A Week Without CoOL & AIC Necromancy
Necromancy: Helping to Lessen Our Dependency on the Funerary Industrial Complex.
Recently I have been considering that ‘avoiding death’ is a useful metaphor for classical conservation theory, but, I would never have imagined that AIC (an institution that is a working model of classical conservation theory) would provide such an intriguing case study of Necromancy!
A week ago the following message was sent to the consdistlist:
Date: 10 Jun 2009
From: Catherine Tierney
Subject: CoOL and the Conservation DistListDear Colleagues,
This is a difficult posting to write. For twenty two years, it has been Stanford University Libraries’ great pleasure to serve and support the conservation community by hosting Conservation OnLine. Sadly, Stanford—like so many other institutions—has been hurt by the economy. As a result, we have had to make difficult choices. It is with deep regret that I inform you that we are no longer able to support CoOL. We feel it is important to alert you to this change as we are aware that so many of you rely on the distribution list as a medium of communication; there are still a number of things to be
worked out.<URL:http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/june17/layoffs-061709.html>
Catherine Tierney
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services
Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources
Along with a message from Walter Henry, which I discussed at the time. However, today I wish to discuss the message above, which was met with some level of shock, confusion, and anger, and the message that was sent from AIC below. A variation on this message having previously been sent to members of AIC in the morning, and been discussed on Twitter for a couple of days before that.
Today the following message was sent to the consdistlist:
Date: 19 Jun 2009
From: Eryl Wentworth
Subject: Conservation OnLine and the Conservation DistListCoOL is Coming to AIC!
Having reviewed a proposal from AIC and following several discussions, Stanford University Libraries has agreed that AIC will be given responsibility for CoOL and the Conservation DistList. The transfer of content from the Stanford servers will take place
immediately with expert guidance from Walter Henry, John Burke, and technicians at Stanford.Our first goal is to have the DistList operational as soon as possible. Watch for one or more announcements on the DistList for periodic updates regarding the resumption of activity. Other CoOL resources will come online under new URLs as expeditiously as possible. Discussions with allied and affiliate organizations will continue.
AIC is pleased to be entrusted with these invaluable resources and for the opportunity to sustain and develop them into the future. Our goal is to keep CoOL and the DistList safe, viable, objective, and accessible for the conservation community worldwide.
Please note that the DistList is not yet accepting submissions or new registrations. Comments or questions can be sent to
coolinfo [at] conservation-us__org
Thank you for your support of this major initiative.
– AIC Executive Director Eryl Wentworth and
the AIC Board of Directors
So, what does this all mean?
Well first of all here are some links to other bloggers who have made comment regarding the original news:
* Kevin Driedger commented on his fabulous “Library Preservation” blog.
* Richard McCoy commented on the “IMA” Blog.
* The ECPN reposted the announcement, and included a message from the AIC, on their blog.
There was also a series of conversations on twitter that confusingly followed a variety of hashtags. Including, but probably not limited to: #AIC20, #coolfutur, #coolfuture, and #Futurecool.
As far as I could tell there were some major themes that ran throughout these discussions:
1. How could an institution such as Stanford not give a community of almost 10,000 users more time to organise a response to the news.
2. Anger at the lack of real information, would it be down the next day, how large an archive would it be to re-host, how much does it actually cost, etc.
3. Hope, that one of the institutions that showed a “commitment” to saving it would actually step up and do so.
4. Moving forward in new ways; various Web 2.0 options were suggested wiki’s, wikipedia, twitter, blogs, etc. I even suggested we start considering Web 3.0 and a semantic CoOL.
As I have said before I believe CoOL and the distlist to be the most significant online conservation projects in the world, as far as I can tell without such free and open exchange of information conservation simply would not happen in the way it does. I think they show that conservation is a team effort and not a competitive sport as some would have us believe. Collaboration is the key to successful conservation, and I think the collective shock at the loss of our most significant collaborative tool demonstrates that.
However, I also think CoOL could be CoOLER, I like the idea of such an acronym: “Conservation Online that Everyone Writes.” (I believe that was first used courtesy of Richard McCoy). A truly Web 2.0 CoOL. An idea that was discussed to some degree within the May 1st Twittercon and was also mentioned in the recent blog discussions after the recent demise of CoOL and the distlist.
It is to my mind imperative that as AIC take over the running of CoOL that they continue to open up all the information freely to all, and also continue to develop the fabulous work of Walter Henry, one recent suggestion was to begin RSS Feeds for the DistList, I think AIC should make this a priority. Next priority should be to work to clear copyright on everything on CoOL, and to release its free use on wikipedia. Then finding a replacement for the DistList that allows even greater sharing of information, to include images, audio, video, etc.
Most importantly AIC should not consider CoOL/DistList to be an AIC Asset, it shouldn’t be considered part of the AIC, the success of the site and list have always been to my mind partially at least connected to the fact that they are independent of any institutional conservation body, and it is with some trepidation that I learnt this morning of the move to AIC, although if the alternative is total loss then I guess I just have to have some hope and faith that it’ll all work out.
