Posts Tagged ‘SILS’

I can haz tenure

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

And now, for your viewing pleasure, my tenure letter. This is, I would just like to point out, the culmination of thirteen, fourteen years of my life, since I started my Masters program in 1995… though it wasn’t until 1996 that I decided that I wanted the job of a faculty member and that I was going to go on to do the Ph.D.

And I would just like to point out this passage in the letter:

I look forward to your acceptance of this promotion and ask that you sign the enclosed copy of this letter and return it to me within three weeks for our records.

As if I’m going to say no? I suppose this is my opening to negotiate salary, though this is a pretty sucky economy for that kind of thing.

Thoughts on one very small part of Weinberger’s Henderson Lecture

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

I went to see David Weinberger’s talk on campus earlier today, and this post is a reaction to that. Before I go down that road though, let me just say that I really enjoyed the talk.

I just finished reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined maybe 2 days ago. So that’s fresh in my mind, and of course I haven’t yet read his next book, Everything is Miscellaneous, because it isn’t out yet. So I have a somewhat lopsided perspective. Weinberger included more ideas from Small Pieces than I had expected, and less from Miscellaneous than I had hoped for. Though of course I’m not sure I’d recognize material from Miscellaneous if he did include it. Actually, I had hoped that he would address my concern from my previous post. Though of course he wasn’t here on campus to address my concerns. And I could have asked a question on this topic, but I didn’t.

Instead I asked a different question, on a topic which my students have heard me rant many a time. Indeed, several of my students, past and present, were at the talk, and I could almost sense them rolling their eyes, here goes Pomerantz again on the authority-as-crutch thing. My question was: Can you please talk a bit about attention economics? The traditional, top-down, Encyclopedia Britannica-style editorial process is a crutch for the reader, that allows me, the reader, to trust the information provided because I trust the Encyclopedia Britannica and the processes they employ. But under the bottom-up, Wikipedia-style model, the burden is on the reader to evaluate all information provided. So how do I, the reader, balance the extra time it takes to do all my own validation with, well, everything else in my life? Brian later eloquently summed this up as the “I’m too busy” argument.

Weinberger did something that all too few speakers do, which was to actually answer the question, and not only that, he answered it point-by-point. First, crutches are useful he said. (I agree, and in fact that is the premise of my question, that the editorial process is a useful device / tool / contrivance / social structure / whatever.) Second, yes, this model requires that readers do all of their own background research, and unfortunately most will not. However, the background is there if you want it, particularly in Wikipedia in the form of the history and discussion pages. (Sadly, that background does not exist for many other sources, or if it does now, I’m not convinced that it will be preserved. And realistically, how many people ever look at Wikipedia’s history and discussion pages? Hell, I don’t, and I really know better.) And third, yes, this is a problem. But it will be solved, because it must be solved.

In fact, Weinberger used that argument several times in regard to different problems: it will be solved because it must be solved. In other words, as I understand it, because humans are great at problem-solving, if there is a niche for a solution, some set of solutions will arise. This is actually a fairly Darwinian argument, now that I think about it. It’s also a hugely optimistic point of view. (Which is odd, actually, since I’ve never really thought of Darwinism as being particularly optimistic, and in fact as being fairly cynical in some of its more extreme forms.) Anyway, it-will-be-because-it-must-be: like many things in life, I would like to believe that this is true, but I fear that it is not.

The final part of Weinberger’s response to my question was to suggest a solution, in the form of a filter mechanism. He suggested that organizations of subject experts could vette the information on Wikipedia (and presumably other sites), create reliable versions, and put a stamp of approval on these versions, perhaps with pointers to the organization’s own materials. Sounds like the WikiProject for Librarians, actually, though if I remember correctly, the example he used was the AMA. (I will not get into the subject specialist versus generalist thing here.) This issue seems to crop up everywhere for me lately. Perhaps I’m gazing into the sun, or into my own navel. But once again, I ask: What incentive(s) are there for experts to provide good information? Indeed, to spend any time providing any information at all? I’m beginning to despair of finding a satisfactory answer to this actually.

Everything cannot be Miscellaneous

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

I’m not back, I’m not blogging as a regular thing again. Don’t get your hopes up. I just need a place to think out loud. I could probably do this in my head, but I find that writing helps me clarify my thoughts better. Less wandering off into irrelevancies like ’80s song lyrics and that conversation I had 2 days ago. So…

I wrote in my last post that:

Any classification scheme where the Miscellaneous category is that large is a bad classification scheme.

This is what I was taught in library school, both in my Masters-level Cataloging course and at the PhD-level in discussions of classification theory. And I believe it: a pile of books in the middle of a room is not a library.

