The theme of LACUNY 2017 was the future of librarianship. This offered an opportunity for participants to explore a wide variety of topics discussing what possible futures are going to be crafted by the decisions libraries make in the present. It was my first year at LACUNY and it was impressive how wide a draw from other states (TX, FL, MI, PA) that LACUNY has built.
My presentation was entitled Walk the Future like a Landscape: Theorizing an Interdisciplinary Approach. The slidedeck is here. Some rough speaking notes follow.
The idea of landscape is regularly deployed in titles and abstracts in the library literature as a means of giving scope to such abstract concepts as the “landscape of practice”, “information literacy landscape” or “the landscape of the library.” So what are we talking about when we are talk about landscape? Because how and what we think about ourselves in relationship to the landscape is going to affect how we respond to what is in that landscape which is going to affect on our actions in the future and may define the landscape as well.
Landscape as a term is tricky as landscape is “simultaneously a physical environment and way of perceiving that environment; it is both a world and a culture constructed to make sense of that world.”[1]
When used in the literature the term stands in as metaphorical shorthand as a means of perceiving something in a particular frozen moment in time. The idea of landscape generates related metaphors such as horizon, mapping, explore/ing, examine, etc. which have a long history in the library literature, specifically. What do these types of metaphors and ideas mean in thinking about the future? This matters for present and future b/c, as Shannon Mattern points out in her brilliant ACRL17 talk “Metaphors shape policy and modes of governance.”[2] As Lakoff/Johnson point out “…your field of vision defines a boundary of the territory, namely, the part that you can see.” (Lakoff; Johnson 30) Landscape is an ontological metaphor used “…to comprehend events, actions, activities and states.” (Lakoff/Johnson 30)
John Stilgoe (prominent landscape studies writer/historian) defines landscape as “…shaped land…” that has been acted upon “…by contrivance, by premeditation, by design.”[1] Landscape as shaped land means that some one or some force (or collection of forces) did that shaping. This is particularly important for future thinking in what forces, efforts have shaped and will continue to shape. As poet Claudia Rankine poignantly observes “…we’re all together inside a system that scripts and constructs not just behavior but the imagination.”[2] (Like infrastructure) we both shape and are shaped by the landscapes we inhabit.
In the landscape there is evidence of the past and suggestion/possibility of the future but neither are perfectly clear or fully realized. Stilgoe calls for the observer to see the landscape in both present and future in light of the ghostly past; “the explorer looks around and sees the patterns and revelations disclosed by things absent.”[3] He calls this practice “seeing the nothing”.[4] Connecting this directly to library practice Annemaree Lloyd writes “the structure and organization of landscapes affords a range of opportunities for people to engage with the sources of information that give the landscape its unique shape and characteristics.”[5] How do we do this reading? We recognize that patterns are revealed in and over time. Observing patterns requires perspective, context and connection.
As a way of thinking about pattern, revelation and tradition I offer the joined vision/perceptions of the giant and the ant.[1]
The Giant
The giant can see very far in time and space providing a sense of the terrain both ahead and behind. The giant sees the terrain in its present and past states. The giant moves slowly but covers significant distance when in motion.Giant must be careful when walking b/c of the distinct possibility of crushing whatever is underfoot. Benton MacKaye the progenitor of the Appalachian Trial in his article proposing the AT “places the reader on the trail at a high altitude and likened their range of vision to that of a giant.” He wrote “Let us assume the existence of a giant standing high on the skyline along these mountain ridges, his head just scraping the floating clouds. What would he see from this skyline as he strode along its length from north to south?”[2]
The Ant
The ant sees all the details and obstacles on the ground and can moves quickly over short distances to engage and interact with the particular details
The ant possesses an intimate knowledge of its immediate environs though lacking a greater understanding of the overall terrain. The ant is aware of the same changes to the landscape as the giant but sees them happening more immediately and limited to the ant’s location. It takes longer periods of time for the ant to cover the same amount of ground the giant does or can but the ant can appreciate/know the intricacies of the topography and the terrain. “He lay down behind the blade of grass/ To enlarge the sky.” (Bachelard 169) The ant sees in the particular; the giant in broad sweeps.