Now these resources are “saved” and the potential for their loss has been, or is being, fully understood, it’s about time we began to share that information onto multiple platforms and to expand on the potentially unlimited ability of 10,000 conservators around the world who are the community that make up that list to contribute to conservation content online. Imagine 1,000 words each would equal 100,000 words of new conservation information available to all.
So, in the words of Walter Henry…..
Daniel,
I would hope that the AIC’s announcement of involvement of Walter Henry and John Burke in the transfer, as well as Eryl’s words that the goals are to keep these assets “safe, viable, objective, and accessible for the conservation community worldwideas” should assuage some of your ‘trepidation’.
I think AIC is very well positioned now to support these important assets and the speed at which this process took place is the result of a lot of hard work on the part of Eryl, the AIC staff and Board. That doesn’t mean that it won’t take time since the magnitude and expense of supporting CoOL is no small thing and any reimagining of how to present the material in a 2.0 or 3.0 format will take involve planning and discussion.
I hope that over time we will find that any distress and disruption in the DistList and CoOL is mollified by the opportunity to advance these resources in a positive way for all.
Rachael Perkins Arenstein
Hi Racheal,
Thanks for the comments.
I do think the inclusion of John and walter will ensure that CoOL/Distlist are passed over to AIC successfully, and that they are up and running as quickly as is humanly possible – you really couldn’t hope for a better team of people to undertake this task… which I expect will be a major headache!
And don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that someone stepped up and took on the responsibility for running the two things… as I said above they are incredibly important.
My fears are nothing to do with technical competence – which AIC (in its membership) has in abundance. But to do with bureaucracy – my desire is to see information sharing within the conservation discipline stripped of its bureaucracy – even to the extent of the editing that Walter undertook to make the distlist more legible. I would like to see a system develop where this is not the responsibility of one person, or even a small group, but something that we all collectively participate in. I think this would allow for even greater content creation, dissemination, and (re)interpretation. AIC however is a tradition bureaucracy – this is not a slight on the organisation but a simple statement of fact – its modeled on victorian era professional associations, which in turn were modeled on the post-monarchist industrial nation state. In other words, a bureaucratic model that reached its zenith with the twins/mirror states USA and USSR. But thats a different blog post entirely. Back to the point… these models are all about “control” by professional elites. That is my fear, as it is the antithesis of my belief system, and more importantly is antithetical to the emerging general approach to the internet within society. I personally don’t think institutions can “do” web 2.0 effectively whilst retaining control, it is my belied that this imagined 3rd way is a dead end.
… Also please note: I am not suggesting that previously the members of the distlist had control – they didn’t – as we have seen it was Stanford that had control, and we have seen the cost of allowing our resources to be controlled by an institution. My concern is we are replacing one bureaucratic institution with another. This may ‘gain us time’ but it doesn’t ’solve the problem’ of centralised control of information. Only by wide multi-platform dissemination, and user generated and mediated content, can be begin to safeguard resources such as this for the future.
Cheers,
Dan
I understand your viewpoint better after your response. Ultimately though our positions diverge here at a certain point. While I can be annoyed by unnecessary bureaucracy as much as the next person, I do believe that often some degree of organization, structure, resources and leadership are generally necessary to move most efforts forward. If that is the definition of bureaucracy, then I guess I am a bureaucrat!
I think that CoOL and the DistList is a good example of this. Lots of people could have done what Walter did – but he went out and did it. Now technology has made it even easier and more feasille for anyone (and there are people out there doing great things), but what made CoOL and the DistList so important was the aggregation of these resources and the organization behind them.
I think that an un-moderated listserv with almost 10,000 would be a nightmare. Are you on the Museum-L listserv? It is unmoderated and, in my opinion, while immensely useful for a very large community, less reader friendly. Likewise, the almost 120,000 documents held on CoOL just floating around in cyberspace wouldn’t have amounted to nearly as much. That required someone or some group to create the structure and format. Ultimately Walter built it – and we all came.
Everyday there are more blogs out there – increasingly with truly valuable professional content but finding them can be a chore. Wikipedia is out there – but we haven’t seen conservators flocking to use it in the way you clearly would like. Is that because so many just don’t know how to create a wiki, or is it something more fundamental – that we as a profession we like having a better sense of who and where are resources are coming from? CAMEO could have been created on wikipedia – but I trust its information because I know the people at the MFA behind the resources. I do use wikipedia for some similar kinds of searches – but not until I check CAMEO first. I also still believe that there is an essential place for peer reviewed journals. Not all information requires this format – but some benefits from it. In 2008 submissions to JAIC were up and access to JAIC articles on online databases were also up. I think that is interesting.
I agree that for 2.0 formats to be successful institutions must let go of some control and I am all for “user generated content”. However, I do believe that to have successful “mediated content” there does need to be some controls – not everyone is equal at vetting information. Some people whether by interest, training or experience are more qualified to do that than others. I think that the process can be open and democratic both in calling for infomation and for people to be involved in vetting. An organization like AIC that allows anyone to join isn’t my definition of a strict “professional elite”.
