Now that I’ve finished graduate school and am in a stable, mellow job, I finally have a chance to catch up on my reading. The past few weeks, especially, I’ve been devouring many of the info science books I heard about while in the LIS program. I read most of the 2005 version of The World is Flat — please tell me if the last 1/3 is substantially different than the first 2/3 and I’ll go back and finish it. Many of my LIS colleagues rave about The Wisdom of Crowds, and I did find it a good read. Maybe it even gives me hope that eventually our society will find its way back to a focus on community and the greater good. Or is that reading too much into the author’s thesis of making good collective decisions?
One of my favorite summer reads, though, was Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. I was especially intrigued by the chapter on science, as you might expect. I’m not sure I buy the argument that in the near future, scientists will make all of their data freely available. While individual scientists might support that move in theory, the way the tenure system is set up just doesn’t support it. I’ve heard rumblings, most recently at SLA, of that system evolving so that participation in a collaboration counts as much as solo scientific work and being one of 100 authors on a collaborative paper means as much as being the lead author. It makes sense for university departments to move that way, given the emphasis funders are putting on large-scale collaborative solutions to problems.
The thing that was most striking to me, though, about the thought of vast treasure troves of scientific data being made publicly available was how great it could be for science teachers at all levels. In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman writes about how the US educational system is failing to produce new scientists. In Wikinomics, Tapscott and Williams write about the Net Generation’s insistence on being connected and having all of their experiences interactive and meaningful. Anything that isn’t interactive isn’t interesting…. maybe like most science classes, at least how I remember them. Sure, we did basic experiments that every other chemistry class had been doing for 40 years. But what if a high school science class could replicate an experiment from a real lab, then do real analysis of the data? Maybe they could even (gasp) contribute something. Who says that only experts can make real contributions to scientific progress? I totally buy the argument that Friedman makes that the US won’t be able to sustain its position as a great power without seriously increasing its technological and scientific capacity.
