The Internet in 1998:
Opportunities and Disadvantages to Scholarly Work

Introduction

• Dr Frank Conlon, Professor of South Asian History, University of Washington, USA
• Dr Bob Felsing, Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), University of Oregon, USA
• Dr Thomas H. Hahn, Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany
• Dr Gerald Jackson, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Dr Apurba Kundu, Department of Social and Economic Studies, University of Bradford, UK
• Dr Marilyn A. Levine, Professor of Asian History, Lewis-Clark State College, Lewiston, USA
• Kent Mulliner, Collection Development Coordinator, Ohio University Libraries, Athens, USA
• Dr Lynn H. Nelson, Professor of History, University of Kansas, USA
• Dr Susan Whitfield, The International Dunhuang Project, The British Library, London, UK
• Dr Christian Wittern, Database of Chinese Buddhist texts, University of Goettingen, Germany
  plus

• results of an RSPAS 'brainstorming meeting of 11 March 98' comprising: Dr Bryant Allen, Prof Gavan McCormack, Prof Merle Ricklefs, Ms Michelle Mousdale - Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Australia

Brainstorming Replies

Comment 01

I have been reflecting on these questions for the entire last year, so I can give you some comments:
1). The greatest advantage of the internet is
that it can - by pooling resources amplify research foundations, and create an ethos that can help with global issues that will arise in the next decade in a constructive manner. With some greater coordination and leadership, the internet must be enjoyed for its difference from television which I consider a passive technology, whereas the internet can be an active technology.
2). The greatest disadvantage currently, in my opinion, is
the diffusion and fragmentation encouraged by lack of creative modalities on the web. This is of course a matter of lack of substance (for example your estimate of 47% useless material) - but also the idea of linking before substance is unfortunate. Ways to model new modalities and content on the site should be emphasized principles.

Comment 02

In answer to your questions - something very quickly (and rather cliched) off the top of my head as requested...
(1) the greatest opportunity
ACCESS to more information - useful info., not previously accessible
(2) greatest disadvantage
ACCESS to more information - too much - aargh

Comment 03

(1) the greatest opportunity
Speed and ease of communication.
(2) greatest disadvantage
Information overload!!!!!!!

Comment 04

(1) the greatest opportunity
Access into anything, any time, any place, any how? More practical than this dream, in today's terms, is access to substantial full text information (especially scholarly).
(2) greatest disadvantage is unproductive time.
This has two primary sources: inadequate indexing/identification of materials resulting in productive hits being only a fraction of total hits (compounded by dumbness of present relevancy indices) and the delays inherent in the World Wide Wait and wait. I'm considering a paper on our changing concept of time in this environment, but this changing concept means that delays that would have not been noticed (e.g., waiting for reply to a letter of query) now seem interminable if they stretch beyond a day.

Comment 05

(1) the greatest opportunity
The Net offers a range of resources never before available to information-deprived audiences (I include myself in that category). I do a lot of teaching, and at this point in the game I would say that the Internet is an integral part of how students go about doing what students do. It's hard to imagine life before the Internet. The Internet opens all sorts of possibilities -- especially at the global level.
(2) greatest disadvantage
The greatest disadvantage that I see, as a librarian, is a lethal combination of publisher greed and academic faculty indifference. Faculty are slow in coming to the Net; are slow in granting Internet information scholarly validity (all tied into tenure, of course); are just generally unwilling to admit that something new is on the scene (students are much more perceptive and adventuresome). Meanwhile the electronic information giants are charging outrageous fees for information access when, in fact, electronic information cuts their distribution and markup/printing costs. I strongly condemn efforts by "academic" enterprises such as JSTOR to provide crippled databases at at exorbitant price.

Comment 06

(1) the greatest opportunity
* Transport and transmit scholarly expertise in "real time"
* Shared information can be made to be shared by an anonymous "all"
* Cascading layers of knowledge being displayable and accessible in multi-tiered form, like peels of skin on an onion. If properly administered layers of skin can be removed ("reversed cognitive history") and re-pasted again.
* "Vanity-free" anonymous publishing
* As a sceptic: positive surprise factor practically every day.
* "Public outreach" absolutely seemless (or almost)
* Interrelation between scholars-librarians-net mediators blurs and deconstructs hierarchies
* Web's self-evidence denies all reasoning from reluctant contributors; BIG BLACK HOLE EFFECT (for the better or worse of mankind)
(2) greatest disadvantage
* "Vanity-driven" pseudo-copyrighted junk
* As an optimist: disappointment over uncoordinated, redundant efforts
* Enhances infantilization, i. e. provides NO inherent training for disriminating strategies to evaluate what's good or bad, useful or trash.
* NO search engine availabe catering to specialists like Asianists. One has to create one's own channels (using Teleport Pro or NeoPlanet), which is time-consuming and cannot easily be reduplicated or networked.
* Language frontier x-ing not easy. UniCode may help...
* The "no-credit" issue; non-refereed e-zines, personal webpages etc. may discredit you as a non-professional.
* Question of standards (HTML, SGML) as related to structure and presentation as related to content. Few - too few - get it right...(too many pitfalls, not enough guidance)