Perspective, Context, Connection
Tom Wessel builds upon this writing “…seeing nature in a larger context…[provides] a fuller understanding of the patterns that have shaped its landscapes. (PERSPECTIVE) Through some knowledge of history and the broader view of seeing a forest and not just its trees, (CONTEXT) we begin to see the forces that shape a place…Reading the landscapes is not just about identifying…patterns…it is an interactive narrative.”[3] (CONNECTION) The ant and the giant offer perspective, context and connection to the landscape. The future requires that we are able to hold these three from these two points of view, simultaneously. On their own, perspective, context and connection individually held is fundamentally incomplete. Particularly in the face of concepts such as innovative disruption or technology in the classroom these concepts (from giant/ant perspective) are necessary. Often, in future think, b/c the giant’s perspective is given more uncritical weight than the ant’s.
**On their own neither view is complete**[4] The Giant/ant tells stories from their perspectives that are both true but incomplete. However combined is not an infallible reading, either. The giant and ant are meant to be reminders, tools into ways of seeing, as “…[pedagogical] dynamic[s] that create the experience of an idea, of a way of making sense of self, the world, and self in the world…encounters with the future as in the making.”[5]
The giant and the ant are not only seeing the past in the landscape they are also watching the landscape in progress. We need to be able “…to see beyond [the working service]…”to the empire of function…”[6] (seeing the nothing that impacted the landscape in order to understand how to proceed. A possible example is the Framework|Standards discussion. I hope that whenever the Framework is taught to MLIS students there is a history of the Standards discussed as well. OR the use of discovery layers in the libraries, etc.)[7]
The landscape as receiving the imprint of past and present actions, shapes acts in the present with an eye towards the future. For MacKaye: “The high altitude enlarged views while the narrow path collapsed many historical epochs into a single body and a single moment.”[1] The “enlarged views” is dreaming/scheming for the future (giant) while the ant is focused on a single body/single moment. The high altitude is perspective/context the narrow path also perspective (single moment) context/connection. Brought together/flipping back and forth between the giant and the ant in observing the landscape of librarianship offer an “inversion of perspective”[2] where “…the miniscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world.”[3]
Keller Easterling writing in Organization Space about Benton MacKaye observes the following: “MacKayes’ infrastructures had no definite boundaries but rather a repertoire of possible behaviors that could change over time. A site of intervention, understood to be part of an ecology, need not attempt comprehensive control over the organization to affect it. MacKaye’s interventions were wild cards, usually involving partial or tactical adjustments that would have some radiating effect w/in the organization.”[1] As sites of intervention composed of a repertoire of possible behaviors what are the partial and tactical adjustments we need to make?
The Information Literacy Summit (Moraine Valley Community College) videos are posted this time each year b/c are often especially timely. In Wendy Holliday’s keynote entitled “Boundaries and sovereignties: Placing students at the center of information literacy” she specifically addresses the desire of librarians to see and teach students as active agents of critical change (GIANT) while also wanting them to learn keywords (ANT). Can we do both?[1] Holliday also advocates for the possibility of connection through that hated info-lit vehicle, the one shot. Holliday urges librarians to take advantage of these b/c they offer opportunities to connect with students attempting to teach info lit in a way that transcends students’ time at the university and the university databases. This isn’t new but when viewed through the giant/ant perspective we are reminded that we are teaching for the future as well as the present. That perceptions of the library are largely shaped“…as primarily responsible for structuring the library for maximum retrieval of information by the user… (emphasizing access)[2] This is why people respond to the need for libraries with access-related responses (isn’t it all on the web); this is their perspective of the context library’s play in connecting people with information. What Holliday is referencing is trying/working to do both. Theory and history, practice and place as realized in the shared vision of the giant and the ant, recognize the constantly changing nature of things and endeavor to work meaningfully and actively within that environment making imaginative interdisciplinary connections. [3]
I suggest that how we proceed into the future is going to be directly effected by how we are reading the landscape and acting accordingly. Efforts like OAB, Project Info Lit, Center for Open Science (SocArXiv,) (Open Journal Systems, LIS Scholarship Archive, Humanities Commons, punctum books are or should be heartening. Libraries have the ability and power to change the landscape but we need to marshal our forces and expertise to do so. Engaging the vision of the giant and the ant but we still need to choose how we are seeing. Marshall Berman captures this sentiment perfectly when he writes “….my horizon…[is] crowded with human passion, intelligence, yearning, imagination, spiritual complexity and depth. It’s also crowded with oppression, misery, everyday brutality, and a threat of total annihilation. But the people in the crowd are using and stretching their vital powers, their vision and brains and guts, to face and fight the horrors.”[4]
Jeremy McGinniss 