Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
A study of 2.0 web as an actualization of the concept of the Borgesian Library:
a critical evaluation of WEB 2.0 technology in reference to the academic Blog
Film Studies For Free authored by Dr. Catherine Grant
by,
Charalambos
Charalambous
University
of
Kent
School
of
Arts
Film
Studies
2010
Produced
for
the
needs
of
the
Postgraduate
Certificate
in
Higher
Education
Unit
for
the
Enhancement
of
Learning
and
Teaching
1
Abstract:
This essay will be considering 2.0 web as an actualization of the conceptual Borgesian
Library, which is described in the fictional literary work of Jorge Luis Borges. This analogy is
used by Dr. Catherine Grant in the brief description of her role as tentative curator of the
academic Blog Film Studies For Free, and provided the start point for a critical comment on
Web 2.0 technology. In the course of this investigation I will consider the evolution from the
concept of 1.0 to 2.0 web, and trace this progression in the move from the personal web log
to Blog, in order to conclude by referring to the full capabilities of utilizing a Blog that fully
integrates Web 2.0 technologies for the purposes of academic learning and teaching.
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When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression
was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an
intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose
eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the
universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope…
(Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of B abel)
The evolution from 1.0 to 2.0:
The World Wide Web left childhood to enter adolescence. In the primary stages of its
development it was the privilege of closed communities and it was characterized by the
browsing application centred way of thinking, but currently we witness the evolution that is
turning the web into a chaotically expanded platform which is a-‐centred but nevertheless
maintains the personal user in its core. This fundamental change in the way we perceive
and use the web was celebrated in the current issue of the online journal Fibre Culture
which was fully devoted to the concept of Web 2.0 in an attempt to elucidate the full
implications and possibilities of this technology. But it may be wrong to think of Web 2.0 as
a technological concept, because as it is proposed in the editorial article of Fibre Culture
‘Web 2.0 is not an “is”, or not only this. Web 2.0 is also a verb or, as they taught us in
primary school, it’s a doing word. Here’s a list of some web 2.0 things to do: apping,
blogging, mapping, mashing, geocaching, tagging, searching, shopping, sharing, socialising
and wikkiing. And the list goes on. Yet as the list goes on it becomes apparent that part of
what web 2.0 does, while doing all the things on this list and more, is colonise everything in
the network. It seems that there is no part of networked thought, activity or life that is not
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now web 2.0’ (Munster & Murphie 2009). This evolution that marks the progression from
1.0 to 2.0 is a passing from passivity to activity, a shift which transforms users from
recipients to creators of content, and if this resembles a revolution, it is expectedly
appropriate of what we have termed adolescent phase of the web. The shift from 1.0 to 2.0
does not only refer to the web technology itself, but it is indication of a change in the
attitude of personal users, communities and institutions regarding its use, which is affecting
the modes of participation, exchange of information and design of applications among
others. Since Web 2.0 is so difficult to define because of its elemental agility, it may be
fruitful to consider its characteristics: ‘a list of typical Qualities 2.0 might look something like
this: dynamic, participatory, engaged, interoperable, user-‐centred, open, collectively
intelligent and so on’ (Munster & Murphie, 2009). These features allow us to think Web 2.0
as an actualization of the concept of Borgesian Library, a chaotic archive with interlinked
material that becomes an organism which is characterized by its capacity for unlimited
information, at the expense of a constantly lurking possibility of cacophony. In an attempt
to eliminate the non-‐productive effect of a library of Babel and maximize the utilitarian
aspect of Web 2.0, it is worth investigating the possibilities of using it as a meta-‐learning
tool in Higher Education, because its very nature would not only allow the creation of a
dense network of sources related to a field of study, but it would simultaneously enable the
connection between diverse fields while preserving their methods and paradigms.
Web 2.0 and the Blog:
This call for action heralded by the 2.0 way of thinking led academic Dr. Catherine Grant to
the creation of the Film Studies For Free Blog when she no longer had to work as a tenured
academic. The Blog is described as an attempt to realize a Borgesian Library by making full
use of the dynamic potential of Web 2.0 technologies, in order to provide a curated
databank out of the nebula of electronic material available in the World Wide Web that are
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Figure 1: Film Studies for Free Word Cloud
closely, or loosely, related to the field of Film Studies. This new role allowed for a new
participation by submitting her educational activity to the public sphere through the
utilization of Web 2.0, in a way that would not be possible by conventional modes of
academic scholarship. The interface that was adopted for this endeavour was the Blog,
‘essentially online journals where an author (or authors) publishes a series of chronological,
updateable entries or posts on various topics, typically of personal interest to the author(s)
and often expressed in a strongly subjective voice, on which readers are invited to
comment’ (Farmer et al, 2008). Although these primal characteristics of a Blog, namely the
strongly personal and subjective authorial signature, seemed to be a recipe for success in
the case of the journalistic Blog, it did not suit the academic practice. The concept of what a
Blog is and how it works also needs to evolve into its 2.0 incarnation. Luckily this early
description does not apply to the case of Film Studies For Free, which instead avoids an
obvious authorial choice or architecture of its content, to invite broad cultural participation.