Comment 07

1. I wish that you hadn't asked what advantages of the net offers for my own scholarly work. Aside from offering me the ability to access various libraries to check on citations and affording me fast and free contact with other scholars, the net offers me very little. One of the reasons, I would suppose, is that I am rather specialized in my research. The sort of materials I use and facilities I use are not likely to become available for some time in the future.
2. The disadvantages are numerous.
a. Some of the people pioneering the development of history on-line, and I would include myself in that category, have done so without institutional encouragement. That means that some of us have been discharging a few load of responsibilities and doing web work without assistants or released time. I suppose that I could have chosen to concentrate on advancing my own specialty, but I did not do so. I do find it personally satisfying to tutor colleagues in how to use their machines, and train students in creating web resources. In this respect, much of my own contribution to scholarship will appear in the works of others. And that's okay.
b. I find the growth of site-licensed proprietary data bases and the tendency of some institutions to restrict access to their resources to their own faculty and students to be stultifying. I _could_ use [name of the database - tmc] and similar things, but my University is unlikely to purchase such expensive materials. So I find that I have myself made thousands of pages of materials freely available to the public and facilitated others to put many thousands more pages freely on-line, only to be excluded from using those materials that others have created for a profit. I would like to see institutions respected for what they produce for the public, not what they make available to a restricted audience or for a price.
c. I could add a number of other matters, such as the lack of quality control over document scanning (but that's a problem with printed sources also), the increasing amount of funding supposedly directed to web development that is being diverted to management and administration, the prevailing tendency of web-builders to slap "copyright" on everything they do, academic sites that simply point to other people's materials, the crowding of cyberspace with professional educators telling us how to use the web for teaching and learning, and a number of other things. But these would only be the jeremiads of someone only three months away from retirement and anxious to have the freedom to ignore these people and things, and the time to get to work on something important.
I suppose the main thought here is that one should consider how much scholarly effort is diverted from scholarship to increasing the net's value for scholars.

Comment 08

(1) the greatest opportunity
(2) greatest disadvantage
that the today's Internet poses to YOUR scholarly work.
Number (1) is easy: Accessing a huge variety of information, especially from 'faraway' places like the subcontinent. Also, the opportunity to spread my own message, as it were, and to form networks of like-minded individuals.
Number (2) is also easy: Information overload! Before, the measure of one's power and position was their access to information ('information = power'). Today, the measure of one's power and position is the ability to unplug--to turn off the 'net and the mobile 'phone--and to have minions filter information for one. The other main disadvantage is that not everyone is hooked up to the 'net and thus all communications must be duplicated on hard paper, be it snail mail or fax.
I suspect my answers to both (1) and (2) will be shared by all those contacted.

Comment 09

(1) the greatest opportunity
in my view is the possiblility to use the Internet for both scholarly communication of the traditional forms, as well as completely new forms, let it be email discussion lists, websites, to distributed collaborative research.
(2) greatest disadvantage
is the fact that the wealth of information on the Internet is so badly organized that it is increasingly difficult to locate the pieces of relevant information in an ocean of junk.

Comment 10

(1) the greatest opportunity
* Instant communication with people world-wide
* Existence of trusted sources of information, such as refereed academic e-journals
* Existence of moderated mailing lists
* Potential for wide distribution of information
* Potential for networking with like-minded scholars

(2) greatest disadvantage
* Lack of meta-structure to information on the Internet
* Information overload
* Cost of ongoing maintenance of *good* online resource
* Lack of skills in efficient maintenance of online information
* Lack of skills in efficient research/retrieval of online information
* Problems with correct handling of CJK fonts
* The wait time while accessing networked resources
* The ephemeral nature of the Internet resources, no permanency of content, structure, appearance or computer address
* Mailing lists are used mainly for socialization and not for exchange of factual information

Comment 11

1. In my experience as a researcher I have found the internet to be a valuable source of ideas and venue for the exchange of ideas. Perhaps because of the nature of my own research, I have never been active in collaborative research--I find having a research assistant is often more trouble than help, for example. So my view is from the perspective of a very non-collaborative researcher.
2. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage today is that the internet is still so new that the novelty factor draws its users into further explorations of what would, in a library, be left definitely on the shelf. Possibly another disadvantage lies in the absolute anarchy of the net--there is no vetting process in most resources--one wastes a great deal of time trying to separate the wheat from the chaff; and then too, the ambitious links installed one month, may, a few months later, lead to nothing at all. Rather like a library where the staff to reshelve the books has all been fired.

