Planned
Obsolescence:
Publishing,
Technology, and the
Future of the
Academy
Kathleen Fitzpatrick // @kfitz
kfitzpatrick@mla.org
“In many cases, traditions
last not because they are
excellent, but because
influential people are averse
to change and because of
the sheer burdens of
transition to a better state.”
— Cass Sunstein, Infotopia
“There is no way to stop the
shake-up of the university
press system from
happening. It has already
begun.”
— Lindsay Waters,
Enemies of Promise
obsolescence
death
The Anxiety of
Obsolescence
death of the novel
cultural wildlife
preserve
dot-com crash
“too much financial
risk... to pursue in the
current economy”
— the marketing guys
“They were planning
on making money off
of your book?”
— Mom
insupportable
economic model
university presses
university libraries
rising costs of
journals
collection sharing
one-third
subsidies
reduced number of
titles published
marketing
the crisis in academic
publishing
the academic book
no longer viable
but still required
undead
zombie
death-in-livelihood
really?
undead
material
ink-on-paper
pixels-on-screens
print
fraction
digital
material
obsolescence
persistences
ephemeral
durability
archives
interaction
institutional
system
“In fact I completely understand why that’s
not realistic, and I’m not seriously
advocating it. Nor am I suggesting that we
all become our own online publishers, at
least not unless that’s part of a continuum of
different options. But the point is, the
system’s broken and it’s time we got busy
fixing it. What ought to count is peer review
and scholarly merit, not the physical form in
which the text is ultimately delivered.”
— Matt Kirschenbaum
scholarly publishing
consider articles published
by tenure candidates as
seriously as books
acknowledge and fairly
evaluate online
scholarship
easier said than done
MediaCommons
MediaCommons
Planned
Obsolescence
John Willinsky, The Access
Principle
Christine Borgman, Scholarship
in the Digital Age
conservative
We Have Never
Done It That Way
Before
“While we are very adept at
discussing the texts of novels,
plays, poems, film, advertising, and
even television shows, we are
usually very reticent, if not wholly
unwilling, to examine the textuality
of our own profession, its scripts,
values, biases, and behavioral
norms.”
— Donald Hall
self-criticism
change
social, intellectual
and institutional
change
cost
access
the ways we research
the ways we write
the ways we review
peer review
peer review
but
“What ought to count is peer
review and scholarly merit,
not the physical form in
which the text is ultimately
delivered.”
disciplinary
technology
self-policing
gatekeeping
scarcity is over
plenitude
create artificial
scarcity
coping with
abundance
impact
post-publication
whether a text should
be published
how it has been (and
should be) received
from regulation to
communication
facilitating
“peer-to-peer review”
“the new metrics of
scholarly authority”
— Michael Jensen
scarcity
filters
31,650+ pageloads
12,100+ first-time
visitors
3370+ return visitors
295 comments
44 commenters
400
“publication”
authorship
products
processes
community
“We know now that a text consists not
of a line of words, released a single
‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’
of the Author-God), but of a multidimensional space in which are
married and contested several
writings, none of which is original: the
text is a fabric of quotations, resulting
from a thousand sources of culture.”
— Roland Barthes
interaction
process
control
collaborative
originality
remix
publishers
libraries
universities
knowledge
production
obsolescence
response
undead
change
thanks!
Kathleen Fitzpatrick // @kfitz
kfitzpatrick@mla.org