Libraries, Process, and Data

摘要

The metaphor of knowledge as a product is foundthroughout contemporary discourse. It can be argued thatsometimes product, and at other times process, will be agood, useful, or even the only way something can beviewed. But when one looks at process, one ignoresproduct and vice versa. This is a fundamental humanproblem, not an oversight, and as a metaphor echoesHeisenberg’s uncertainty principle that suggests we cannever know position and momentum simultaneously, butare limited to knowing one or the other. I illustrate brieflyhow a focus on product dominates discourse on core libraryissues including scholarly communication and libraryassessment. I then explore further the implications of thisfocus for the emerging practice and theory of data curation,despite widespread acknowledgement of both dataproduction and data curation as processes. I conclude byurging greater attention to the possibility and challenge ofreshaping practice in data curation around attention toprocess.