A summary of themes and concerns

ADVANTAGES
1. Communication Between Scholars
   • speed and ease of communication (03)
   • transportation and transmission of scholarly expertise in real time (06)
   • fast and free contact with other scholars (07)
   • the opportunity to spread my own message (08)
   • the opportunity to form networks of like-minded individuals (08)
   • enhanced scholarly communication (09)
   • instant communication with people world-wide (10)
   • potential for networking with like-minded scholars (10)
   • a valuable source of ideas (11)
   • a venue for the exchange of ideas (11)
2. Access to Information
   • pooling resources to amplify research foundations (01)
   • access to information not previously accessible (02)
   • access into any information, any time, any place, any how (04)
   • access to substantial full text information (04)
   • the Net offers a range of resources never before available (05)
   • ability to access various libraries to check on citations (07)
   • accessing a huge variety of information, especially from 'faraway' places (08)
   • existence of trusted (esp. refereed) sources of information (10)
   • existence of moderated mailing lists (10)
   • a valuable source of ideas (11)
3. Delivery of Information
   • seamless public outreach (06)
   • cascading layers of knowledge being displayable and accessible in multi-tiered form (06)
   • vanity-free anonymous publishing (06)
   • potential for wide distribution of information (10)
4. Cultural/Psychological Processes
   • creation of an ethos that can help with global issues (01)
   • the Internet opens all sorts of possibilities - especially at the global level (05)
   • shared information can be made to be shared by an anonymous "all" (06)
   • flattening and deconstruction of professional hierarchies (06)
   • positive surprise factor practically every day (06)
DISADVANTAGES
1. Information Overload
   • access to too much information (02)
   • information overload (03)
   • information overload (08)
   • information overload (10)
2. Shortcomings in Content and Organization
   • inadequate indexing/identification of materials resulting in productive hits being only a fraction of total hits (04)
   • misuses of markup-languages while handling logical structure, presentation and content of a document (06)
   • vanity-driven pseudo-copyrighted junk (06)
   • the lack of quality control over document scanning (07)
   • academic sites that simply point to other people's materials (07)
   • wealth of information on the Internet is badly organized (09)
   • ephemeral nature of the Internet resources (10)
   • lack of meta-structure to information on the Internet (10)
   • too much of exploratory or inadequate material (11)
   • no vetting process in most resources (11)
   • one wastes a great deal of time trying to separate the wheat from the chaff (11)
   • volatility of hypertext links and of the online resources (11)
3. Shortcomings in Technology and Programming
   • dumbness of present relevancy indices (04)
   • delays inherent in the World Wide Wait and wait (04)
   • no search engine available catering to specialists like Asianists (06)
   • continuing language (esp. vernaculars using non latin fonts) barriers (06)
   • the wait time while accessing networked resources (10)
   • problems with correct handling of CJK fonts (10)
4. Restrictions on the Access to Information
   • publisher greed and academic faculty indifference (05)
   • the growth of site-licensed proprietary data bases (07)
   • tendency of some institutions to restrict access to their resources to their own faculty and students (07)
   • the prevailing tendency of web-builders to slap "copyright" on everything they do (07)
5. Cultural/Psychological Processes
   • lack of creative modalities on the web (01)
   • diffusion and fragmentation of the web (01)
   • ceasless shrinking of the time regarded as a tolerable interruption/delay in our work activities (04)
   • uncoordinated, redundant efforts (06)
   • no inherent training for disriminating use of the Net (06)
   • online presentation and publication do not count as 'approved' professional activity (06)
   • web development funding being diverted to web management and administration (07)
   • the crowding of cyberspace with professional educators telling us how to use the web for teaching and learning (07)
   • doing web work without assistants or released time (07)
   • lack of skills in efficient maintenance of online information (10)
   • lack of skills in efficient research/retrieval of online information (10)
   • mailing lists are used mainly for socialization and not for exchange of factual information (10)
ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION
1. Institutions should be respected for what they produce for the public, not what they make available to a restricted audience or for a price (07)
2. One should consider how much scholarly effort is diverted from scholarship to increasing the net's value for scholars (07)
3. One should consider the cost of ongoing maintenance of good online resource (10)

Acknowledgements