members at a university library. I am posting it because I think it is
representative of some of the problems we as academic librarian
practitioners face when negotiating technological opportunities with the
time demands of scholarly activity.
Dear __,
First all, I think the Duke project is cool and it would be very
useful for us to have a mobile app, and/or an alternative Website
interface designed for smaller mobile screens.
As far as pursuing these projects goes, we are faced once again with the
dilemma of opting to explore the creation of new technology projects which
could be of benefit to our users, or focusing on research and publication for promotion and tenure. To be fair,
research benefits our users in a much more abstracted way, by advancing the profession and
increasing our own knowledge.
Secondly, our talent pool of programming/scripting, API, app development
skills is ad hoc and, with no disrespect intended, shallow.
An alternative approach from building this kind of tool from the ground up
might be to monitor librarian/developer sites and lists (web4lib, open
source for libraries) to find a customizable tool for our needs. We might
also find a commercial service or developer who could provide the
necessary tools, as we have done in the past with questionpoint and, currently,
springshare.
thoughts?
Steve
A colleague's reply,
While I think that developing apps is undoubtedly cool in many ways, and
it does give us something pretty and shiny to show outsiders, it's not yet
something we can do. We don't have the policies, infrastructure,
staffing, and pool of expertise in place - not so far as we are all aware,
that is. The idea of finding a customizable tool is more achievable, but
again, we very much need essential pieces of a foundation in place to
support such possibilities.
It is illustrative to me of the difficulty of establishing the proper
foundation for potential innovation in the Library that this discussion
did not include anyone with a technological perspective to contribute.
The notion that research and publication prevents us from exploring
options is a red herring, and I'm disappointed to see the failure of _blank_
Library to do cool mobile apps attributed to a system that many of us
committed to when we accepted our positions. After all, our library is
hardly unique in having tenure for librarians, and I cannot believe that
there are no interesting explorations of technology and avenues of service
being undertaken at places like CU-Boulder, Penn State, UNM, and
elsewhere.
I then replied,
If I gave the impression that I blame the tenure system, I didn't make
myself clear because I do not blame the system for the above mentioned
difficulties we face. I do feel however, that an identifiable tension
exists between the need to research and publish while on the tenure
track, and the ability to: 1. establish policies, infrastructure,
staffing, and a pool of expertise; and 2. explore new skills and modes
of practice that would allow us to create productivity tools that can
benefit our users.
I wholeheartedly agree that such projects create research and
publication opportunities both in advancement of one's career and, to
share with our colleagues. However, since the projects we are talking
about require the acquisition of a new skill and then the
application of that skill (in an environment already possessing the
necessary policies, infrastructure, staffing, and pool of expertise), and
only then designing a study, publishing scholarship based on research that
has a lower time intensity seems to be a more prudent choice.
Perhaps I misspoke when I said "we are faced once again with the
dilemma of opting to explore the creation of new technology projects which
could be of benefit to our users, or focusing on research and publication
to ensure our career on the tenure track." The word "dilemma" is not
the best term to use. Maybe I should have said we are faced with "a
frustrating choice" Independent of our commitment to the tenure system,
The system is not without its shortcomings, and in libraries as in many
other areas of scholarship, the tenure system undergoing examination if
not outright change in terms of the acceptable forms that scholarship
takes.
Steve
