Ken, Terry, and Colleagues
I'm beginning to wonder if Terry is the only one on the list with a positive, entrepreneurial attitude to the problem of developing a portal for the field around design related bibliographies. (I obviously don't believe that - Kari-Hans has charted a critical but responsive course and others have suggested other tools to consider.)
Despite some wonderful contributions to the discussion, I am disappointed in the "can't do anything yet but use what is there' attitude and a seemingly limited inability to build on ideas positively as knowledge is added, rather than simply to misconstrue and derail them.
For example, Ken has spent a lot of time saying what he doesn't believe can be done (even as he begins to do and test what he sees opportunistically as doable.) His misconstructions of what I suggest are so frequent and negative that it is tiring. Ideas I didn't propose, like annotated bibliographies and peer reviewed bibliographies, became ways to beat down what was actually proposed. (Ken also introduced the word "thematic" where I would use the word "contextualized".)
Terry's great reality check suggests that where annotated bibliographies exist they too could be reached from the database without having to author or edit them. If we feel as I do that design is a universal discipline then use of the word in a title marks it as relevant even if not for every situation or search. If one takes the modern view that users should determine what is useful to them, and their use can be mined to reveal keyword use, abstracts viewed, and citations downloaded to help them focus their search, rather than restrict content to what authority figures decide should be useful, then the issue turns to more manageable things like funding, planning, hosting, components, format regulation or translation, ease of use, and effectiveness for whatever purposes the database might serve. Those are topics worth considering along with critical analysis of what is already out there.
Can't everyone become a bit more positive, entrepreneurial and designerly rather than critical and contentious?
It would be more productive with a better chance of improving access to information and knowledge related to design..
Or, so I believe,
Chuck
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