Attention vs. access

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

To say that access is a problem does not mean that it is a large 
problem. But let's concede the point for purposes of discussion: 
Access is a very big problem.  Attention is still a bigger 
problem and solving that problem requires concerted effort in 
discovery, findability, branding--call it whatever you like. 
Speaking for myself, I am more interested in solving bigger 
problems than smaller ones, but that doesn't mean that the 
small(er) ones are unimportant.

So we put this question to researchers in a hypothetical 
environment where miracles do happen: You can immediately have 
access to twice as much information as you have now, OR you can 
have the time available to do your work extended by one hour each 
day, with no negative consequences whatsoever.  Yes, you now have 
a 25 hour day, but you still sleep just 6 or 7, have no 
additional papers to grade, and your commute has not gotten 
longer.  Which do you choose?

Even supposing that someone would choose more access over more 
time (actually, more life), what would happen to that augmented 
access (which, I concede, is a very big problem)?  The researcher 
still has papers to grade, still has to pick up the kids, still 
has those committee assignments, still must review papers for 
leading (now open access) journals.  Twice as much information, 
but a stubborn 24 hour clock.

Since human time is finite, and human attention along with it, 
our researcher has twice as much to review in the same amount of 
time as before. So the actual amount of information consumed does 
not increase.  Access, in other words, except in marginal 
situations (impecunious researchers resident at small 
institutions or perhaps in developing economies), does not 
increase the amount of material being reviewed.  What it does do 
(and here again, I concede that this is an important problem)is 
change what material is reviewed.

So our researcher now looks at this new material.  Is the new 
material reviewed as thoroughly as the old material? If so, that 
means that half of the new material is reviewed, and half of the 
old material is not reviewed. But I doubt it.  I suspect that 
this researcher had already made some good decisions as to what 
was important with the first half.  I also believe that the 
researcher had the benefit of working with skilled librarians, 
who built collections based on what was most important to the 
research constituency. In other words, the doubling of 
information (a) does not increase the amount of material 
reviewed, and (b) it lowers the average quality of the material 
available (because most of the best stuff was already in the 
first batch).

So, access is terribly important, but a means of identifying what 
is of high quality or highly relevant is more important.

Of course, in our hypothetical world, people could live forever.

Joe Esposito