And is anyone reading (or finished reading) Rainbow’s End by Vernor Vinge?

CW the Librarian

Wally, given the falling attendance rates at ’sage on the stage’ lectures at my university, I think most lecturers would just be so grateful they were there that if they were twittering about the lecture they wouldn’t mind. (just, maybe not the lecturer’s bad hair). But seriously, as I said, the ethics and norms for best practice for this kind of stuff are still being worked out, through practice, and through discussions like this one.

And yes, absolutely, if I’m presented with a complex, well-formed argument based on quality research, I’m going to sit and listen as attentively as I can. And I very often do just that. But also, sometimes, with the aid of a notebook - and as I also said, most of what the twittering people were doing was effectively a form of social notetaking. Do we want to admonish people for taking notes with pen and paper?

Still, the ginormous point about all this (and it’s been touched on by a number of blogging attendees) is a sort of disconnect between modes of engagement. Perhaps the default humanities conference presentation model (take turns holding forth for 20 minutes, then talk for another 20 or so) is becoming increasingly untenable and even undesirable. I’ve now given enough of them in my career (21. Twenty-friggin-one!) that I have hard time telling them apart. And we all know how hard it is to drag ourselves to any more panels on the last day of every conference we’ve ever attended.

The Flow conference last fall in Austin was an attempt to disrupt this mode, with mixed results (only once, from my observations, did all of the panellists hold to the “two-minute schpiel” rule suggested by the conference organizers). I’m not entirely sold that the answer is that everyone multitask on their laptops, but since this really is a transitional time, I’m up for trying anything.

I think you’re right Jean, that this sort of recording does amplify the intent of academic conferences but it still seems to be a transitional activity. I remember a comment on a live blog of one of the sessions (oh hey, Captain Apocryphl has just joined us) that the number of open laptops in the audience came as a surprise. All the more reason i think Jason’s suggestion for some site where these things can be both centralized and disseminated is a good idea.

Oh and yes, more librarians please. And more archivists.

On the other, such behaviour represents a material critique of what is not so great - the parallel sessions, the non-interactivity, and the dominance of particular top-down modes of engagement.

…such behaviour also indicates an unwillingness to do the relatively simple work of paying attention to presentations of months or years of research. All I know is, there were several speakers at MiT5 who were, when they spoke, easily the most interesting thing in the room. Encouraging background chatter often sounds better than it is - or do you encourage Twittering and note-passing in the classroom?

and btw, I should admit that at the same time I am more and more engaging in strategies like shutting the lid of my laptop, or even leaving it at home when I really need to concentrate on something that requires deep engagement (like reading articles properly, or making an extended argument in writing) - and it’s interesting that it takes that much effort.