In about 2 weeks, David Weinberger is coming to SILS to give a talk based on his new book “Everything is Miscellaneous.” I’ve been searching for sneak previews of the book online & I found some. And I’m concerned.

What concerns me about the “Everything is Miscellaneous” meme is that it’s disingenuous. Weinberger’s post ends:

We are not going to give up nesting, the chapter concludes, but rather than trying to construct the tree that represents some domain of knowledge, we are often better off with systems that can dynamically create trees based on our interests.

Ok, sure. But this is not an argument for no classification schemes, it’s an argument for more classification schemes. It’s an argument for rapidly changing classification schemes, which is not a difference in kind, it’s just a difference in scale: LCSH evolves over time too. There’s a new edition practically every year! In fact, you too can suggest changes. The difference is (a) the speed of change, and (b) who gets to make that change.

Faster-evolving classification schemes, I’ll agree, are probably a good idea. Just read Sorting Things Out to be convinced of why classification schemes that remain unchanged are not only a bad idea, but actively dangerous. But who gets to make changes is another issue. I’ll return to this again in the future, but for now let me just quote Nicholas Carr:

Implicit in the ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 is the hegemony of the amateur. I for one can’t imagine anything more frightening.

I’m also concerned that, despite the fact that (I believe) Weinberger’s argument is fundamentally not for the elimination of classification schemes, that it will nevertheless be taken that way.

Three More Years

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Let me take a page out of Scott’s book (Scott’s blog, I suppose… Scott’s blook?), and write a bit about life on the tenure trail. I submitted my materials for my 3rd-year review back in September, and now the process is finally completed! On Friday I got my letter from the Chancellor making my reappointment official. Hooray! I feel the unbearable lightness of being. Ok, so I haven’t exactly been biting my nails down to the wrist lately: I had my meeting with the Dean back in January, & I felt the the unbearable lightness of being after that meeting. In that meeting we discussed the School’s recommendation to the Chancellor (thumbs up) & my colleagues’ advice to me for implementation between now & submitting my tenure materials. This advice can be summed up as follows: more national-level projects, & more theory. Neither of which was a big surprise, & I’m working on both, but it’s still good to have it spelled out explicitly.

For those of you in the audience unfamiliar with the 3rd-year review / reappointment process, let me ’splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

  1. I submit my review materials.
  2. The personnel committee solicits letters about me from the SILS faculty.
  3. Members of the faculty write letters to the personnel committee. This step is optional: no faculty member must submit a letter, though most do.
  4. The personnel committee compiles the faculty’s letters & writes a letter to the Dean.
  5. The Dean compiles the personnel committee’s & the faculty’s letters & writes a letter to the Chancellor.
  6. I have my meeting with the Dean.
  7. Some mysterious process happens and a letter emerges from the Chancellor’s office.

This is an ordinal, not an interval scale: intervals between these integers are not equal or drawn to scale.

The letter from the Chancellor contains this carefully-worded passage:

This reappointment is not to be construed as an indication of the eventual outcome of any phase of future institutional tenure review.

Would that it were so! Well, one review process at a time. And just so there’s no confusion, the letter is careful to point me to the Trustee Policies and Regulations Governing Academic Tenure. Which I’ve already read, thankyouverymuch, and will now pore over with a fine-tooth comb.

Third-year review materials: Submitted

Sunday, September 4th, 2005

Believe it or not I’m starting my 3rd year in SILS, so it’s time for my Third Year Review. It’s a bit strange that it happens at the beginning of year 3 & not at the end, or even in the middle, but that’s the way it is. For those of you not familiar with how this process goes, here’s how this process goes:

I have to put together a packet of materials including my CV, all of my publications, syllabi, teaching evaluations, & evidence of professional service, plus a personal statement about my research, teaching, & service. I submit these materials to the Personnel committee. Everyone on the faculty gets to take a look at these materials & they all write letters to the Personnel committee, critiquing me & my work. Then the Personnel committee reads all of those letters, synthesizes them, & writes their own letter to the Dean. Then the Dean decides if I get reappointed for another 3 years. Also at some point towards the end of the Fall semester I’ll meet with the Personnel committee & they’ll tell me what came up in all of the letters, & give me advice: if you want to get tenure here, we recommend that you do this, don’t do that, etc.

I’ve been working on that personal statement all summer. That basically was my summer; that damn thing took as much effort to write as a journal article. A useful exercise, but time-consuming. The unexamined life is not worth living.

So, I submitted my materials on Friday! It’s two full 3-inch binders, one containing my publications & one containing everything else. Actually much more stuff than I had anticipated. So that’s off my plate, hooray! For the moment, anyway. Now I just have to stress out about what my colleagues are writing about me.