On the last morning of my last day at the ACRL Conference I tweeted out a quick observation:
I got a couple of retweets and even started up a Twitter conversation with @nancyeadams, who shared a preprint of an article she’s written that discusses authority (among other topics), which I’m looking forward to reading this summer. But then it was time to head home.
I’ve never done any textmining before, so I tried to dip my toe in the pool by using Storify to pull together tweets that included the word “authority” and the hashtag #acrl2013. But I was tired after the conference and somewhat impatient. I couldn’t get Storify to simultaneously display tweets with the other hashtag (#acrl13) I saw being used occasionally, so I gave up pretty quickly; it also seemed like Storify wasn’t pulling in every single tweet from Twitter. I tried using Zach Coble’s fascinating ACRL Conference social media archive, but I couldn’t manipulate the tweet text all at once. I was also worried that as the conference receded into the past, tweets would become more difficult to find. So I went for the bash-it-with-a-rock strategy: I did a search in Twitter for each of the two hashtags, then I cut and pasted all of the tweets into a text file.
And there the text file sat until Memorial Day weekend, when the semester had ended and I finally had a chance to get back to it. I should stress that this is (still) a fairly basic analysis — I’ve gone through the text of tweets from the beginning of the conference to the end to find all instances of the word “authority” to see whether anything particularly interesting stood out. I’m certain that there are better tools to use for this task, but I’m (still) impatient so I’m plowing ahead with my rocks. (If you’ve used any tools that seem like they’d be useful in this context, please let me know in the comments!)
So, what did I find? I pulled 8,393 tweets (including retweets) with the hashtags #acrl2013 and #acrl13 dating from April 3 through April 16 at around 10:30pm. There were 60 occurrences of the word “authority” in the tweets I pulled.
Some of the patterns are easy enough to see and explain. First thing Thursday morning was the panel session “Questioning Authority: Standard Three and the Critical Classroom” with Jenna Freedman, Emily Drabinski, and Lia Friedman. This session had its own hashtag — #qacrlauthority — which made the tweets even easier to spot (and which I really appreciated since the wicked weather made me miss the session). There were 41 occurrences of the word “authority” in the tweets and retweets from this session. Laura O’Brien created a Storify of the panel which looks to have captured the session well. As librarians we should examine the authority embedded in controlled vocabularies, sources, and other library systems we use, and consider the ways we can empower students as authorities.
Chronologically, the next mention of authority was a tweet from Alison Head’s invited paper on Project Information Literacy, a multi-year, multi-institution study of college students’ information seeking and use. They have a nifty infographic created from their data on how college students seek information.
I missed that presentation (and haven’t read the paper yet) so I can’t offer any extra context around this tweet. But it’s an interesting comparison to the tweets from the Questioning Authority session, especially this one:
And in comparison to Henry Rollins’ mention of authority in his keynote (there were 5 tweets that referred to the thematic links he drew between Thomas Jefferson and punk rock):
And in comparison to the three tweets from the Feminist Pedagogy panel session on Sunday morning, especially:
Taken together, all of these tweets seem to point to a tension between librarians (and libraries) and our patrons, especially students. We have authority in the information realm, authority conferred by education, by experience, by knowledge. Is there a down side to having that authority? Can looking for ways to enable students and patrons to seize some of that authority enhance their learning? And are there reasons not to share or transfer that authority?
A couple of tweets from the libraries and publishing discussion at THATCamp ACRL hinted at the relationship between authority and prestige, a relationship which seems to be growing increasingly fraught as scholarly communications continue to shift and change.
Finally, three tweets discussed the nature of authority in our own library workplaces. Two were from the session “Think Like A Startup: Creating a Culture of Innovation, Inspiration, and Entrepreneurialism,” including one from my fellow ACRLogger Laura Braunstein:
Another seems to have been from the session “Curb Your Enthusiasm? Essential Guidance for Newbie Academic Librarians,” and pairs well with Laura’s tweet above:
I’ve found it interesting to see the various points of the conference where the topic of authority was discussed and considered. I confess that I’m not a big fan of the word authority. When I teach students about evaluating information I always use the term expertise, and in writing this post it’s been easy to see why: in looking through these tweets I’m struck by the underlying theme of power. Thinking on this more drove me to seek out some definitions. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists this as the first definition of authority:
an individual cited or appealed to as an expert
and this as the second:
power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior
which for me comes uncomfortably close to authoritarian:
1. of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority
2. of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people
This as opposed to the more egalitarian nature of the term expertise, from expert:
having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience
As librarians we aim to increase access to information, to share it, and ultimately to promote expertise among our patrons and students. The words we use when we describe our roles and relationships — both within and outside of the library — matter. When we use the term authority, is it possible to get away from power? And do we want to? After all, power can be used for good as well as for ill. Do we lose anything by shifting our use to expertise instead of authority?