NASIG 2006

I was mostly interested in getting an overview of the issues that were of concern to the NASIG conference attendees, so I ducked into as many presentations as I could, sometimes staying for just a few minutes, just trying to get a taste rather than going for the indepth experience.

I did stay for all of Lee Van Orsdel's presentation on scholarly communication issues, mostly because I've liked and respected Lee greatly since I met her on first arriving in Alabama.  I've never actually seen her present in a conference setting like that, and she did an excellent job (as I expected she would).  Her presentation focused heavily on open access issues and, in general, I think she got most of the points right, although she was, perhaps, a little more dismissive of some of the publishers' objections than I might have been.  But she was typically thoughtful and perceptive and for those in the audience who have not been keeping up with developments, it should have served as a good introduction (although I would hasten to add my support of Adam Chesler's comment during the Q&A that it is very important that everyone listen to as many voices in the debate as possible in order to make up their own minds about the various positions that one might take.)

I also particularly liked Abigail Bordeaux's presentation on Blogs, Wikis & Podcasts.  Very cogent presentation to a very packed room -- obviously an area that many people are interested in.  Some of the Q&A was amusing, as librarians struggled with the openness that wikis present -- on the one hand people were clearly intrigued by the tool, but the lack of "control" can be a little difficult to accept.  Clearly, the use of such tools within any organization, library or other, is going to result in significant social changes within that organization.  One simply has to be prepared to accept that this will cause some disruption and see what can be learned from it.

I was pretty happy with my own presentation.  Lynn said afterwards that she was listening to those around her and hearing a good number of mutterings of assent and agreement, along with some who were less persuaded by what I was saying.  That's good -- if I don't get some resistance from some people in the audience, then I don't think I'm pushing the envelope hard enough.  In a presentation like that one, my role is primarily to be at least a little bit shocking, to say some things that sound uncomfortably radical (like "serials and journals are already anachronistic"), not necessarily to get people to agree with me, but to get them to challenge their own thinking and their own assumptions.   The essence of the message in all of the presentations I've done over the last two years is simply that this is an incredibly exciting and wonderful time to be a librarian -- but that to create the kind of future that we want requires that we accept that things will be very ambiguous for the forseeable future.  Now is a time for experimentation, trial and error, and as much creativity as we can muster.  As I said to the few folks that I was talking with right after I spoke, it's going to take a long time before things finally settle out and we start to really understand what a mature digital scholarly communication world looks like.  Most of us probably won't still be around when that happens.  The freeing thing about it is that we don't need to worry about getting everything right -- we get to experiment and try out new things and see what we can learn, and then leave it to the generations after us to build on that.

I won't be making NASIG a regular annual event, but it was a good meeting.  I got to meet quite a few new interesting and creative people.  I came away feeling that, for all of the angst about our future that many of my colleagues feel, there are some wonderful bright ideas out there that will serve us well.  If I have one complaint overall, it's the same concern I have with the Charleston Conference.  Although both of these are billed as opportunities for librarians and publishers and vendors to meet together to talk about common issues, there is, in practice (at least in the public sessions) not nearly enough real engagement.  The librarians tell publishers what they want or what they're unhappy with and the publishers try to answer those concerns and find polite ways to set themselves apart from their competition.  (Well, mostly polite ways...)   The off-the-record conversations are frequently far more interesting, candid and useful.   I hope that organizers of future conferences will find ways to take more advantage of the fact that we have people from the different sectors all together for a couple of days and see how we can encourage more indepth conversations about how our roles and partnerships can be shifted for the betterment of the entire enterprise.

Comments

[MarkD]

I’m in publishing and I agree with you Scott. Journals and serials, as they have existed for many decades, are anachronistic. They were anachronistic long before the internet. Publishers don’t like to talk about this but subscriptions to peer reviewed original research publications have been declining for well over a decade. The process began well before the internet became popular. I think there are many reasons why this is so. It isn’t just the delivery technology (internet, wikis, ipods...). These technological advances only represent part of the dynamic at work. In addition to these changes, and perhaps even more important, are the other social changes of the past decade. Science has become more complicated and more fragmented. Fewer and fewer people are able to understand the complex and intricate details of today’s research. This specialization has dramatically reduced (for any given topic) the community of peers who write and read these articles. In addition, people are busy and have less time. I know that I have written on this issue extensively, probably to the point of boring you and your readers to tears. But the great irony of our age is that we have all these devices that supposedly save us time, yet we are all busier then ever.

