Knowledge Production Beyond The Book?

Notes Chapter 4

janneke adema

27th March 2015

[1] What I mean by this is that the system of scholarship as we know it today, including peer review, authorship, and copyright is not and has never been a static institution but is historically contingent.

[2] As Christine Borgman makes clear, ‘Scholarly communication is a rich and complex sociotechnical system formed over a period of centuries’ (2007: 48). This system takes on many forms, both formal and informal, and is best understood, Borgman states ‘as a complex set of interactions among processes, structures, functions, and technologies’ (2007: 73). However, as Borgman also points out, as a system, it builds upon a certain tradition in Western thought, based on the free flow of information and quality control, and the functions the system needs to fulfil in order to stimulate this. These functions ensure, among other things, quality, preservation and trust, access and dissemination, reputation and reward structures, and the efficiency and effectivity of the system as a whole (Adema and Rutten 2010).

[3] For more on how the book functions as an apparatus, see chapter 6.

[4] For example, see the discussion between Johns and Eisenstein on book history as explored in chapter 2.

[5] For instance, see George Monbiot’s attack on commercial publishers here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist

[6] I do not want to imply that the system of scholarly communication has ‘borders’, or that this is in any way a stabilised structure. This system is highly contingent and historically situated, and thus differs in each instantiation. Instead I want to focus on taking responsibility for the systemic relationships and relationalities that structure the academic apparatus, which include technological, economical and cultural/institutional practices.

[7] Not unlike blogposts today, Kronick mentions that in the 17^th century the journal was probably not accepted as a formal, definitive form of publication. Frequently these articles were collected by publishers and published in a book afterwards (1991: 61).

[8] Hawes gives the following numbers: in 1870 there were only 560 colleges and universities with 5600 professors and 52000 students, which grew in size to some 24000 professors and 240000 students by 1900, and to 950 institutions, 36000 teaching faculty, and 355000 students by 1910.

[9] For a summary of what this ‘neoliberal turn’ in HE consists of, see Hall (2008: 1–2).

[10] In Thompson’s vision, academic publishing, i.e. university press publishing, finds itself somewhere in between these two competing logics of the university and commercial scholarly publishing (2005: 175).

[11] Whereas according to Thompson the market logic structuring the publishing field ‘would tend to override any obligation they might feel to the scholarly community’ (2005: 97).

[12] See among others Anon. (2010), Couvée (2012) and Swain (2013).