Upgrading academic scholarship: challenges and chances of the digital age
| Pages | 624-633 |
| Published date | 20 November 2009 |
| Date | 20 November 2009 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830911007727 |
| Author | Rudi Schmiede |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Upgrading academic scholarship:
challenges and chances of the
digital age
Rudi Schmiede
Department of Sociology, Darmstadt University of Technology,
Darmstadt, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss what the beginning of the Internet Age means for
the functions and structures of scholarly information and communication by looking at and evaluating
today’s usability and usage of the digital information infrastructure for and by academic scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper gives an overview of the current state of development
of digital information in the scholarly cultures and stresses the importance of data as the crucial – and
considerably extended – basis of scholarly work. The central role of the publishing world for the
academic rewards system is analyzed to consider continuities and discontinuities in scholarly
publication.
Findings – The paper advances the thesis first coined by Christine Borgman that today we have an
information infrastructure of, but not for, scholarly information. Some ideas and proposals of what
should be done to move towards an information infrastructure for scholarly work conclude the paper.
Originality/value – The paper tries to bridge the gap between information professionals as
producers and scholars as users of information and communication technologies and shows that a
joint debate on these issues is necessary.
Keywords Information media,Digital communication systems,Internet, Students
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
The national and international debates on new information and communication
technologies and their impact on scholarship and academic work and generally on the
information infrastructure of the scholarly world have a basic bias which at first sight
is fairly surprising: It is led – in Germany nearly completely, internationally
predominantly – by information professionals, i.e. librarians and infor mation systems
specialists, in academia supported by information and some computer scientists. The
people concerned – researchers, academic teachers, an d students from the multitude of
scholarly disciplines – are largely absent from the debate in spite of the fact that their
current and particularly their future working conditions are at its core. There are many
reasons which may offer partial explanations of this significant trend which cannot be
discussed here in detail (see Henry, 2003; van de Sompel et al., 2004; Schmiede, 2005 for
some more discussion). But it seems clear that the actors on both sides are fairly
convinced that this has good reasons: the information professionals see themselves as
the specialists who deliver the tools and methods, as long as users tell them clearly
what they need. The users, or people concerned, on the other hand hold that
information and communication technologies are not their concern, but should be
provided for them as tools so that they can be used like the typewriters or calculation
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
LHT
27,4
624
Received 26 June 2009
Revised 2 July 2009
Accepted 24 July 2009
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 27 No. 4, 2009
pp. 624-633
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378830911007727
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