Rosan,
Perhaps it is time for some serious talk. You’ve moved from the
strong conviction that you understood Victor’s challenge to the new
position that perhaps Victor needs to do this himself. Even so, you’ll
be glad to help Victor set up a Zotero group.
There are two problems with your advice to Victor.
First, Victor is simply asking us to do the kind of work we do at
universities. The problem is that you’ve never quite understood what
we do at universities – and you’ve never understood the difference
between the research training at an art and design school and the work
we do at university faculties. This makes your advice about funding for
design and funding for universities simplistic and sententious.
Developing serious literature reviews and doing good bibliographic
notes does not require funding. It takes time, thinking, and the
willingness to work.
The second problem is that time is definitely scarce and we don’t
have as many experienced and competent people as the field requires. On
way for people to develop the experience and competence they need is
through the serious work on critical literature reviews and
bibliographic essays that Victor suggestion, and the serious annotated
bibliographies that support them.
Time becomes even more scarce when people waste their time on Zotero
reading lists. Doctoral students will not develop the experience or
competence they need if they take your advice, and researchers won’t
improve their skills or deepen their knowledge by working on Zotero.
Software does not do this, whether it's a beta version or an advanced
release. People must do their own thinking and writing.
The challenge is not book lists. It is conceptual mapping. Conceptual
mapping requires reading, thinking, and writing. Research is the wrong
line of work for people who imagine that time is too scarce for reading.
If you simply want book lists, you don’t need Zotero. It's easy to
extract thematic reading lists from the references that appear at the
end of the document. Anyone who reads journals or serious books knows
how to do this.
But I’m not speaking for Victor here. I’m stating my own views.
Should Victor need help setting up a group on Zotero, I am certain
he’ll call on you for advice.
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
39214 6078 | Faculty
On Wed, 2 Nov 2011 10:22:30 +0100, Rosan Chow wrote:
Hi Victor,
I understand what your wishes are, but I think you need to write it
yourself. I am not being cynical but realistic. You know who are capable
of taking on your challenge and you also know how busy they are and how
difficult the funding situation is generally and for Design
particularly; and the situation of the University.
There is so much to do and yours is one of them and in my observation,
we do not have enough experienced and competent people nor a favorable
academic climate to do all these. But, we have many more energetic young
people whom we can engage and free platform like Zotero which we can
experiment.
The Zotero Research Through Design group library is a start and it will
evolve. In software developer language, it is not 1.0 yet.
If you like, I can help you set up a group at Zotero and get people
together and transfer your library.
Until then...
Rosan
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