Metablog

Information and Institutional Change: The Case for Digital Libraries

Agre's chapter "Information and Institutional Change: The Case for Digital Libraries" seeks to identify ways to characterize the interactions and relationships between technology and social institutions and he uses the idea of a digital library as an exemplar to give voice to his ideas. That's the "cotton candy" view: it looks good, it tastes good, but it's hard to chew productively. At least, I found it so...

NOTE: I'm intentionally outlining and simplifying here because I don't want to replace one item of fluffy prose with another item of fluffy prose.

DEFINITIONS

Institutions

"enduring categories of society" and "carriers of collective memory and skill"

Institutional Field

"a particular relatively enduring ensemble of institutional categories"

articulation

interaction between institutional fields "in relatively stable and structured ways"

priority of analysis

"the sociological conceptualization of user communities and institutions are logically prior to the design and evaluation of technical systems"

bridging concepts

"concepts that enable designers to move back and forth between the technical and institutional sides of their work"

inscription

"the process by which social discourses are translated into the workings of software"

meso-level concepts

concepts that describe medium-sized social phenomena

revolutionaries

"those who embrace change"

reactionaries

"those who resist" change

1. The institutional field of the "library" "articulates with other institutional fields".
   
2. "(t)he central institutional tension of the library: its need to maintain relatively uniform practices despite the great diversity of the social worlds whose members it serves
   

1. Designing a computer is easier than designing a digital library because it begins, Agre implies, with a "clear starting point". He lists several concepts that seem to suggest their status as starting points, but I think the CSCW literature would argue their clarity as starting points
   
2. Social phenomena are complex and can't be quantitatively defined (but this shouldn't be read as Agre rejecting quantitative characterizations of social phenomena)
   
3. Although he identifies other levels of analysis, Agre focuses on "the role of social theory in design," specifically, the role of concepts to
   
   
   
   1. study the task to be supported by the system under design; study the context of the anticipated system's use
      
   2. operationalize the concepts into the system, through inscription, and into its institutional context
      
   3. inform the criteria used to evaluate the technical and institutional systems
      
   
   
4. "analysis of concepts should precede design"
   
5. digital libraries should be thought of as a sort of "meta-institution" and digital librarians as designers of that meta-institution.
   
6. Agre contrives a tension between a historically-rooted, canonical library and a potential digital library that is completely decoupled from these roots and then writes that bridging concepts and meso-level concepts are useful in exploring that tension ... but he doesn't actually demonstrate its usefulness.
   
7. CONCEPTUAL TRAPS!! CONCEPTUAL TRAPS!! CONCEPTUAL TRAPS!!
   
   
   
   1. Presupposing standardization
      
   2. Imputing political consequences of technological design (Agre uses the example of network-enabled decentralization of information leading to political decentralization, then rejects the notion by claiming "computer networks are just as capable of projecting instruments of control into far-flung locations" but he ignores the somewhat-more-equal capacity of those locations to fling instruments of control right back).
      
   3. semantically conflating "Automation" as meaning "replacement of humans" instead of "using technology" (here, he claims "a new technology will lead to a renegotiation of the roles of people and machines, and this renegotiation should be part of the design process" ... I agree with the first part, but disagree with his implication that the renegotiation can be designed instead of it being emergent).
      
   4. Assuming that social institutions can or should change as fast as technology
      
   5. All-or-Nothing assumptions in the relationships between what is changing and what is not in a new technology
      
   6. Command-and-Control Computing: assuming design decisions will only enable technology use that is blessed by authority
      
   7. Inventing a new world of technology use through design that is decoupled from prior practice
      
   8. Blaming resistance to technology change on reactionaries rather than poorly designed systems
      
   9. Assuming disintermediation of control instead of disintermediation-followed-by-reintemediation through an alternative means
      
   10. Designing for only the designer's concepts
       
   11. Experts presupposing transparency of technology use by novices
       

1. Scholars need a discursive "space for the self-organizing mechanisms of their community" and in which they can develop their ideas ("container of conflict") and monitor those of others (for refutation or assimilation)
   
2. Challenges to institution of scholarship (not librarians) by interdisciplinary activity and "the continual creation of new communities with new, permeable boundaries"
   
3. Challenges to institution of scholarship (not librarians) of "excessive technologically-facilitated homogeneity" (which would make librarian's lives easier)
   
4. Challenges to institution of scholarship (not librarians) of "professional mobility"; how digital libraries might have an appropriate role - as a meta-institution - of mapping the intellectual landscape and provide a service to the scholarly community
   

1. "democracy is supposed to be a matter of rational deliberation" ("democracy", as a political institution, is not a public sphere, at least not in a Habermasian sense. Agre is actually talking about a sociological critical theory - democracy theory - interpretation of systems/institutions that enable pluralistic thought, expression, and activity without reification of any subset thereof). He should define what he means by "rational" as its popular meaning is rooted in the Enlightenment and doesn't really reflect the social construction of rationality that is the purpose of a public sphere.
   
2. Agre then tries to motivate an argument for equivalence between scholarly communities and public spheres as "autonomous space(s), loosely coupled to the spaces of other communities ... with relatively safe opportunities to develop their public voices". In other words, social sensemaking.
   
3. Agre argues that the Internet resembles "the Habermasian unrestricted public sphere" and notes the challenge of "free ridership" (lurkers who benefit but don't contribute) ... though he doesn't connect the dots to link it to libraries since, arguably, libraries have historically identified themselves as embracing such "lurkership".
   
4. "Ideas are public goods" vs. "ideas in the public sphere are useful to me ... because other people" buy into them. He then compares the "marketplace of ideas" to "think-tanks" suggesting the potential for the Internet - and presumably digital libraries - to become instruments of control. he doesn't spell this out, so I may be wrong or the readers of this chapter will likely miss the point.

1. "The design of digital libraries will require a dynamic approach" that embraces the dialectical tension between technology and institutions
   
2. This dialectical tension "is increasingly mediated by the global dynamics of technical standards"
   
3. technical standards "can embody commitment," "constrains people's activities" (control again), and reify some over others
   
4. standards usually are enacted through some central authority
   
5. centralizationcan lead to power and control asymmetries (at least he does link this back to libraries with regard to intellectual property mechanisms)
   

SUMMARY
Agre puts a lot of interesting ideas into this paper but he seems to lose focus after Section 2. I can guess that his intent is to characterize the future of digital libraries as a meta-institution with a goal of providing a hyper-mediated analog of the scholarly space/public sphere, which requires the development of standards that aren't rooted in any institutional field but which supports them all. The role of future digital librarians will be less about managing representation than dynamically designing these standards.

However, these guesses are from me and not Agre ... I wish he could've supproted some of his claims better and connected more of the "dots" to actually make this argument rather than imply it.