Prometheus 6

About two weeks ago I spotted an essay by Clay Shirky called, Social Facts, Expertise, Citizendium, and Carr. Citizendium is a "wikipedia" with volunteer expert editors. What caught my attention was the discussion of seperating authority from expertise. It's a common problem...in fact, it's called management. It's inherent is the insistance on data without 'bias.'

I had no intention of visiting Citizendium for a while. I figure I'd hear about it if it took off.

Well, I heard of them. This is Kali Tal, one of the recruited experts (and as of this writing the newest registered user of P6).

A month or two ago I was invited to join in building a new repository of knowledge on the Internet, a spin-off from Wikipedia called Citizendium. The chief attraction of Citizendium (also called CZ) was that articles would be authored by laypersons and experts alike, but editorially approved by experts -- thus creating an environment of authority and reliability that Wikipedia, with its lack of quality control, could not match. I strongly support public intellectual work and I am all for making reliable information and analysis widely available to all who seek it. I joined CZ with high hopes, and with the goal of recruiting others to participate in a project I felt could be very useful and rewarding. My initial contributions impressed Larry Sanger enough that he invited me to join the Executive Board of Citizendium, and I accepted.

I wrote to colleagues and friends about CZ and invited them to participate -- and especially appealed to African Americanist and feminist scholars, since that is my own area of expertise. I asked, in my announcements, what Wikipedia might have looked like if there were significant participation from black or women scholars from its inception. I assumed -- wrongly -- that Ethnic studies and Women's studies scholars would be welcome at CZ. I was gravely disappointed. We are not welcome, and our disciplines are not welcome. We may participate only if we are willing to subsume our work under the headings of other, "more traditional" disciplines. CZ as conceived of and enforced by Sanger is a strongly conservative endeavor, and adamantly opposed to progressive scholarship.

I am withdrawing from Citizendium because of the racist and sexist policy put in place by Larry Sanger, who claims that the disciplines of Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies do not belong in the list of top level categories in Citizendium, or as individual categories at all.

This is not the only organization/person to make such a decision.

The Dissolution of the Black Studies & Women's Studies Libraries

Currently, the Black Studies and Women’s Studies Libraries are closed! The director plans on integrating these collections into one library (the Main Library), upon completion of renovations in 2009. We are not only losing the convenience of having the collections in one place but an important piece of OSU’s history. These two libraries (Black Studies and Women’s Studies) were established in 1971 and 1972 respectively, by the efforts of students and have become irreplaceable resources at The Ohio State University. Now the director has made the decision to close these libraries without our consent. We want to show him and the entire University how important these libraries are to us. Please help us fight to keep the efforts of students alive!

And from the H-Afro-Am discussionlist out of H-Net

From: Myers, Amrita Paula
List Editor: "Alkalimat, Abdul"
Editor's Subject: Re: Ohio State U Black Studies Library
Author's Subject: Re: Ohio State U Black Studies Library
Date Written: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:55:33 -0500
Date Posted: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:55:33 -0500

This same thing happened in the spring here at IU. The plan to close the Neal Marshall Black Cultural Center library was never publicized to the faculty or the students. The administration hoped, apparently, to close it at the end of the semester, after everyone had left town, so there would not be anyone here to fight for the library to stay open. The materials would be integrated into the main library or shipped to an offsite storage location. The rationale was that these materials were duplicating what the main library already had, and that the facility, with its fulltime reference librarians trained in Black Studies, was not "cost effective."

Luckily word of this got out only a couple of days before the library was due to be closed. Faculty and students, led by black graduate students including one of the history department's own, Siobhan Carter, held an emergency meeting, picketed outside the library, and demanded to see the administration. As a result of their efforts, the library is still open... for now.

I say this only to let people know that what is happening at OSU is not only reprehensible, but that it is not unique. The question is: what are we going to do about it?

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From: Molefi Kete Asante
List Editor: "Alkalimat, Abdul"
Editor's Subject: Re: Ohio State U Black Studies Library
Author's Subject: Re: Ohio State U Black Studies Library
Date Written: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:28:06 -0500
Date Posted: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:28:06 -0500

The well-known Charles Blockson African American Library at Temple University has also come under attack by the new administration at Temple University. Mr. Blockson, one of the great collectors who has amassed the 4th or 5th largest personal collection in the country, donated his collection to Temple with the stipulation that it would remain together as a united collection. Since Blockson announced his retirement the university has decided to move his collection into the main library, contrary to his wishes and in opposition to the community. There has been one demonstration led by a coalition of groups in the community. We are all convinced that this collection, one of the most valuable in the nation, is under threat from some "new" initiative from librarians or administrators around the country who believe that there is no reason to have special collections about African Americans as free standing units. It may be a cost saving measure, decided by the librarians in one of their meetings, but it is totally wrongheaded. So like Indiana and Ohio State, the people of Temple are up in arms.

I believe this isn't so much coordinated as synchonous...similar folk with similar condition make similar decisions. Probably mean well, and many of us believe American history is incomplete is it doesn't take Black American's history into account. But we also believe it needs our understanding to be complete.

The other thing, though, is that the important divide isn't authority vs expertise, but ownership. If the owner has an opinion, you'll find all the discussion is about ways to accept its decision. That decision will be made according to its sensibilities.

The libraries will be harder to address than CZ...pointing out that no one is absorbing the Schomberg might help. Might help with CZ too. But if it doesn't, guess what YOU gotta do?