The problem

• Has the problem been articulated with clarity and precision?

• I have understood the problem in two parts:

– Primary and secondary source materials in traditional formats produced in foreign countries are not being collected comprehensively and systematically enough to sustain US scholarship

– Source materials in new formats are rapidly emerging and there are few strategies for collecting and preserving them for the benefit of future scholarship

Approach

• It is important to clarify the problem. I am going to assume that I have identified it correctly, and my remarks are aimed at suggesting ways to approach the solution of the problem in ways that suggest some alternatives

– Broader policy and economic context

– Forms of competition and cooperation among libraries

– Cooperation is needed in some key areas of technical, human, and methodological infrastructure

Broad economic and policy context

• For the consideration of the preservation of global record, it is useful to take account of the changing global environment for higher education

• There are very interesting and important trends suggesting ways in which US institutions may need to think differently about their role in regard to collections of record

• The following data are taken from the forthcoming book called Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, by William Bowen and two other colleagues at the Foundation

Limitations

• These data are suggestive, but not definitive, mainly because they are based on data about fields in science and engineering.

• What they suggest about the state of humanities is not altogether clear

• The lack of clarity is due in part to the lack of measures in the humanities and social sciences.

• Moreover, the US may be unusual in the relative strength of the humanities and social sciences in higher education, and in the lack of “top-down” manpower planning that locks students elsewhere into certain paths

Degrees holders in the population

• The proportion of the college-age population that earned degrees in science and engineering fields in 2000 was substantially larger in more than 16 countries in Asia and Europe than in the United States.

– The United States achieved a ratio of 5.7 per hundred after several decades of hovering between 4 and 5.

– Other countries/economies have recorded bigger increases: South Korea and Taiwan increased their ratios from just over 2 per 100 in 1975 to 11 per 100 in 2000-01.

– At the same time, several European countries have doubled and tripled their ratios, reaching figures between 8 and 11 per 100.

PhDs

• The overall number of doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens in all fields has declined by about 5% over the past 30 years

• It is growth in foreign recipients that has offset the fall-off in the U.S. numbers

• The representation of foreign students among science and engineering graduate students has approached 30 percent.

• Other countries are intent in trying to mimic the success the United States has had in building an exceptional base of highly educated talent.

• One striking statistic tells the main story: in 2000, out of a worldwide total of 114,000 S&E doctoral degrees conferred, 89,000 (78 percent) were earned outside the United States. There has been dramatic growth in doctoral education in China (which went from 234 doctoral degrees conferred in 1985 to 12,465 in 2001), Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom among others.

Publications

• In 2001, the United States had by far the largest share of S&E article output—31 percent; the next highest ranking country was Japan, with 9 percent.

• However, S&E Indicators reports that article output by United States-based authors “has remained flat since 1992, even though real R&D expenditures and the number of researchers continued to rise. Article output has continued to grow strongly in Western Europe and Asian countries, and the United States-based share of world scientific output has declined. The reasons for the “flattening out” of U.S. output are said to be “unknown and under investigation.”

Publications: Collaborators

• The diminishing importance of national boundaries and the growing internationalization of scientific research are illustrated by the increasing numbers of collaborations that involve individuals from more than one country.

• Over the 13 years from 1988 to 2001 – roughly the same period of time that the global resources problem came into focus -- the total number of internationally co-authored papers more than doubled, increasing from 8 to 18 percent of all S&E articles.

• There is still an extremely high level of U.S. activity but it is accompanied by a downward trend in U.S. dominance.

Growth of research centers elsewhere

• Overall, one can conclude from these data that there is a widening array of educational and research opportunities around the world – and this is probably true in the humanities as well as the sciences

• What does this mean for the US academy?

– Students and researchers on which US institutions have increasingly depended could stay home

– And other countries, besides the US, can compete more effectively for students outside their countries, and places like Japan and countries in Europe have been doing so aggressively

Are these trends a sign of decline?

• It may be that these trends reflect a general decay and decline in the US academy and there are certainly reasons for concern that range from the difficulties at the K-12 levels, the dramatic weakening of public higher education at the state level, and the growing differentials of wealth even among the elite institutions

• At the same time, there are opportunities.

• There is an increasing pedagogical reliance on primary sources, partly as a way of improving educational outcomes

• And the trends that I have outlined help define a new global environment in which to set the problem of preserving the global record.

A new context

• There is a new context in which a more balanced international distribution of talent and scientific contribution could prove to be very healthy.