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As William and Jacobs point out ‘the great beauty of Blogs is their versatility. They cater for
a wide diversity of interests and uses and there is no rule that states a Blog has to be owned
and operated by an individual’ (2004), but what seems to be the extraordinary case here is
the ability of a single author to make available such a diverse range of material, that gives to
the Blog a dynamic that only multi-‐authored web pages can claim. The editorial background
of Dr. Grant has allowed for a transmutation of the concept of Blog from personal log, to a
learning space where personal expression is voluntarily exchanged for personal
responsibility, and where the editorial role, is not exercised by, but rather becomes the
intellectual exercise of, the tentative curator.
Overcoming the Blog design:
Not every function of Film Studies For Free is ideal, since the Blog’s design as a 2.0
technology that substituted the personal log, is primarily flawed as community hub;
effectively Blogs ‘are a product of convenience rather than design. Based on the reverse
chronological posting of news items, invariably containing hyperlinks to third party sites,
and an opportunity for readers to enter personal responses to articles’ (Williams & Jacobs
2004), they seemingly resist the formation of communities. On the other hand, the concept
of 2.0 web is ideally suited for the creation of communities because of its networking
participatory mode, or to use the terminology used by O’Reilly, the design of Web 2.0
technologies leads to the architecture of spaces between users. Especially in the case of the
Blog the main technology that enables this architecture, is the simplistic but effectively
almighty hyperlink, namely the process of linking content to a variety of multimedia
content: ‘the fundamental architecture of hyperlinking ensures that the value of the web is
created by its users. […] This architectural insight may actually be more central to the
success of open source than the more frequently cited appeal to volunteerism. […] …users
pursuing their own " selfish" interests build collective value as an automatic by-‐product. In Figure 2: Overcoming authorial design
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other words, these technologies demonstrate some of the same network effect as eBay and
Napster, simply through the way that they have been designed’ (O’Reilly, 2004). The Film
Studies For Free Blog fully embraces the proposition that the users do not actively pursue
the creation of a community, but it is the very design of 2.0 technologies that leads to an
involuntary architecture of information, spaces and communities. This fact is acknowledged
both by the proactively hyperlinked content and the full integration of numerous Web 2.0
technologies, Social Network Sites (Facebook, mySpace), Podcasting, Twitter, Google Books,
iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr to name but a few. This gives the impression that users of
the Blog partake in a social experience rather than a learning experience, allowing a
subversive learning process to take place that permanently inscribes knowledge, since ‘in a
linked or networked approach to learning the sense of agency and individuality is powerful
but it is not isolating or egocentric. Each node in a dynamic network has the ability to both
send and receive, therefore this metaphor better accounts for both the given (or
contextual) and the constructed aspects of the learning process’ (O’Donnel, 2006). The
subtle editorial direction and intervention in Film Studies For Free never displaces the user
from the core of the Blog space, so it is the personal user who comments upon, affirms or
rejects and offers critical thoughts in relation to the content, in a process that can be closely
related to modes of teaching and learning. The extent to which this brief commentary can
lead to the formation of a community is unclear due to the restrictions in the design of the
Blog technology, but the social nature of other Web 2.0 integrated technologies can provide
for an alternative. Grant pointedly comments: ‘the blog doesn’t function anywhere near as
well as a “community hub” (…). The Twitter feed has quite a lot of interaction – lots of re-‐
tweets and replies. But I think the Facebook page I have recently set up for Film Studies For
Free may work best of all in that regard’ (2010). This integration of a full gamut of Web 2.0
technologies offers to Film Studies For Free a clear advantage in the creation and
Figure 3: Integration of other Web 2.0
sustainability of a community of followers. technologies and community creation
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Changing institutional knowledge, a reformation that is taking too long:
This new role of Web 2.0 calls for a redesign of the network of associations that will insure a
‘depth’ of knowledge (a term that refers to the value, understanding, evaluation and long-‐
term inscription of transmittable knowledge in a learning environment) and urges for a
revaluation of the provided material (both written content and in the case of other fields of
scholarship, audio visual or other content). Hence we rethink the way we evaluate learning
and teaching, as well as, spaces in which transmission of knowledge takes place. O’Donnel
states that ‘the media and the academy as institutions are still asking the wrong questions
about this phenomenon. The standard questions are most often posed in terms of
productivity: how can this technology enable us to do what we already do but more
efficiently?’ (2006), what we need to ask instead is: how does Web 2.0 revolutionize the
ways we learn and teach? Film Studies for Free adopts such an innovative approach by
incisively embracing 2.0 mentality; its manifestational declaration to provide exclusively
open source content is a proclamation which exemplifies that the Blog is a genuine
incarnation of 2.0 ideology. Such decision would seem to be the physical consequence of an
overall change in attitude concerning open access material by both institutions and
individuals, since the advantages of such a prospect are numerous and obvious: wider and
more democratic access to knowledge, promotion of immediate and open discourse,
formation of communities, networking of information and construction of learning spaces.
