A Two Hour Meeting to Plan A One Hour Meeting?

I just read Alexander Johannesen's resignation from a library in Canberra, Australia. Mr. Johannesen is not a 'librarian' by training and admits that he is leaving libraries due to an incompatibility. So it goes.

"Every time I see a glimmer of hope or a flash of something exciting going on in the library world, it usually fast fades into a charades of politics and committee-shuffle. I'm too impatient for this, and I seriously think the world is, too ; it will race past us as we decide on who's going to chair what committee, who'll take notes, and how we're reporting progress to what group. Also since these glimmers of hope usually is attached to specific people more than institutions or organizations, whenever that person goes or moves, so does the glimmer. Again, because we're not traditionally in the business of technical development, we're so fragile..."

It is unfortunate that Mr. Johannesen is so frustrated. Yet, I do think that the perspective he offers as a programmer coming into the library profession is an important one. One could try to argue the culture and problems he encountered are unique to his library, but we all know better.

This quickly brought to mind Stephen Abram's quote:

"librarians like to process things to death, and death wasn't the original goal."

Just yesterday, I had lunch with a colleague who is not a librarian, but whose current and previous positions have allowed her to work closely with libraries and librarians. Our various discussion topics always seemed to loop back around to the culture of libraries, resistance to change, and the need to process EVERYTHING.

Another colleague also told me yesterday that earlier in the day they were in a two hour library meeting to discuss plans for a one hour meeting.

What's the deal with us, folks??!!

What also concerns me is that Mr. Johannesen is a self admitted "mid-life-crisis-aged" individual. What will happen when the younger generation begins to enter the profession? The next generation of library scientists graduating from library schools will be hardwired to naturally accept the technology driven/focused definition of a library. Will this culture embedded in the 'legacy' librarians reaching retirement bubble simply be handed off to the next generation, or, will the next generation finally force a culture shift?

I am fairly confident that Mr. Johannesen is not alone in his frustration about the library culture and maybe even with his unwillingness to wait for that shift to occur. Sphere: Related Content

Open Source Scholarly Publishing

It is fairly clear that a growing number of librarians (other than myself!) are frustrated with publication lag time. I also find that many of my ideas can't be stretched into a full length papers. The lag time and the fact that not all ideas warrant a full treatment are the primary reasons I began this blog.

There are many librarians out there with interesting and innovative ideas that are important to the profession and should be disseminated. Many of these librarians may not want to a develop full blown manuscripts. Sometimes a concept doesn't immediately lend itself to a manuscript. Perhaps there that a librarian wishes to throw a theory or concept out there so it can be poked at and prodded. Some of those concepts could evolve into a manuscript, maybe most don't.

One possible model I came across is called open source publishing, a concept being proposed by Dr. Eric Mockensturm, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University.

"The system will allow authors to submit papers, reviewers to immediately comment on them, and authors to immediately make revisions in a very dynamic way. The ultimate goal is to not only have open access to the papers but also make the reviewing process open (i.e. not anonymous) and the papers open source so that anyone can make revisions."

This publishing model allows anyone (registered) to submit a manuscript or even an concept outline. Access to this manuscript can be closed to all but the submitter, open to a group of users, or open to all. The first option allows the author to submit something not ready to be viewed and critiqued by others. The author(s) can continue to work on the manuscript for as long as they wish. The second option allows specified individuals to view and comment on a manuscript. The authors can continue to revise it as needed.

Once the article is ready and opened to all it is considered published, but not necessarily accepted for publication in 'traditional' static journal format.

The model makes use of a rapid review process that creates real-time communication between an author and reviewers. Authors can solicit reviews, respond to comments, and revise their manuscript accordingly. Comments are organized in a hierarchical structure to make it easier to locate discussion topics that may result in multiple threads.

When an author decide the article is ready for official review for the 'traditional static publication', a request is sent to the editor, who then assigns formal reviewers. The assigned reviewers can post quick, short comments for rapid response from the authors, without waiting to write an extensive review. The rapid communication between the authors and reviewers can significantly accelerate the review process. The manuscript remains open for discussion by the community throughout this process.

Once official reviews are submitted and sufficient discussion has occurred, the editors decide to either accept or reject the manuscript. This process is different from traditional journals because, hopefully, the author has been revising their manuscript during the review process. There would be no need for an ‘accepted with revisions' option. Reviewers will be able to post follow-up comments about any revisions which are made. If the author and reviewers cannot agree on changes, an editor can personally review all the comments make a publication decision.

If the manuscript is rejected, the author decides to keep it in the dynamic section for further revision, or pull and submit it elsewhere (all submissions are protected by a Creative Commons License). Should the author decide to leave the manuscript in the system, they can request that the editors to reconsider it after additional revisions. If a breakthrough occurs the author could inform the editors to consider it.

