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Future of the Book Education

Introduction

We are in a self study at the University of Iowa Center for the Book that parallels a current evaluation of Preservation/Conservation Studies program at the University of Texas. So I thought it might be interesting to mention some issue types that are apparently common to both evaluations.

Both evaluations appraise career preparation needs for those interested in transmission of information and knowledge resources. In some respects this career field is entered without an awareness of its scope and with some level of fantasy. In response, educational programs concerned with the transmission of information and knowledge resources try to prepare students in the full scope, albeit not the full depth, of the field. This must be done, to some extent, against student resistance. The responsibility to convey the scope of a field has prompted both University of Iowa and University of Texas in their current evaluation processes. As a result of contact with both the University of Texas and University of Iowa evaluations, I would like to mention three issues that I think infiltrate the discussion of a full scope curricula in the transmission of information and knowledge resources....but evade recognition. I have named these issues, (1) learning environments, (2) disciplinary thresholds, and (3) scope of scope.

Learning Environments

Traditionally the university provides three learning environments; (1) the classroom, (2) the laboratory and (3) the library. Programs in the natural sciences provide classic examples of full utilization of all these learning environments. Other disciplines as well exhibit their own integration. A program in the transmission of information and knowledge resources immediately requires learning in all three environments. In the case of a wider University of Iowa paper & book study program and in the case of a wider University of Texas program in the study of the continuity of research collections, each should require full integration of the three learning environments. In spite of student preference for one or the other of the environments, the programs should require performance in all three.

Ironically a realization of the integration of the three learning environments is achieved by their virtual merge in the on-line mode. The virtual classroom, the virtual laboratory and the virtual library provide a seamless continuity of the three learning environments. The specific adaptability of on-line learning environment for a given discipline needs consideration, but it is apparent that book studies and research collection studies are adaptable to on-line learning while, at the same time, they continue to be based on direct experience with physical collections and physical treatments. The point here is that the recent on-line merge of the three learning environments may now provide insight into a new level of their integration in the real world.

Whether in a base of a library school, art school, academic university department or regional craft center, other University of Iowa/University of Texas type programs that do manage to integrate two learning environments do not integrate all three. But the student must perceive performance in all three as the path to career preparation. Surprisingly, even the library school based program can diminish the role of the library learning environment, particularly in the sense of the library as the laboratory of the changing use and reception of physical collections.

The suggestion here is that all three learning environments in the ideal program must have interactions and interrelations that can be experienced daily or frequently. Inevitably, such side by side experience of different learning environments will produce understanding of the nature of the field. Here the on-line metaphor indicates that the interaction itself produces a separate, particular experience and understanding. Concepts such as "source original", "medium neutrality" (in treatment services), "digital archives" or, even, "storage environment" (to name a few from the preservation context) prove accessible or not depending on utilization of multiple learning skills.

Disciplinary Thresholds

The program that successfully integrates all three learning environments must then develop both a the new core discipline and existing interdisciplinary paths as well. In this circumstance managing the threshold between these administrative goals is key.

The shape of core is ameboid. It is also a topic that can divide. There is the chronic negotiation of what should be the core of education...as in the introductory course work, and what is the prospect, status and integrated content of the synthetic discipline...(i.e., codecology [the speller suggests "cod ecology" here] or library preservation).

Let's consider a matrix for core instruction first, and that in library preservation. By using novel names for the classes I will avoid some term ambiguities. The suggested program has three, three hour, classes to be taken by all tracks or concentration paths (i.e., preservation administration or rare book conservation). The three classes are (1) "services", (2) "taxonomy of media" and (3) "management".

The services class would teach both "reactive" and "pre-or-proactive" preservation methods. The conventional reactive methods include the classical preventative methods of protective enclosure and the classical restorative methods of repair of originals. The proactive methods would be newer, more phobic methods including conversion, dubbing and migration.

The taxonomy of media class would include the introduction to materials sciences, storage formats and storage scenarios and the life cycle of information. The management class would deal with themes of risk assessment, project work, field work, and some abstractions of statistics and the transmission continuity of source originals. And that's it; the core instruction spanning all aspirations and career concentrations. Following this base the students then jump off to tangents from the core. The threshold has been identified.

Likewise the threshold needs identity between a core discipline of paper & book studies or the continuity of research collections and the other independent disciplines that have a claim on that core discipline. The ideal program must avoid capture by separate disciplinary agendas (i.e., everything from religion to computer science to journalism to chemistry) especially as it depends on other departments for development of a specialist faculty base. The program must consolidate the substance of its own certificate or degree granting identity while utilizing other degree tracks as student options.

The administrative challenge of core is probably accentuated in programs concerned with transmission of information and knowledge resources. This topic is of interest to every particular discipline while at the same time it entices a separate study of influence and consequence to all disciplines. (Here a library perspective and a library base which is without disciplinary agenda, has special value.) Meanwhile, the field of transmission of information and knowledge is, within its own core discipline, a playground of tangential enthusiasms that contend to imbalance the core introductory instruction.

Idiosyncrasies of assets and deficiencies of a given university with its given faculty and locale come to bear, and even terrorize planners but the abstract administrative challenge remains. This is to identify and manage the threshold between core discipline and interdisciplary paths.

Scope of Scope

Let's begin this discussion in the context of library preservation. Here the couplet of "preservation and access" is intended to define a wider scope for the process of transmission of research collections. But, in the context of digital transmission of library services an older couplet of preservation "or " access may return. Particularly in context of licensed, leased or other reserved rights, the field cannot greatly influence or adequately provide preservation of access.

It will be enough to provide preservation of preservation - the specialized function itself. Preservation of preservation is not a defensive position with regard to the environment of digital information. Proactive, not reactive, services are needed to provide minimal care of electronic archives. Meanwhile popular, contrary perspectives question long term planning, the importance of continuity of research collections and assumptions of preservation policy. The continuing role of source originals in the context of digital duplication is not secured and requires redefinition and advocacy. Preservation of preservation is plenty to do.

It is not the responsibility of the preservation field to fix information bearing entities and their interactivities. As an example, who would question that of all of the oral history conveyed, only a tiny fraction is recorded. Even the fraction recorded may only partially be preserved and the preservation focus should be there. Likewise online resources must cross over into off-line archives before preservation can be applied.

So the ideal program will not follow trends of funding or support without confidence that such migration will further define the scope of the scope of the program. As an example the University of Iowa paper & book studies program could divert itself from academic and craft based study of the traditional book. A different emphasis on e-books, digital book hardware and the online reading mode would currently attract more interest. But emphasis on that direction would migrate the program away from the scope of its scope. Most importantly it could divert the program from a focus on the future of the traditional book in the context of digital information retrieval.

A final iota concerning the scope of the scope of the transmission of information and knowledge is not an iota at all. The transmission of information and knowledge is really too large a field for the specialists that dominate it. Needed are special specialists who recognize the influence of the field's immense scope on their preoccupations. Specialists who continually defy themselves and use their skills as probes of a universe.

If media preservation specialists, by temperament, are not disturbed by a larger vortex of the scope of their field, that disturbance should be provided in their educational programs.

EndNote

Chris Clarkson is an exemplar of a book studies teacher. Here is a description of one of his classes.

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