundamental
question of enormous importance for society is, how will information be
rationed--that is, who has access to what information and, perhaps decisively,
who pays for it? Economic and technological changes are altering higher
education, traditionally the principal sponsor of research. Increasingly,
however, research is pursued outside the academy, and information technology
could tip the balance further in the direction of commercial and
government-funded research conducted independently of universities. In this
new environment, the humanities are vulnerable, not only because they are less
obviously connected to issues of productivity and profit, but also because
humanists have not been fully engaged in the developments in information
technology that are transforming the research environment. Future support for
academic research, then, especially in the humanities, will depend on the
participation and leadership of universities and research institutions. The
traditional, competitive model for supporting research is no longer adequate
and we will need to create a cooperative system of resources to support
research that is fundamentally varied and unpredictable. Finally, a national
system of research requires a new institutional framework to support the
diversity of research that a rapidly changing society will want and need.
Footnotes
[1] Of the many definitions of
information technology, I believe the best is by Margaret Hedstrom,
"Understanding Electronic Incunabula: A Framework for Research on Electronic
Records," American Archivist, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Summer 1991), p. 339.
[2] Mark Kibley and Nancy H. Evans, "The Network is the
Library," EDUCOM Review, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Fall 1989), pp. 15-20.
[3] Scott Jaschik, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
Vol. 37, No. 8 (October 24, 1990), pp. A1, A26.
[4] Although the actual numbers vary from one report to
another, the trend is quite clear. Among the many articles that discuss the
increasing cost of publications, one of the most thoughtful is a study by Lisa
Lieberman and Roger Noll, "The Sources of Scientific Journal Price Increase"
(W. Edward Steinmuller, Center for Economic Policy Research Stanford
University, March 1992).
[5] Melvin Maddocks, "Bookish," World Monitor, Vol. 2,
No. 8 (1989), pp. 14-15.
[6] There was substantial agreement on this point among
participating scholars drawn from a variety of disciplines in the humanities
and social sciences at a conference at Harvard, sponsored jointly by Harvard
University Library and the American Council of Learned Societies. Lawrence
Dowler, "Conference on Research Trends and Library Resources," Harvard
Library Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.2 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-14.
[7] Charles B. Osburn, Academic Research and Library
Resources: Changing Patterns in America (Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press,
1979), pp. 66-89.
[8] Daniel Bell, "Resolving the Contradictions of Modernity
and Modernism," Society (March/April 1990), pp. 43-50 and (May/June
1990), pp. 66-75.
[9] Daniel Bell, The Social Sciences Since the Second
World War (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1982).
[10] Osburn, Academic Research and Library Resources,
pp. xvi-xix.
[11] Kenneth Ames, cited in "Conference on Research Trends
and Library Resources," pp. 5-6.
[12] This is a common view that was empirically demonstrated
by Paul Metz, The Landscape of Literatures: Use of Subject Collections in a
University Library (Chicago: American Library Association, 1983), pp.
88-94.
[13] Karen Markey and Diane Visine-Goetz, "Increasing the
Accessibility of Library of Congress Subject Headings in Online Bibliographic
Systems," Annual Review of OCLC Research, 1987-88 (1988), pp. 32-34.
[14] An excellent discussion of the new reality facing
"special" collections in research libraries is Michael T. Ryan's "Developing
Special Collections in the 90s: A Fin-de-Siècle Perspective," Journal
of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 17, No. 5 (1991), pp. 288-293.
[15] Eldred Smith, The Librarian, the Scholar, and the
Future of the Research Library (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990), p.
2.
[16] An excellent and thorough examination of the influence
of information technology on research methods and scholarly communication is a
paper by Avra Michaelson and Jeff Rothenberg, "Scholarly Communication,
Information Technology, and Archives," in a forthcoming issue of the
American Archivist that will also be reprinted by RAND.
[17] Several journals are often mentioned as harbingers of
the future, such as Psycoloquy, ArtCom, and Postmodern Culture.
The first commercial attempt to electronically publish a refereed journal is
the new Current Clinical Trials. That this is a medical journal is not
insignificant; whether or not humanists and social scientists, for whom
immediacy of publication is less important, will want or be able to publish
electronically is an open question.
[18] Louis R. Reynolds and Steven J. Derose, "Electronic
Books," Byte (June 1992), pp. 263-268.
[19]Vannevar Bush predicted the explosive growth in the
quantity of information and developed ideas that were precursors to multimedia
and nonlinear presentations of information. "As We May Think," Atlantic
Monthly, Vol. 176 (1945), pp. 101-108. Theodore H. Nelson coined the
term hypertext and is a leading proponent of project Xanadu, a program that
aims to supply hypertext and hypermedia of any kind, with links of any kind,
from a network intended to be distributed around the world. T. H. Nelson,
"Replacing the Printed Word: A Complete Literary System," International
Federation for Information Processing Proceedings (October 1980), pp.
1013-1023.
