 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
Conversational Scholarship
Wednesday, July 26, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time
Imagine posting your book manuscript on the Internet for strangers to offer line-by-line critiques. Now imagine that you apply for tenure by submitting your e-book, along with selected critiques, to your department. Is this the wave of the academic future or simply the latest tech fad?
Researchers at the Institute for the Future of the Book say the networked e-book is ideal for scholarship: a dynamic site of conversation that allows scholars to share and develop knowledge even if their work might not sell enough copies to satisfy a traditional book publisher. Do certain fields of scholarship lend themselves to that format, or could it be appropriate for any? What are the pros and cons of opening up the traditionally anonymous peer-review process? Will open-review e-books ever get past tenure-review committees?
» Scholars turn monographs into digital conversations (7/28/2006)
Robert Stein is research director at the Institute for the Future of the Book, which he founded and which is run by the University of Southern California. He has been involved in e-book publishing longer than just about anyone — in the 1980s he founded the Voyager Company, which produced multimedia projects on CD-ROM; later he worked on digital-book projects for the research division of Atari, the early video-game company; and in the late 1990s he founded Night Kitchen, a company that developed multimedia publishing tools.
Jeffrey R. Young (Moderator):
Hello, and welcome to Colloquy, the Chronicle's online forum. I'm Jeffrey Young, the technology editor here and author of a story in this week's Chronicle about the future of scholarly books in the network age.
We're joined today by Bob Stein, research director at the Institute for the Future of the Book. Thanks so much for being here today Mr. Stein.
Robert Stein:
Thank you for inviting me. Delighted to be here (or there).
Question from Monica McCormick, Director of Digital Publishing, NCSU Libraries:
I endorse the idea of finding new ways to create scholarship, but wonder about the financial model for MediaCommons. Selection, peer review, editing, design, and other elements of high-quality scholarly publishing are not cheap, even if you eliminate print costs. Can you tell us anything about how you’ll pay for all this?
Robert Stein:
I was thinking about this question -- that you also posed so clearly on the if:book blog. it's a very long discussion, i'm afraid. this particular project we plan to START with foundation support. but more fundamentally we are wondering if there is a way to re-orient the way that efforts in this vein are valued. one direction this migh take . . . Our universities put aside a siginifcant amount of money for library services of all types -- i.e. we don't expect libraries to be self-sustaining.so why do must expect that other nodes of intellectual discourse, such as university presses, or something like MediaCommons should be. i understand that universities are terribly strapped for funds, but in the end, perhaps we can make different decisions about what needs to be subsidized.
another aspect of this re-orientation is to begin to institutionalize gift-economies in a way that would place value (e.g. for promotion) in people's contribution to the mechanisms of intellectual discourse
Question from H Stephen Straight, Binghamton University:
I am disappointed to see that e-publication continues to worship at the altar of linear texts. Does anyone else share my view that the future of e-publication, and particularly its hope of becoming the norm, depends critically on the incorporation of hypertextual content that cannot be duplicated in print form? Once this happens, and "readers" come to expect such hypertext-rich content, aren't "traditional publishers" in the end bound to transfer their investment away from tedious closed peer review leading to obsolete-before-the-ink-is-dry paper books and toward peer-reviewed but continuously-revisable electronic "books" of increasing inventiveness and communicative power?
Robert Stein:
Stephen, you will only get agreement here . . . . The problem over the past twenty years is that the publishing community has been uncomfortable and mostly unable for a complex of reasons to explore the potential of born-digital networked texts. challenging this institutional conservatism is one of the goals of the institute
Question from Scott Carlson, The Chronicle:
Some scholars have noted the erosion of the status of "authority" among scholars, largely thanks to the Internet. Because of outlets like Wikipedia, any Joe or Jane "out there" can become an expert on a given topic. Certainly academic writers like McKenzie Wark rely on some experts out there in writing their books. Do you think that peers in academe find this erosion (redefinition) of authority threatening? Or exciting? And what do you think?
Robert Stein:
i think the roles of AUTHOR(itative) and Reader are undergoing profound changes. there's no telling how long it will take, but in the end, my guess is that Authors will have a different set of skills than we associate with them today. for example they will function as very knowledgeable moderators of an ongoing discussion, they will function as leaders of expeditions in search of information, knowledge and wisdom, fundamentally, they will function as leaders of collective intellectual activity.
i am excited about this eventual transformation, but have no illusions that it will be a simple one or without significant struggles along the way.