The result, the traditional peer reviewed articles are just too hard for even the experts to digest. Some publications have identified this trend and have tried to address the issue. If you go to the NEJM site, for example, you will see perspectives, briefings, audio presentations, video presentations all of which are designed to make the research more accessible. In the end, it will probably be these services that will prove more valuable to the reader and consequently to the NEJM then the original research. Because I believe this to be true, I think that is why I am one of the few publishers out there who believes that the open access movement is a distraction. I don’t think that it is coincidental that open access became a hot topic at that moment in time when original research has less value. But watch out my librarian friends, you may win the open access battle only to find that the really important material has become very expensive indeed.

[MarkD]

Further to my posting this morning. Grey Worldwide conducts an annual survey in Australia which it calls ‘Eye on Australia.’ They have been producing this survey since 1992. The 2006 survey results have just been published. The study presents interesting statistics about technology and its perceived impact on daily life. I stress that this study was conducted among the general population rather than the academic community.

The findings:

97% of respondents felt that there was more material available to read then they could ever dream of reading
92% said they felt ‘surrounded’ by information
67% said they believe ‘less is more’ when it comes to information
70% said they were interested in technological developments; however
33% said they felt that new technological advancements would make the world ‘a worse place’ in the future
50% said they were overwhelmed by technology’s relentless rise (71% of women between the ages of 18 – 24 felt this way)
54% of rural Australians wanted the rate of technological advance to slow down - 45% of people in cities agreed

True, this data reflects attitudes in Australia only, true it is the general public and not the academic community. But I think this data demonstrates the point I tried to make in my last posting. Yes traditional journals are anachronistic, but they are anachronistic because they provide knowledge not wisdom. That was the conclusion of this study. The respondents felt that the proliferation of knowledge had somehow got away from them. There is far more information available then ever before, but this proliferation of knowledge has had an opposite impact then was intended. There is more knowledge, but less wisdom. In fact, there may be an inverse relationship between knowledge and wisdom as the available knowledge passes a certain threshold.

Journals are anachronistic because they no longer filter out and digest the data (knowledge) into a digestible and meaningful purpose. This problem is only compounded by the web. To be meaningful publishers and librarians will have to work together to turn data (knowledge) into something that is relevant to the reader/user. It is no longer enough to merely report (the old role of journals). I think this is where librarians and publishers can work together in the future. We need to present the data in context, we need to make it relevant to everyday life.

The conclusion I draw from the above statistics. We are failing in the task to translate knowledge into wisdom. That is my beef with the new technology, and one of my critiques of the open access movement. You’ve done me no service in providing me more data (knowledge) and making it more accessible. I don’t have the capacity, on my own, to make that data relevant to my life and work. Scott, you are right. This is an age of testing and trying something new. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the benefits the technology could provide us. The reason I think that is so is because we haven’t stopped thinking of ourselves as providers of knowledge. As long as we think we are providing knowledge (and not wisdom) the technology, publishers and librarians will continue to fail to serve society at large.

Clearly, our audience feels overwhelmed and maybe even besieged. Clearly the advantages of the technological advance of the past decade are ambiguous to the public at large. Clearly a growing segment of the community feels ambivalence towards our technological progress. We need to think differently, we need to change the technology (and our roles) so that it and we serve the user and not the other way round. When we do that, then we will have achieved something great.

[MarkD]

Scott, thank you for the compliment. You are someone who’s judgment I highly admire. It means something to me when you call my ranting ‘cogent.’

However Scott, I never thought I would say this to you. You aren’t thinking boldly enough. Yes, Lynch’s idea of more meta-analyses points out an under-utilized advantage of the electronic age. I agree with you, it is an important small step in the right direction. I won’t comment on whether that is best achieved with a single database or through linking. I don’t have enough information to comment on that point intelligently. But my friend, we have to go well beyond meta-analyses. I’ve noticed that academic librarians tend to focus too much on the needs of the academic community. I think the new age will require that you think about a wider community. Don’t forget that the good people of Alabama fund UAB every year in anticipation that you will educate their (often unwilling) ignorant young. I think the most important statistic I presented yesterday was the statistic that 71% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 stated that they were overwhelmed by technology’s relentless progress. If I am not mistaken, last time I was in your library, the place was full of people in that demographic group. More meta-analyses are great for the few hundred(?) researchers you have at UAB, but what about the rest of your community? Will more meta-analyses make them feel more connected or more empowered? I think yesterday’s data points to just the opposite outcome.