[20] Gregory Crane, cited in "Conference on Research Trends
and Library Resources," p. 8.
[21] Michaelson and Rothberg, "Scholarly Communication,
Information Technology, and Archives."
[22] Richard Carlson and Bruce Goodman, 2020 Visions:
Long Views of a Changing World, in the Portable Stanford Book Series
(Stanford, CA: Stanford Alumni Association, 1990), pp. 177-181.
[23] Francis L. Miksa, "Research Patterns and Research
Libraries" (Dublin: OCLC, 1987). Text of an address given at the Fifth Annual
Conference of Directors of Research Libraries in OCLC, March 20, 1987.
[24] For a thorough discussion of previous efforts at
cooperative collection building, see Joseph J. Branin, "Cooperative Collection
Development," Collection Management: A New Treatise, ed. Charles B.
Ashburn and Ross Athinson (Greenwich, CT: J.A.I. Press Inc., 1991), pp.
91-110.
[25] See, for example, an article by Brian Kahin, "The NREN
As Information Market: Dynamics of Public, Private, and Voluntary Publishing,"
presented to Information Infrastructure for the 1990s, to be published by
McGraw-Hill as the PRIMUS project and entitled Building Information
Infrastructure (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992).
[26] Stephen E. Wiberley, Jr., "Habits of Humanists:
Scholarly Behavior and New Information Technologies," Library Hi Tech,
Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992), pp. 17-21.
[27] Constance C. Gould, Information Needs in the
Humanities: An Assessment Stanford, CA: The Research Libraries Group,
Inc., 1988).
[28] Humanists at Work (papers presented at a
symposium held at the University of Illinois at Chicago on April 27-28, 1989);
Wiberley, "Habits of Humanists," pp. 17-21.
[29] While some of the problems of recruiting future
scholars may be mitigated by the shrinking market for scholars due to financial
pressures in higher education, how to train and recruit the next generation of
librarians and "information" specialists should be a matter of concern to
humanists. See William G. Bowen and Julia Ann Sosa, Prospects for Faculty in
the Arts and Sciences: A Study of Factors Affecting Demand and Supply, 1987 to
2012 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 45-49,
57-61, 172-186.
[30] Carol A. Hughes, "A Comparison of Perceptions of Campus
Priorities: The Logical Library in an Organized Anarchy," prepublication
excerpts from a project description that will appear in a forthcoming issue of
the Journal of Academic Librarianship.
[31] Daniel J. Boorstin, Hidden History (New York:
Harper & Row, 1987), p. 3.
[32] I am indebted to a fascinating series of articles in
the January 1992 edition of The Atlantic for the discussion of
environmental issues; I am entirely to blame for the analogy with library and
research sources. See, especially, Charles C. Mann and Mark L. Plummer, "The
Butterfly Problem," and Suzanne Winckler, "Stopgap Measures," pp. 74-81.
[33] One can argue that librarians have been so wedded to
the technology of the book that they have not paid enough attention to
acquiring the primary and nonprint sources needed by humanists. See Marcia
Pankake, "Humanities Research in the 90s: What Scholars Need; What Librarians
Can Do," Library Hi Tech, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992), pp. 9-15.
[34] More than once I have thought that instead of filming
collections of books for preservation, we ought to consider doing nothing more
than putting them into cold storage and converting items to film or digital
image only when a volume is requested. This is triage by use and is one way,
at least, to ensure the survival of those resources demanded by scholars.
[35] I am guilty of subscribing to the dismal view that the
future of higher education will depend to a considerable extent on the ability
of universities to generate income or garner public support for activities
thought to be essential to the nation's productivity. It is difficult to be
sanguine about the prospects of the humanities in this environment; they will
not flourish without a concerted effort by those who believe they are good for
our collective well-being, if not our individual souls.
[36] Stanley Katz cited in "Conference on Research Trends
and Library Resources," pp. 12-13.
[37] Herbert Butterfield, cited in Thomas Kuhn, The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1970), p. 85.
[38] Richard Carlson and Bruce Goldman contend that the
traditional arts-and-sciences university communities will be torn apart by
growing economic pressures and disparities among departments and will be
increasingly driven by economic rather than academic considerations.
Presumably, the humanities will not thrive in this environment. 2020
Visions, pp. 177-182. See also David Breneman, "Are We Losing Our Liberal
Arts Colleges?," The College Board Review Vol. 156 (Summer 1990), pp.
16-20, 29.
[39] Information technology is less accessible to humanists
than it ought to be, but the larger issues discussed here are shared by
scientists. See Information Technology and the Conduct of Research: The
User's View. Report of the Panel on Information Technology and the Conduct
of Research, Donald N. Langenberg, Chair (Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press, 1989).
[40] Harvard, Yale, and MIT are currently exploring the
feasibility of cooperative storage for older periodicals. Electronic delivery
of articles appears to solve the need for timely retrieval, but it will not
satisfy the scholar's need to browse if we cannot provide sufficient
information about the content of periodicals.
