Let me back up and say that most of the many uses to which I’ve seen it put–in our LIS program and in many articles–have been anything but critical.

Perhaps our faculty mean for us to read it critically, but I don’t think that most of our students have enough background knowledge of our field, the historical context, and many other pieces to do so. Doesn’t mean they can’t get there or that they don’t get there. Just that they may not have it at the time they read it.

And based on (admittedly anecdotal) what I know about people’s lack of reading (and heave forbid, re-reading) of our literature and the calls for dumping even more of the historical from our education I can only wonder when or how that critical reading will happen for most.

But you are right. “As We May Think” has value. I just don’t think it is it’s true value that is made use of (usually).

Thanks for making me think more about it.

That is to say, it should definitely be read, and it should be read critically.

Generally, no, I do not think reading Bush is worth my time. I also don’t think it is worth most any LIS student’s time.

In this case, it was because it helped me moderate the comments I was going to make. Unfortunately, I did not write down much of the context that the Bush reference was made in but re-reading it made me see that if one assumes what is generally assumed in the case of this “classic” article then the use was OK.

My problems with Bush lie in several areas:

First, one must be very generous in their reading to even begin to imagine that he foresaw (or anything else) the Internet/networks. One can argue that he was constrained by the technology of his time. Very true. But that does not give one license to extrapolate to the Internet because of it. If one is going to read that generously then why not go back to H. G. Wells, to Otlet, Briet and some of the early documentalists?

Bush was a “bad man” (in many ways). He was an intellectual (idea) thief who gave no credit for where he got his ideas. One could say that he was a good synthesizer. OK. But he still needed to credit his sources.

What about Emmanuel Goldberg? What about the many others he ripped off? I get really tired of our profession lionizing this guy. There are far better examples that could be used, although I realize that much of this knowledge is fairly recent. I can only hope that with time we will see less and less references to Bush. But then again once one has made it into the canon it is hard to remove them.

Although this case–based on common assumptions (that I’d like to see go away)–was an OK use, I am sworn to make fun of anyone making gratuitous Bush references (see article by Jeffrey Garrett):

http://marklindner.info/blog/2007/02/04/some-things-read-this-week-29-jan-3-feb-2007/

I was wondering if you could clarify this? Do you not think reading Bush is worth your time?

“Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic Monthly July 1945.

I know, I know. But if I’m going to critique someone for making Bush references I need to make sure exactly what I’m critiquing.”

Thanks!
-karen.

How did you generate the COinS? Did you use the COinS generator I linked to, a different one, or craft them by hand?

I see you did something different than I was trying so I’ll have to redo my (minimal) experiment. Even if it works, as I said it is NOT scalable. I am NOT going to input the data into Zotero (or another program) and the COinS generator. I want my citation manager to generate them for me, AND preferably to be able to put them into my post or webpage, etc. automatically via a right-click context menu or such.

Thanks for showing me that it is possible though.

Re COinS and Zotero integration, I couldn’t agree more. This is cool stuff (COinS and autodiscovery and all, I mean) but it is NOT user friendly yet.

Since you spoke with me about Zotero I have been using it a lot more and find that I like it. It has taken me a bit to get used to, though.

I just added a publications (miniscule amount) page to my blog and COinS-ized it, but with a lot of effort.