If AIC hadn’t stepped up to the plate another organization probably would have – maybe even in time before Stanford pulled the plug. But, I shudder to think how long it would have taken “the community” to twitter, blog and network its way to creating something meaningful without some driving leadership.
Hi Rachael,
A few comments. But by the way, I’m glad you understand my point after the clarification.
1. I do not believe “anyone” can join AIC in a meaningful way – for example only some levels of the organization are open to all. For example not just anyone can become a PA, and only PA’s get to vote on certain things – hence you can be a member, but, it is meaningless in terms of control over decisions (it has other values – such as access to resources, etc). Or am I wrong in that – you’ll have to remember I am not a member and am still relatively new to US conservation world. So please forgive me if I missed something. Also… please let me know, as its a major reason I don’t feel like joining AIC (and it’d be nice to know I was wrong).
2. I think there is a general misunderstanding that people who want “open access” like myself want to get rid of peer review. This is simply false, and totally misses the point. I personally think one of the the best things about AIC is JAIC it’s a great resource that often has articles in that I find incredibly useful. However, I have to pay an organization to see it. Why? It could be released for free, online. After all its made on a computer, my guess is its made into a pdf for sending to printers…. so why not cut out the middle man – and the cost!? Many other organizations do this… check out my recent post about open access journals in conservation (most of which were peer reviewed). Furthermore, open access does several things:
a) allows everyone to see it.
b) allows the author to retain copyright -why does AIC want copyright?
c) allows text-mining, and other research techniques which will become the future of research. JAIC will become irrelevant for research if it actively prevents this. Which would be a major shame.
3. I generally agree that totally unmoderated lists have a tendency towards the potential for chaos… but I have been on lists with many thousands of people that have worked perfectly well. However, that was not the intention of my suggestion, it was a “style” not content point. That is the generally principal of control by all – in whatever format – is now a much higher potential than it was when Walter started CoOL – you no longer need to know how to write code, etc, to establish a useful online community. User created content and editing I would say would be better not on a list but in a different format.
4. I don’t know why conservators are less willing to use wikipedia, or probably more accurately less willing to admit they use it as a resource, and mostly unwilling to edit and contribute. But, there are many who do already. I don’t know. Also… I can’t say this enough times, wikipedia is not anonymous, you can easily see who added information, especially if people sign up you can see their actual names and their biography – which if they are working on a professional content they should. Also.. all changes are (or should be) fully discussed in talk pages. Although having said that I don’t know why I should trust a conservator anymore than a member of the “public” who may be even more “qualified” (whatever that means) to discuss some issues.
5. Your point about finding info from conservation blogs could be easily solved using RSS feeds.
6. As to your last point, that is why I said we all hoped someone would take it on, and I am personally glad someone did… I also think it makes sense for the organisation to be one Walter Henry can most easily work with.
Cheers,
Dan.
Dan,
Funny – there is a Daniel Cull who is a member of AIC. Now that you are here I think it would be a shame for you not to be able to see what you think from the inside!
I think being a PA and voting are important both for the individual and the organization but there really is no limit on how you can be involved in the organization in a meaningful way. The PA and Fellow categories are most easily applicable to practicing conservators and there are soem basic requirements but they are intentionally broad to ensure that people with varied backgrounds are eligible. For more info see the Member Resources section of the AIC website
http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=855&parentID=477
Thanks for the links, I shall look into them, although as I understood it I am not eligible for PA/Fellow status, so I don’t know if I will be joining again. I also was under the impression you needed “references” from others PA’s/Fellow’s… so you need to know those kinds of details about people, something I find a bit.. well to be honest… odd. But I will look through the links.
Also… the Daniel Cull who is a member… um… that’s probably me. If you’re looking in hard copy things… I was a member up until about a year ago, but am not anymore… I have also moved address several times since the members book was printed, including countries twice! Which is why it would be more useful to have a wiki version of the address book that could be kept up to date! But thats another issue. lol.
Rachael,
Thanks for all your comments. They have been very informative, it seems there are a series of misconceptions about the topics that this blog, and several other conservation blogs, have been discussing. I don’t know where these misconceptions could have come from – as they do not reflect the topics that this blog has discussed, because, the way you present them here they appear as strawmen, so, I will have to think on them and try and work out a way of explaining these points in greater detail.
It is these points that don’t seem to have gotten across:
1. Open Access is NOT a threat to peer review.
2. Peer review is NOT inherently accurate.
3. Wikipedia is NOT anonymous.
4. Wikipedia is NOT inherently inaccurate.
5. “Vetting” IS elitism and anti-democratic.
The idea that “either or” is the choice being offered seems to me to be a strawman argument… as this is not at all what is being suggested. Coupled with the presumed and unchallenged assumptions of superiority of the status quo are hardly the basis for sound decision making, so these misconceptions need to be cleared up, asap.
The other issue would be the difference between the two uses of the word “Organisation”. One to signify an association of people within an institution, the other more simply making things happen in an organised way. These are different things, and from what I can gather they are being combined inappropriately.
Cheers,
Dan.