Re: The giant leap

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Too far!  Too far!  Whatever the merits of Jan Szczepanski's 
views of open access and Alma Swan's work, I think comparing Swan 
to Mao goes too far. Here is the sentence that leaped out:

" In the late fifties Mao Zedong introduced that Great Leap and 
now fifty years later we are going to take a giant leap according 
to Dr Swan."

I don't often agree with Swan, but civil discourse is, well, 
civil, and Mao was uncivil on an order rarely seen.  Isn't it 
enough to say we disagree and say why?  Comparing Swan to Mao, 
Mother Theresa, or John Lennon doesn't make her arguments right 
or wrong, though if the comparison with Lennon is apt, perhaps 
she will hum a tune for us.

Swan wrote a fairly detailed critique (and entirely wrong!) of a 
blog post of mine (at http://pubfrontier.com), but she she did 
not lapse into abuse and managed to be entertaining in the 
bargain.  There is something to be said for that, in my opinion. 
The protocols of civil discourse are as important, and perhaps 
moreso, than the matters we debate:  it is what makes a community 
a community.

I did note that someone cited the Communist Manifesto on this 
list a while back (woke me up!), and that contributor was 
immediately and roundly criticized for it.

On one point I do agree with Swan, and that is her comment about 
the evolution of "machine brains."  That indeed is where things 
are headed:  the use of sophisticated IT to automate portions of 
the research process.  It's not far-fetched to imagine a research 
community that is 30% smaller than it is today but with superior 
output; machines nibble at biochemists and stevedores alike. 
But open access has nothing to do with this, nor does Mao.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Szczepanski" <jan.szczepanski@ub.gu.se>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 2:18 PM
Subject: The giant leap

> In his latest talk with with prominent open access advocates 
> Richard Poynder is talking to Dr Alma Swan. It's a fascinating 
> and scary picture that is presented.
>
> In the late fifties Mao Zedong introduced that Great Leap and 
> now fifty years later we are going to take a giant leap 
> according to Dr Swan.
>
> In China backyard steel furnances would do the job; in Dr Swans 
> world it's the mandate and local institutional repository that 
> is going to change the world away from big industry and the 
> capitalist society.
>
> Open Access is inevitable according to Dr Swan, as once 
> Socialism was. Mandate is the key to the Open Access World.
>
> Instead of Five Year Plans we will have Metrics to see to it 
> that the way forward is the Green Way.
>
> The commissars overlooking that the Giant Leap will happen is 
> "Pro-Vice- Chancellors" at the universities, the real 
> reprsentatives of the research communities.
>
> A citatation from Wikipedia:
>
> These reforms (sometimes now referred to as /The Little Leap 
> Forward/) were generally unpopular with the peasants and 
> usually implemented by summoning them to meetings and making 
> them stay there for days and sometimes weeks until they 
> "voluntarily" agreed to join the collective.
>
> A citation by Dr Swan:
>
> AS: Mandates are essential for lots of reasons. One reason is 
> that they make researchers aware of Open Access where they 
> weren't before. The level of ignorance is still very high. And 
> if their university suddenly requires them to do something it 
> will focus researchers' minds. More mportantly, of course, a 
> mandate will actually make them do it, because regardless of 
> the Open Access Advantage, they won't put their research into a 
> repository if they don't have to. It's another bureaucratic 
> thing to do. And they still have worries about the legality of 
> it. Being told by their institution to do it gives them the 
> feeling that it is safe and sensible to do it. So to make them 
> do it you need to tell them that they have to!
>
> Richard Poynder's comment:
>
> Dr Swan has a clear eye for what is needed
>
> How will the future be?
>
> AS: Once the content and the infrastructure are in place we are 
> going to see knowledge take a giant leap. The way to view it is 
> that the last 7-8,000 years or so of human civilisation's 
> struggle for knowledge has taken place on one plane, determined 
> and constrained by what our own brains can absorb, put together 
> and make sense of: now we are about to move to another plane 
> altogether, with the help of machine brains.
>
> > From profit makers to machine brains, what a future!
> Jan
>
> Jan Szczepanski
> Forste bibliotekarie
> Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
> E-mail: Jan.Szczepanski@ub.gu.se