If the author pulls the manuscript the comments and reviews remain so a history of the discussion and credit for reviewing the paper will be retained in case reviewers would like to cite their reviews. If subsequent work does not validate the idea, the authors could retract the work, or leave it posted indefinitely for further comment and the education of others who might be considering similar ideas.

There are several characteristics that I like about this model.

- It maintains the pre-publication peer review process and generates a static final version of traditional publications which could help satisfy promotion and tenure committees. There is no reason the author can not remain anonymous through the review period to satisfy double blind review.

- The dynamic environment allows authors to present their ideas rapidly, even in 'half baked' unfinished form, and then fill in material as it becomes available. The manuscripts can evolve based on the comments and grow only to a length needed to effectively communicate an idea rather than being bloated to meet minimum manuscript length requirements.

- Subsequent study might also show that the original idea was not good from the start. Such submissions could be maintained in the dynamic section for comment, dissemination, or revision. The result is a forum for ideas that did not work out. Partial or failed concepts could even be revisited later by the original authors or others might try to determine why a seemingly good idea just did not materialize into something useful. This is what makes this model 'open source.'

- The model makes use of a ranking system that allows readers to rate reviews (or manuscripts) based on their intellectual merit. Such reader-based ranking systems exist on in community-based sites such as digg.com. A community ranking system could lead to a more objective rating with the accumulative rating of a review being considered regardless if it is signed or anonymous.

Sphere: Related Content

Where is My Manuscript? Part 2

Last month I detailed the saga of a manuscript I submitted to a traditional publication. In summary, the post detailed the long strange trip taken by a manuscript I submitted on December 21, 2005. Yesterday, much to my surprise, I received a package from the publisher containing reprints. Yes, my manuscript has been published!

The saga deepens.

When I compared the print version to my copy of the manuscript there were several noticeable and significant typographical errors. The special issue editor indicated that neither her or the journal editor had received galley proofs. Any changes we likely made by an editor at the publishing house or their 'typesetter.' Unfortunately, readers will likely question my writing skills - not the publisher's editing skills. Such errors pose a bit of a problem for tenure track librarians going up for a promotion since publications are often critiqued by 'external' reviewers. The reviewers could comment about such errors which in turn could be intepreted by a local review committee as a weakness.

While I respect the role that traditional publication plays in archiving our professional communications, I still can't help but to feel that they can no longer be the trusted source for the dialog and communication going on in our profession today. Libraries are largely dependent on and are competing with technologies that change every nine months. How are we supposed to progress as a profession in such a changing environment when it still takes a year and a half for an article to move from submission to publication? Waiting until 2009 to read about the wiki approach that Kathryn Greenhill is using to write two conference papers just won't do.

The fact that you are reading this blog means you 'get it.' Perhaps the only way that I will reach those that don't 'get it' is to write a peer reviewed paper about the impact of blogging that may be published near the end of the decade. If I am really lucky, that manuscript may actually be published while blogging is still the valuable communication tool that we view it as today. At the very least, I guess, it would make an interesting historical piece. Sphere: Related Content

Is There a Portlet I Can Use?

Portlets are pluggable user interface components that are managed and displayed within a traditional web page. They are mini-applications that run inside regular applications and are completely independent of the rest of the application. For example, a travel website can include a weather portlet.

Portlets have actually been around for a while and were once touted as the next big thing. With a conventional portlet, the browser needed to reload the entire page every time any change occured, but this changed with the advent of Ajax technology. The Java Portlet Specification 1.0, Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 creates a web services standard that allows for the "plug-n-play" of portlets from disparate sources.

Bremner, Naidoo, Sandell, and Vickery offer up the following advantages of using portlet technology in the creation of a portal:

Personalization – Customers of portals have the ability to select the kinds of information that they require and have it presented in a layout of their own choosing. This allows a level of customisation so customers can maximise their productivity.

Single Sign On – Customers should not have to login to services after their initial portal login. Credentials for the initial portal login are propagated to the portal services, which can then be used to authenticate a customer to the service in the background.

Aggregation – Customers can access a multitude of services from a single location. Instead of having to check out multiple pages on a web site, or even multiple web sites, a customer can have the information they seek presented to them on a single page if desired.

Information Management – Management of the content distributed to our customers can be managed more effectively and efficiently, allowing a much better level of reuse without duplication.

Information Targeting - Content can be targeted to specific groups of people such as Academic staff and/or Postgraduate students doing research or Library staff. This gives a much more granular level of control for content distribution which saves customers from being bombarded with irrelevant information.

Multiple Device Delivery – Portals have the ability to be rendered independently of the data that they contain. What this means is that using a different ‘style sheet’ for rendering can enable the same information and even similar functionality on devices such as PDA’s and mobile phones.

So, has anyone out there built any neat library-oriented portlets they wish to share? Sphere: Related Content