• In addition, a growing number of centers of research activity outside the United States offers scholars improved opportunities to collaborate with colleagues in many other countries

• And similarly, a rising capacity elsewhere means that the burden of preservation can and must be shared globally and not concentrated in a small number of large libraries

• Of course, large libraries and universities do have a responsibility, but the challenge is in defining that responsibility

• Unequal partnerships often turn out to be less productive, in terms of the sharing of ideas and the promotion of mutual respect, than situations in which there is less “dominance.”

• As speakers have said, there are many, many types of institutions that have collections and responsibility for collections.

• Graham Shaw: the preservation of the global record is global responsibility

Applicability in the humanities

• The challenge is to find ways of being helpful, without domineering; of setting up an environment that will be more competitive, but will also spread the responsibility for preservation and access

• Because humanities are much more local or regional in terms of language, culture, methodology, modes of interpretation, the interaction of libraries involves deeply local relationships and interaction

• I will come back to these points

The Google-ization of the academy

• Now, let me come at the economic and policy questions from a different angle and focus on the question of competition and cooperation

• Through its Print and Scholar programs, Google appears to be aiming to provide growing awareness of and access to printed collections

• There is excitement and skepticism about this process, and much could be said about the penetration of this search engine industry into the academy

• This is another dimension of the commercial/not-for-profit partnerships that Dan Hazen raised in his question earlier

Emphasis on special collections

• The growing experience of Google-ization reinforces a strategy that has been increasingly driving the research library community, including a strategic refocusing of the Research Libraries Group

• That is, if large quantities of published materials are available online through some common interface, it will be increasingly harder to distinguish libraries based on their holdings of these materials

• Instead, libraries will increasingly be distinguished by their special collections of rare and unique materials

Special collections and competition

• Of course, scholars will always need access to the original artifacts for various purposes, and holding libraries will need to refine their methods of providing access

• But if distinction is based on special collections, then libraries are, in a major way, competing with each other on the basis of their collections

• And if competition is a key feature of interaction, then aspirations to collaborate and cooperate among libraries is an inherently complex process

• It is no wonder that efforts at cooperative collection development are repeatedly tried and repeatedly fail

Competition and cooperation

• It is a matter of strategy and policy, then, to determine at what level libraries should compete and at what level do they need to cooperate so that they can effectively compete?

• I would suggest that competition is needed at service and access levels and that cooperation is needed in the formation of common infrastructure:

– Archives worldwide can be improved through strategic relationships, training, and various forms of assistance

– And also through specific technical mechanisms that speakers have mentioned, such as finding aids and organized dissemination of resources

Finding Aids

• Finding aids are immensely valuable to scholars, as Jonathan Spence and others mentioned, in part because they disclose what an archives has and sometimes more importantly because they help provide links among related archives

• They are very difficult and costly to generate

• Where leadership is needed is in helping to economize and make the process of generating them more efficient

Assessment

• A very important innovation in the last few years has been to introduce a formal, preliminary step of special collection assessment, which consists of summary descriptions of major groups and their evaluation in terms of condition, format and scholarly value

• HSP, Columbia, UVa, Philadelphia area consortium

• Scholarly value is very important, and perhaps the most important aspect of this innovation because it depends on interaction with user and potential user community

• Assessment following this methodology helps assign priority

Other economies

• The archivist’s toolkit at NYU and UCSD: template-based, standard modes of entry and description that is usable by untrained archivists

• Are further distributions possible, such as detailed description and annotation by specialists including scholars

– Medici archive in Florence developed a system for annotation by scholars using the archives

– Ethnomusicological Video Archive at Indiana and Michigan has a tool for the videographer to annotate work

– David Germano briefly showed tools for community-base construction of dictionaries and encyclopedia related to certain archives

Organized dissemination of resources

• Importance of bibliography and commentary on sources

• These are being done in ways to engage scholars and librarians in collaborative effort

– ArcBase: East Asian archaeology bibliographic database initiative involving colleagues from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Italy, Sweden, UK, and elsewhere

– MLA Bibliography: recent expansion to include Arab, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish languages and literatures

• Standard scholarly practice of editorial work of collecting and presenting materials

– Cambodian genocide archive is one traditional example

– Use of new tools to preserve and present them: David Germano’s Tibetan and Himalayan Archive is one example among many

• These are complex productions involving extensive cooperation, and are essential scholarly work that has been devalued in the academy

The scholar-archivist

• One of the key questions is can we generalize from the individual cases of these activities to the academy’s ability to sustain the scholar-archivist