Question from Brock Read, The Chronicle:
There are rumors that the next generation of iPods will have larger screens and e-book-reading capabilities. Obviously e-books on iPods would be rather less interactive than what you've done with Gamer Theory, but I wonder how you think the iPod could impact the future of the e-book?
Robert Stein:
sigh . . . not at your question, which is good, but the reality that underlies it. most ebook efforts are simply aimed at transferring the paper reading experienc to the screen. this isn't bad (although i wish they did a better job of it most of the time)as i think there is a value in being able to access and read texts electronically. but as you point out, this is barely the first step to the networked book of the future . . .
i think the best face to put on the iPod possibility is that like the Sony and Philips e-paper readers, this is the first time that major consumer electronic companies have been will ing to put their name behind electronic texts.
see it as an impt. baby step into the future.
Question from Maya Rhodes, Wayne State University Press:
Why are projects like "Gamer Theory" going to end up in print? Isn't the idea to move away from print? Why experiment with an electronic text just to put it back into the mold of print?
Robert Stein:
this is a transitional period, so we're going to see many differnt sorts of hybrids. i think that Mackenzie Wark was quite brave for letting us run such a public experiment with Gamer Theory. however, in the current moment, there are audiences to be reached and monetary rewards to be gained from print.
Question from Jeffrey R. Young:
At this point, what is the biggest obstacle to the Institute's vision of revamping scholarly publishing?
Robert Stein:
TIME . . . .
big changes take TIME
one of my favorite stories illustrating this is as follows. i was in mexico city giving a talk and mentioned that although the printing press was invented in 1454 it wasn't until the 1520s that you begin to see page numbers at the bottome of pages. so, if it took humans 70 years to figure out the utility of page numbers, its likely to take a while to work out the new forms of communication afforded by networked technologies.
we (that's a collective we, not just my colleagues at the institute) need time to experiment, sum up, experiment again.
Question from Sarah Truax, Houghton Mifflin Company:
While it's easy to state that publishing houses are dragging their feet with the move away from print text, what about the readiness of universities and students to purchase, support and view the kinds of hypertexts Stephen mentions?
Robert Stein:
i think there are three requirements for a new ecology of (electronic publishing) -- one is a distribution mechanism. we have that via the internet. a second is a display medium that is closer to the experience of print -- both in resolution and portability. having seen the Sony and Philips players, i think we're still at least three years away from having the right device to support electronic reading. which brings us to number three -- we need tools to enable new forms of writing and reading. to produce Gamer Theory took a fair amount of expert programming. we're hoping that Sophie, the software we've been working on for quite some time and expect to release in September could evolve into a set of really useful tools
Question from David Parry, U at Albany:
Let me first say that I think this is a great project, and fully support it, so take this question not as resistance but a place to perhaps be careful.
It seems to me that the University has traditionaly been the keeper of the archive, the place of authority, not just in terms of books, but people who maintain control and authority over those books. One of the effects of the digital has been a weakening of those controls, that is that the University can no longer be seen as the keeper of the archive. I think here of Wikipedia and the celebration of the fact that many of the posters are not "accredited." Now some would site this as negative, but it also has had positive effects as well.
So, I ask to what extent is this project conservative, that is an effort of the University to control, authorize, or establish "more legitimate" modes of digital discourse, that would be favored, bringing the archive once again, not if fully under the university's control (not that it ever was) but re-instate a certain power/authority?
Robert Stein:
exellent question
of course the struggle for control is inevitable and can only hope that we can stay on the side of collective rather than concentrated power. please see Avi Santo's excellent post today on if:book about the community oriented goals of the project.
we are hoping to structure the governance of MediaCommons in such a way as to favor collective responsibility. that sounds idealistic, but i think vision is a key element in launching projects like this. we may not get all the way there . . . but hopefully at least can make a stab that others will learn from.
