The Digital Scholar

I started Recollecting Nemasket as a local history blog for two principal reasons: as a means of personal fulfillment and as an effort to make local history more readily available to the community.

Like all scholars, digital or otherwise, I feel passionately about my subject. Writing about local history gives me a means of self-expression, and digitally publishing my scholarship in a field in which I have expertise easily allows me to share what I learn with the public.

Michael J. Maddigan

By publishing digitally, I am afforded a number of advantages that are not always available through more “traditional” publishing. For 11 years, I have written a local history newspaper column also known as “Recollecting Nemasket” for the Middleboro Gazette. However, a newspaper column can be restrictive in regards to the limitations that are placed on the subject or format of an article. Topics that require a more lengthy, more detailed, or more technical analysis are generally not best served in a newspaper column. Because digital publishing is less restrictive, it permits me to publish longer works, more technical works, works with more images, portions of longer works that I have yet to complete–essentially whatever I choose. A website may also be used as a “proving ground” where articles can be subjected to criticism and comment before they are published elsewhere.

I find that digital scholarship is also advantageous because it is more immediate, more interactive, more accessible, and less ephemeral than traditional publishing. It is also less expensive. My blog costs me nothing beyond the time that I put into it. Readers can read my posts as they are published and respond to them nearly instantaneously, providing feedback on what I write and occasionally offering a differing perspective. With traditional publishing, the process of receiving feedback is much more arduous. And unlike traditional scholarship published in books, magazines, and journals, digital scholarship does not necessarily go out of print or become unavailable when the next issue is published.

As with more traditionally published scholarship, the caliber of digital scholarship on the Web varies greatly. My intention is to maintain a high standard of scholarship for Recollecting Nemasket, partly in keeping with the goal of developing the website as a local history resource for the community. Despite the fact that its subject matter–the history of Middleborough and Lakeville, Massachusetts–is relatively esoteric with probably a limited appeal beyond these two communities, it is no less deserving of serious scholarly treatment. I believe that the best digital scholarship is that which draws upon the advantages of both digital and traditional publishing, combining the small expense, the immediacy, the interactive nature, the accessibility for readers, and the frequency that digital publishing affords with the high level of academic standards that is associated with more traditional scholarship.

Michael J. Maddigan is the author/publisher of Recollecting Nemasket, a blog devoted to the history of Middleborough and Lakeville, Massachusetts. He currently serves as Curator of the Middleborough Historical Museum, and his book Middleborough (Images of America) is due to be published in October 2009.

In “Serendipity, Lost in the Digital Deluge,” Damon Darlin of the New York Times argues that even though we have gained greater access to information and entertainment in the digital age, information technologies are stamping out serendipity–“the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find.”

The great thing about the Web is that you can find a website for practically anything you have an interest in; the downside is that you will find exactly that. The vastness of the Web and our ability to access it gives the impression that we are taking advantage of this depth whenever we enter a term in a search engine. The reality is that too often people only find what they want to find on the Web. Keyword searching only gives back a list of websites that are shaped by your particular search term. Any exploration of this list will be shaped by the concept that started your search in the first place. More often than not, though, your search usually stops once you find the piece of information you were originally seeking.

This kind of searching isn’t bad. In fact, it is necessary if you want to pinpoint the information you need within the morass that is the Web. The problem is that you are less likely to find that “something you never knew that you wanted to find” if you solely rely on keyword searching in search engines when exploring a topic.

Librarians have long lamented the loss of serendipity in the digital age, and scholars should as well. You probably have your own story of stumbling upon a book or other information resource you never knew existed that suddenly opened up a whole new field of exploration for you. These are the kinds of moments that make research so exciting. But when was the last time that you can honestly say this kind of moment has happened to you while sitting at your computer?

The practice of serendipity is more art than science, but it still involves using a system or a plan of attack. It is not a totally random act. If you have absolutely no interest in science or political science, say, surrounding yourself with resources on these topics will be a fruitless endeavor–although you may want to stop and explore how these seemingly unrelated topics may actually apply to your area of interest. You might be surprised by what you find.

Reference librarians can often give the impression that they magically have all information at the fingertips. The reality is that they use a kind of serendipity to help guide the person seeking information with the principle, “Go to where you are likely to find the information you need, then look around.” Older research methods were built on this principle, which is why they can still be incredibly valuable for researchers today, if they take the time to practice them.