• There are big human infrastructure question here for the humanities disciplines in training students and their archivists

• How can priorities be best defined for what is needed in terms of archival resources

The scholar-archivist: human resources

• Scientists can list the priorities for their field or subfield

• This is a much harder task, and has to be done carefully, intensively, and at the right level

– Experiments at the Foundation with Latin American studies and classics

– At what level should these interventions occur: university, scholarly society, or elsewhere

– What incentives are needed in the humanities to help retain focus, build the networking effects of joint work, and yet encourage imaginative and inventive scholarship

The scholar-archivist: methodology

• In addition to the technical and human aspects of building a world-wide network of archival infrastructure, there is also methodological issues

• Language

• Sustainability

• Intellectual property

Language

• Yale’s language programs and study abroad are special and important at the undergraduate level, but it is necessary to understand to what extent this is unique

• Interest in languages has suffered nationwide for a variety of economic and cultural reasons

• What we heard in the Latin American studies meeting was not a new theme, namely that time-to-completion requirements at the advanced level in many fields must take account of the need for intensive language training

Sustainability and business models

• David Germano’s confession this morning about not knowing the ways of the university struck home

• Many scholars – and librarians – get stuck at a point of insufficient planning for the execution of major works of scholarship

• There is a need, as Dan Hazen suggested, for exposure to sustainability options and models

• Developing these options is a burden that the libraries need to share, in part by making itself more receptive to collection of these projects

Intellectual property

• Perhaps the biggest problem is intellectual property

• There was concern about the definition of archives

– This in itself is a problem

– Legal protections are afforded to archives

– But there has been a broadening of term in the last decade to include almost any collection, even the backup drive on your computer

– Legal definitions in copyright law are outdated and limited

• Libraries have surely been right to urge scholars to protect their rights as authors

• But the diplomatic, legal, and other skills needed to negotiate and obtain access for scholarly purposes to various resources other than standard written records is in very short supply among scholar-archivists, especially if digitization is involved

• These skills are closely tied to understanding of sustainability questions

• Libraries have surely been right to urge scholars to protect their rights as authors

• But the diplomatic, legal, and other skills needed to negotiate and obtain access for scholarly purposes to various resources other than standard written records is in very short supply among scholar-archivists, especially if digitization is involved

• These skills are closely tied to understanding of sustainability questions

• On this point, let me close with an example from the Mellon’s Dunhuang project, which rounds off Jonathan Spence’s example of his experience in the Public Records Office, looking at newly opened files from the rebellion in China in 1911

• The decline of the dynasty had other effects.

• In Dunhuang, in the west on the silk road, adventurers of various nation states were assiduously staking out territory: Russians, French, Japanese, and the British

• They carted off all sorts of treasures, which Mellon’s Dunhuang project has reunited in digital form with the spectacular wall paintings

• Sarah Fraser, the Northwestern scholar who was in charge of the Chinese portion of this project, had an agreement that was completely inadequate

• It was negotiated at the lowest level of authority and higher levels of course need to review and ratify it and we quickly learned that they were not happy

• We drafted the agreement and were in the middle of very tense negotiations

• The Chinese noted that the agreement devoted several dozen pages to the rights that the Foundation would have, and they complained that the Chinese were acknowledged only as the owners

• They felt this was most inequitable.

• Fortunately, we had a diplomatic interpreter who intervened, pointing out that, to the contrary, it was only natural that the Foundation had to enumerate its rights.

• Such enumeration meant that its rights were limited

• It would be the height of arrogance, on the Foundation, to enumerate the rights of the Sovereign.

• All became clear, the agreement was signed, and it is now used as a model for similar agreements in China

• We need to find ways to help our scholar-archivists become as agile and sophisticated as our interpreter

Donald Waters is Program Officer for Scholarly Communications at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he served as the first Director of the Digital Library Federation (1997-1999), as Associate University Librarian at Yale University (1993-1997), and in a variety of other positions at the Computer Center, the School of Management, and the University Library at Yale. Waters graduated with a Bachelor's degree in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1973. In 1982, he received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University. Waters conducted his dissertation research on the political economy of artisanry in Guyana, South America.

He has edited a collection of African-American folklore from the Hampton Institute in a volume entitled Strange Ways and Sweet Dreams. In 1995-96, he co-chaired the Task Force of the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group on Archiving of Digital Information, and was the editor and a principal author of the Task Force Report. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is the author of numerous articles and presentations on libraries, digital libraries, digital preservation, and scholarly communications.

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