Is It OK to Not Be a Reader?

First off, I freely admit to my bias. I am what you could call a reader, although not as avid as I'd like to be. In fact, I'm rather conservative regarding language in general, as I'd like to return to a curriculum that encourages learning either Greek or Latin in addition to a selection from modern languages like Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, etc. This kind of immersion, in addition to reading a great deal, makes one understand English or language in general at a much deeper level, and I believe this facility seeps out into other areas of study. But I'll try to not let that cloud this topic. I'm honestly asking the question: is it OK these days to not be a reader?

To be clear, a person not being a "reader" is not meant to imply that the person is illiterate or doesn't read at all: it simply means that what the person reads is essential, tied to their personal education needs (e.g. only reads textbooks and articles for class), or the person in general doesn't spend time reading for pleasure.

I don't believe my original question is trivial. Much has been made in recent years about the appalling state of young boys' literacy and educational involvement. However, If it's OK to not be a reader, shouldn't we just sit on our hands, keep them at an average reading level, and encourage our young boys to study hard in math and science? Because apparently that's all that matters these days regarding America's education crisis, given the voluminous attention math and science receive when compared to the paltry mention of the humanities.

It's not just a problem with "kids these days." My generation is also dealing with these problems, especially concerning the gender divide in education and other aspects of the American experience. Men are trending down in college attendance, jobs, and other areas. One could argue such systemic problems have nothing to do with them being non-readers, and I agree, the two are not necessarily causally linked. But I do believe that being a young non-reader and the compromised status of males today stem from a common cause: the state of our education system.

Since coming to Syracuse, I have come across fellow would-be librarians—typically thought of as a rather bookish profession—who openly admit to not being readers. I can totally understand where they are coming from. Life these days consists of information bombardments for all of your waking hours. Isn't it a waste of time to add non-essential reading to the thousands of lines of text? Who has time for that? Isn't reading text throughout the day on the internet a perfect substitute?

In a word: no. I am loath to critique the modern conception of the 21st century digital being, but you cannot multi-task. I know you think you can, but you can't. You do not require the same level of reading comprehension when reading normal internet fare when compared to literature. In other words, not all text is created equal.

I think it's a worthy mission to try to turn young boys into readers. I was surprised to learn this is a somewhat controversial stance within the library community. I fully enjoy and have no quarrels with video games, graphic novels/comics, movies, multimedia, etc. I just think these could be harnessed as tools to show people the power of the written word. Some boys are quite frankly averse to reading because they haven't been shown books that might appeal to them. They don't make the association between the movie and the novel it was based on. They might not realize that graphic novels and comics borrow themes heavily from modern and classical literature. Instead, all they see is the boring Moby Dick that the English teacher is making them read, and it makes them associate books with monotony.

To wrap up this somewhat snobbish rant, yes, I think it is perfectly fine to be an adult and not be a reader. But I want that to be the case after years of self-weaning, not a result of artificially low expectations and unimaginative education.

SDM A4

This week, we had Exercise 4 in our course for Science Data Management. This time, we had to come up with a hypothetical data use scenario. I envisioned a researcher looking at economic data with regard to food subsidies in Africa. This helped us get thinking about what elements would be used to locate the data, and what problems we couldn't realize from the previous assignments.

johnson-ex4

Earthquakes and the Semantic Web

The World Earthquake Interactive Map, which can be found here, is a great example of linked data and the power of the Semantic Web. Once it was made, it became effectively a dynamic, self-updating page with rich data. You can filter by magnitude or location, which comes in handy if you want to keep track of the aftershocks in Japan, for example. Credit goes to Google Maps, NASA, US Geological Survey, Li Ding, MIT, and any other sources I have neglected to mention.

A Question of Utilization

Today we had the pleasure of hosting Mr. Indra Sarkar in our Science Data Management class. It's perhaps rude of me to use the title Mr., since he holds a PhD in Bioinformatics along with an MLIS, but he could be younger than I am! During his talk—and I'm sure I'm not the only audience member who had these thoughts—I couldn't help but think that we need more "big picture" people like Indra that have a Library Science background. Otherwise, I fear that the talents and skills we are gaining will see little use, especially if only applied within the limited environment of traditional libraries.

I was pleasantly surprised that someone of Indra's expertise emphasized the importance of the macroscope. That is, taking the largest perspective possible, and as he puts it, creating a "global brain" that takes all the inter-related entities into consideration. It's an ingenious way of putting into a simple word what I have been trying to articulate for a while; that this is an interdisciplinary world, and one of the ways forward in this information storm is to bring lots of knowledge systems together to solve problems. As Indra pointed out, the ideal is to reach a point where knowledge systems work so seamlessly together that new perspectives on old problems are spawned, and truly new knowledge is created and shared. A great example regarded hantavirus, where through visually displaying the locus of research being done, Indra was able to point out a gaping hole in what researchers were doing because they weren't looking at the larger picture. All the research and sequencing was being done in the Eastern U.S., and mistakenly applied to the Southwestern U.S., which is not a great idea since the rats responsible for Southwestern hantavirus outbreaks are a different sub-species of rat than the ones found in the East. In just one visual representation, so many concepts and mistakes become strikingly clear.

But of course, constructing and curating (or something as seemingly simple as providing crosswalks among existing knowledge networks) these vast knowledge systems means that the skills of the librarian and data manager are crucial. My worry is that the people who are in these research fields will have no clue that librarians are being trained for these tasks. I had a discussion with my brother, who is in the meteorological field, and he shared my skepticism. In a private firm such as the one where he works, we doubted that someone would actually hire an eScience librarian/consultant, or even be aware that they existed. Of course, this is understandable considering the novelty of the field, but it stresses the need for greater awareness not just in what eScience librarians can do, but also digital and embedded librarians. As Prof. Lankes used to explain, part of the problem is the perception of the term "librarian," which unfortunately means that in the minds of most people we are forever consigned to and associated with brick-and-mortar libraries.

Anyway, Dr. Sarkar's lecture was fascinating, and got me to thinking about how his innovative ideas in eScience could be applied to the fields I'm interested in.