Dear Fil,
Apologies, but I think you’ve missed the point of my note.
The issue I raised is that Mendeley is not appropriately structured to
be a useful platform. It’s a social networking site. One might
describe it as Twitter for researchers: short tweets that share titles
with no substantive information to explain what the references are
about, how they relate to the field, or even how they relate to other
titles in the compilation. The only clear link among the contributions
is that a Mendeley “follower” liked them, at least back in 2009.
Beyond this, the items currently in Menedeley do not constitute a list
of fundamentals. There are some important pieces mixed in with pieces
that are useful in another context and a number of works that aren’t
useful for any purpose I can see.
A sudden upwelling of information from an enthusiast followed by a
years-long gap in contributions is an indication of just how useless
this site is. It could be that a few well-intentioned people will add a
few titles as a result of these prompts, but I can’t see a durable
long-term outcome. The format and structure are wrong.
Every field has good mechanisms for assembling useful reading lists.
These aggregate and share the knowledge of the field. These mechanisms
include topical reading lists, annotated bibliographies, and literature
review articles, as well as the reference lists of completed articles
and books.
Victor’s post on literacy addresses fundamental issues. We will not
solve these problems by posting reading lists or adding three titles a
year to Mendeley.
To the degree that there are such things as useful reading lists and
bibliographies, some of us do provide them. If you really want to see
this kind of thing emerge, why not assemble and provide reading lists in
the areas of your expertise? Unlike Mendeley, we can judge the likely
value of a scholar’s reading list based on the scholar’s work and
reputation.
Developing an annotated bibliography takes far more time, and it is far
more useful. I’m not suggesting you do this, but I do say the field
needs them. Unlike Mendeley, we also know that the author of an
annotated bibliography has actually read the material he or she puts
forward – and that the author has given enough attention to the issues
involved to share scholarly, scientific, or professional expertise with
the rest of us.
Serious literature review articles and major bibliographic essays such
as Victor’s chapter in Design Discourse are an immense contribution.
Mendeley offers the semblance of a contribution mixed in with random
information compiled by the ill-informed and the ignorant. I understand
their intentions, but the gap between the claims they make for the
information on the site and the quality of the content is too great.
Time is precious, my friend. I am not willing to sort through reading
lists where useful material is mixed in with the useless, and where
lists are compiled with no clear basis for selection. Mendeley is not
for me. The evidence to date suggests it is not for anyone else,
either.
Ken
--
Fil Salustri wrote:
I think there’s 2 things here:
1. that Mendeley may be an interesting/useful platform to develop a
reading list of fundamentals;
2. that the items currently in Mendeley constitute a list of
fundamentals.
Perhaps we might impose on those senior researchers and experts in
design on this list to contribute, say, 2 or 3 key items per year to the
Mendeley collection. I think it would not take much time to build up
quite a collection.
--
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 3
9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
|