Re: Correcting Stevan Harnad's Misrepresentation

[Karl Bridges <kbridges@uvm.edu>]

Not to get engaged in an argument but a small question...why does 
content need to be "designed to be embedded in an ongoing 
discussion." ?

I can, for instance, read Dickens and discuss it with my friends. 
It doesn't mean that the platform I use for reading Dickens MUST 
have some mechanism for providing "ongoing discussion." There are 
multiple modalities for this kind of transaction.

As the writers so correctly point out, commercial providers of 
such Web 2.0 services do a much better job than any library, 
except perhaps the most well-funded, could ever do in this area. 
Wouldn't libraries be better advised to focus on getting the best 
content and the best access tools?  And, in the event, academic 
departments, with their subject expertise and focus on the actual 
teaching mission, would seem to be the better place to locate the 
"discussion" component.

(and I will leave aside the entire issue of the quality of the 
discussion, especially with undergraduates.)

Karl Bridges
University of Vermont