In his article, Darlin profiles a few search websites that are trying to utilize serendipity in the digital age, although he isn’t satisfied with their results. Here is my own list of seven ways that you can add serendipity to your research. Some of them involve using a computer, but some of them ask you to put it aside and explore the world of information in a different way.

1. Go to a library and browse the stacks. Books in libraries are organized by subject specifically to encourage serendipity. If you don’t know where to start browsing, pick a book that you happen to like and get the call number. Then go to where it should be on the shelf (even if it is already checked out) and start looking around. The great thing about this method is that you can easily pull a book off the shelf to see what it is all about, and you don’t have to wait for it to load onto a computer screen.
2. Surf the Web. Older scholars probably remember the first time they encountered the Web and how much fun it was to follow the links embedded on each website. When was the last time you did this? Again, start with a website you happen to like, and then start following the links.
3. Use the Browse function in a database, rather than the Search box. We usually go to a database and plug our search terms into the search box, because we are looking for something specific. But if the database has a browse function, try to find what you are looking for that way instead. For example, if you have a citation for a journal article, rather than keyword search the title in a database, use the browse function to pull up the journal issue. That way, you can see what other articles were published along with your article and even explore other issues of that journal.
4. Rather than go to Amazon.com for information on a book, go to a library catalog and start exploring the linked subject headings. By clicking on a linked subject heading in a library record for a book, you will usually find yourself in a browsable list of subject headings. (If not, copy the subject heading and enter it into the “Browse subject” or “Subject beginning with . . .” search box.) Start exploring this list and clicking on other subject headings in other book records.
5. Click around in the subject categories on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. Rather than enter a title or subject in the search box, use the Browse categories and see what books appear.
6. Track down sources listed in the notes or bibliography of a book or journal article. Pull out a book or journal article you like and start tracking down the resources that it cites. You can even start “surfing” the citations in the resources you find.
7. Go and talk with a reference librarian. Go to the reference desk or make an appointment with a reference librarian and tell him or her about your area of interest. I bet he or she can guide you to some resources you never knew existed.

A Digital Scholar is someone who uses new publishing technologies to publish, distribute, and market his or her intellectual work. This definition paints a rather broad picture of the kinds of intellectual work this Digital Scholar might produce and the publishing mechanisms and strategies that he or she might use.

The wonderful thing about new publishing technologies is that they practically allow anyone to take advantage of them. This democratic approach to publishing means that anyone with an intellectual passion can now find a means of publishing and distributing his or her ideas and become a Digital Scholar.

Professors and other practicing academics who become Digital Scholars find that these new publishing platforms force them to rethink how they create and distribute their work, and in the process give new life to their scholarship. These Digital Scholars also find a far greater audience for their ideas than they normally would within the confining walls of academia, thereby helping to build their reputations to a scale that is far greater than what was before possible.

Independent scholars and other people who left the academic rat race to pursue other forms of employment find that by becoming Digital Scholars they are by no means abandoning the exciting exchange of ideas that universities seemed to monopolize. These Digital Scholars discover that publishing their own academic work allows them to define the level of scholarship they want to produce and in the course of doing so gain a greater sense of respect and authority for their thoughts and ideas than they ever commanded or found within a university setting.

Becoming a Digital Scholar does not require the use of a particular set of publishing technologies, because these new technologies can be combined and used in ways to suit the goals of any individual scholar. Some Digital Scholars write blogs, some publish e-books, some use social networking websites, like Facebook, to create intellectual online communities to facilitate the exchange of ideas, and some create podcasts or videos to distribute lectures on the web. Many Digital Scholars combine some or all of these publishing mechanisms so that they feed on one another and reach a greater audience. Writers of blogs might use its contents as a basis for creating an e-book and then use the blog to publicize the book.

Becoming a Digital Scholar does not mean completely abandoning the traditional publishing world either. Many Digital Scholars find that these new publishing activities help lead them to traditional publishing opportunities that they may not have found otherwise. In fact, participation in this new world of publishing is becoming a requirement before entering the traditional world of print.

Are you a Digital Scholar? Use the comment link to share your experiences.