Scholarship in the digital age

I recently read Scholarship in the digital age by Christine Bergman, and I found it to be quite a thought provoking book.

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Note: this is not a review, just a discussion of some ideas raised by the book and others that occurred as a result!

Though I am sure the thoughts that came to my mind reading this book weren’t the kind the authored (probably) intended. The book “explores the technical, social, legal, and economic aspects of the kind of infrastructure that we should be building for scholarly research in the twenty-first century.” You may be thinking – why should I care?

That’s a perfectly good question. The truth is I don’t care about that. I do care about some other issues that came to mind as a result of the book. For example, consider the original use of the internet – it was to communicate research finding amongst scholars. Obviously, over time the internet has developed to much more than that, and as a result the internet has become full of both verifiable and unverifiable data.

The problem for most people is in distinguishing between that verifiable and unverifiable data. This is something that, I believe, we should all care about. And it is something that pops up each time I research an article or topic. Is the information I’m reading concrete or just based on loose opinion?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with opinion, but opinion labelled as factual data can do great harm.

As Bergman argues, with the ever increasing complexities of the modern society we need equally advanced infrastructures that are able to support and manage this vast amount of data.

The second interesting point that is brought up is whether printed publications will remain practical. Though the author is specifically talking about scholarly publications this is something that is affecting pretty much all printed media.

More and more printed material is being digitized. The burning question here is – will printed publications go extinct in the next few years?

As someone who loves technology, I still love to hold a book in my hand and read it. The physical appeal is too strong for me. I believe this is the case for many others. However with the release of devices such as the Amazon Kindle, the tide may soon turn.

Overall the book, though primarily aimed at policy makers and information scientist, was a interesting read that bring forth many thought provoking topics. It is clearly a well researched book that will become a good reference point for future developments and debates.

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Tags: book, Opinion