Question from Mike Roy,Wesleyan University:
Hi Bob,
H Stephen Straight from Binghamton University just asked about the fetish surrounding linear text. I was curious about your quote in the Chronicle article that suggests your change in focus away from multimedia texts towards networked texts. Can you elaborate on why you feel that the priority in development of new genres of electronic texts should be on their 'networkedness' rather than in the use of media?
Robert Stein:
it's not really a move away from multimedia, just a re-orientation of it's centrality in the born-digital movement. when i started working in this area full-time -- twenty-six years ago -- the public network that we know as the internet didn't exist. our model at the time was the videodisc, an analog medium that suggested the book of the future would be just like the book of the past, i.e. a standalone, frozen, authoritative obect. it took me a long time to realize that locating "books" inside the network would over time cause more profound shifts in our idea of what a book is than the simple addition of audio and video.
Question from virginia kuhn (usc0:
Getting back to the iPod ebook reader, don't you agree that there is a value in having a non networked book - by that I mean one that includes video and audio and text but which is not necessarily (interactive - a term that needs complication anyway). I could see, for instance, Sophie books, those which are truly born digital, being accessed and read on an iPod. This simply does not seem as trivial as you make it out to be. Is it really only a baby step and if so, do you say that only because it is non-networked?
Robert Stein:
well, if the iPod reader were capable of reading complex multimedia documents like the ones people can make with Sophie that would be a major step forward, not a baby step. but i'm not holding my breath for this in the first iteration. (e.g. no one from Apple has come to talk with us about Sophie).
Question from Mary Summerfield, Univ. of Chicago Press:
What is the expectation for a book reaching a completed state in this model? I'm trying to envision how a scholar would cite this sort of work and its stability on the Internet.
Robert Stein:
this is one of the most interesting questions that we (again the collective we) need to tackle. when "foregrounding process" becomes more impt. than "freezing the contents at specific moments" the ground begins to shift. there is so much to figure out here. we need thousands of experiments in this area, GamerTheory being just one, to begin to work out answers here. in fact we're going to need thousands just to begin working out the questions.
Question from Jeff Rice, Wayne State U.:
Bob, It seems to me that one of the Future of the Book's big accomplishments so far has been the audience you've assembled via meetings, email, your blog. Not only is TIME a major concern, but audience. And that your audience so far is diverse is quite important. That diversity, it seems, will benefit your projects in ways other publishing ventures have not benefited from in the past.
My question is: is there something here you all can teach the Humanities or Liberal Arts about the ways different professional identities can come together (even in my area, English, this is a major problem), and how you see this diversity playing out in your publishing ventures?
Robert Stein:
at the risk of sounding falsely modest, if we have anything to teach it's that to make progress in this area you have to have a deep trust in the knowledge of others. our work is motivated by questions and then we go out and find people who can help us triangulate answers from different perspectives. we don't necessarily have endpoints in mind. for example, the question that led to the MediaCommons project was what can be done to encourage academics (who actually know something about a particular complex subject) to come out from behind the walls of the academy and take up the role of public intellectual. (btw. see the article in this week's CHE about academic blogging, particularly Juan Cole's eloquent statment).
Question from ACAD3M1C SK3PT1C:
What do you make of the attacks on John Updike that were featured in the article? How do pioneers of new technologies and new approaches expect to win over skeptics and traditionalists like me if their best argument is that I'm a lumbering dinosaur destined for the scrapheap of history?
Robert Stein:
i think that there is a lot to be learned from debates with knowledgable people representing all sides of a discussion. this certainly includes Updike.
but frankly, my goal is not to WIN OVER folks like Updike who are intent on defending the hierarchical role of the individual author.
the vale in discussing this with Updike is to sharpen our understanding of what we need to preserve from analog print culture as we move into the networked future.
Jeffrey R. Young (Moderator):
Well, we've run out of time for today. Thanks to everyone for the interesting questions.
I will say that we had several variations on the question about how to decide on a definitive edition of an e-book and how to cite them (as Mary Summerfield asked).
Obviously a lot of big issues here, and a big thanks to Mr. Stein for taking the time to tackle them with us today.
Robert Stein:
Wanted to end with a meta-comment that while it's been extremely interesting to field such a smart bunch of questions, i really miss the oppty for real back and forth conversation. i trust these questions will be asked again and again and again as we experiment with new forms. thank you very much bob