For the last 9 months I have worked in a more clinical environment. It has been a huge eye-opener for me. Much of what we do in the academic world is lost in the clinical world. What good have we done with our meta-analyses if those analyses have no impact on daily lives? We need to be bolder. We aren’t generators of knowledge or guardians of information (the phrase I like to use for librarians – I’ve meant that as a supreme compliment). We have to think of ourselves as stewards of wisdom. By that I mean it isn’t enough to generate and store information for an elite few who then talk among themselves. Our information needs to be presented so that it can impact and empower as many people as possible. I’ve heard librarians talk about this at many library conferences. But the focus always seems to be about empowering the academics. We have to do more. I don’t want to empower academics. I want to use this knowledge to improve lives. In the context of medicine, I translate that to mean - impacting health outcomes. If sick people aren’t getting better as a result of our efforts then we have failed.

How do we do that? Well I think there are two pieces to this puzzle:
Credibility: one of the downsides to the new technology is that any nut can express any harebrained idea (this being a case in point). There is no filter on the net. My community, the practicing physicians, are first looking for a source they can trust. ‘If I read it, I can trust that it is true to the extent that science allows.’ I know that librarians don’t like to hear this, but I can assure you it is true. The community at large wants an authoritative and trusted filter. ‘If I go to site x then I can trust that the information is up-to-date, accurate, and has been vetted in some manner by people who know what they are doing. I am not getting some unsubstantiated quack theory.” “Furthermore, the people at this site must have the ability to synthesize the research and put it into practical context – without bias.”
Ease of access: This means getting only what I need, when I need it, in a format most comfortable to me at the moment. No extraneous data. Scott, they don’t want Lynch’s meta-analyses – they want to know what the meta-analyses mean for their elderly patient with hypertension, osteoporosis, and gout. If I have a patient with this profile, what is the best treatment for her hypertension? They don’t care about the statistics behind the answer (as long as the first criteria is fulfilled). They want it immediately and they want it in the most convenient format for the moment; which could mean: print, web, video, audio, delivered on their PC, on their phone, on their blackberry, on their ipod or any other invention yet to come. And they need to find it immediately. I am sure that many of the readers of this blog are familiar with Up-to-Date. You are also aware (I am sure) that it is extraordinarily expensive. The reason that is so rests in the fact that 1) the doctors trust it as a source, and 2) it digests the research in a manner that allows practical application. I take my hat off to Up-To-Date. They are the first provider in the internet age (in medicine) to use the technology to its full extent. They recognized that data for data’s sake was meaningless. They put the data into context, they created wisdom instead of knowledge. They made the fog of the net useful. From a business perspective; what did that mean? Huge profitability.

[T Scott]

Mark, I agree with you completely, and I certainly didn't mean to suggest (and I doubt that Lynch did either) that meta-analyses delivered to researchers was the be-all and end-all. At the NLM planning panel discussions that I alluded to we spent considerable time talking about the importance of recognizing all of the different audiences and that synthesizing and presenting information in a multiplicity of forms & formats to meet those different needs is essential. Here at LHL we have a very robust partnership with public libraries that is designed to provide high quality, well-vetted, suitably age- and language-tailored information to members of the public. CAPHIS, the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section is one of MLA's most active and productive sections. UpToDate may be the best known (and most expensive) clinical synthesis tool, but it is hardly the first or only.

Always, always, always, when I talk to student groups or other library groups about what makes medical librarianship unique from other sectors I point out that at the end of what we do is an individual human being with a health issue. The advantage of being able to do the kind of computational analysis that Lynch talks about is not that it gives synthesized information to researchers, but that it analyzes all of that information more readily and quickly so that it can be more efficiently used to provide real answers to real questions in the real world setting.