But as Grant admits, ‘I am encouraged to see new Open Access journals being set up, and
non-‐Open Access journals increasingly opening up some access to their material as samples
to attract new readers. But progress seems to me to be slow when it comes to the idea of
Open Access journals as the first choice for publication of scholars’ work. Tenure and other
employment pressures still seem to mitigate against that’ (2010). The regime of knowledge
proves unexpectedly lethargic and inflexible, and institutional organization is not only
incapable of agile adaptation to acknowledge the new realities related to learning and
teaching in the era of 2.0 web, but alas, one that resists such innovative reformation. Figure 4: Manifesto and Open Source
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Web as an alternative medium for knowledge:
Although academics, some more actively than others, have embraced the concept of the
Blog, ‘to leverage its full educational potential, blogging must be understood not just as
isolated phenomena, but as part of a broad palette of cybercultural practices which provide
us with new ways of doing and thinking’ (O’Donnel, 2006). It is crucial that Web 2.0
technologies are evaluated in the light of the broader concept of 2.0 web – thinking,
technology, network and applications – taking into account not only their current use, but
also anticipating new developments and creating strategies of future integration, so that
they can truly become an innate part of teaching and learning within institutional practices.
Web 2.0 exceeds the description of a mere tool or a technology that can be utilized to assist
teaching and learning, and as Evens proposes it would be more constructive to think of the
Web 2.0 as a new digital medium (2009), therefore, as with any other medium, we have to
understand it and use it, in a way that is specific to its nature. As long as the Blog remains a
personal log it does not take full advantage of its capacity to promote teaching and learning,
instead it re-‐affirms the limitations of its initial conception and design. But when a
technology is used in a way that challenges these limitations and anticipates its future
capabilities, not only does it become a more sufficient learning and teaching tool, but it is at
the same re-‐thought and developed to meet the newly created requirements and needs.
Such changes that innovative use of Blog technology is causing in relation to institutional
knowledge, are suggested by William and Jacobs: ‘as a knowledge management tool, Blogs
provide the potential for relatively undifferentiated articles of information passing through
an organisation to be contextualised in a manner that adds value, thus generating
“knowledge” from mere “information”’ (2004), and Ledyshewsky and Gardner who in
support of the previous thesis draw attention to the way ‘blogging provides a discourse that
reaches beyond the scope of a university subject and reinforces the fact that students can
learn from each other as well as from more formal university resources’ (2008). This
organization of information that generates knowledge in a virtual depository outside the Figure 5: Web 2.0 as a new medium
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institutional and academic realm, leads to the creation of web-‐archives and databanks that
provide alternative sources to the traditional archive and library. Furthermore, such digital
archives and databanks have the advantage of vast capacities of hosting multimedia
content, as well as written content, by making use of a network of other virtual spaces,
which allow users to have unmediated and non-‐restricted access. Easily available audio
visual content is specifically advantageous for fields of study like Film Studies, and with the
integration of technologies like YouTube, Vimeo, Google Videos and numerous other video
on demand sites, it is not hard to understand how digital multimedia archives can efficiently
substitute the extremely costly traditional audio visual archive for most of the requirements
of a Film studies department. As a result ‘Film Studies For Free has many thousands of
readers from all over the world, and many of them access the site from locations where
high quality academic writing on film is too expensive for university libraries or individuals.
So the principle advantage of Film Studies For Free (as an open access campaigning archive)
is the instant and free global access to (curated -‐ organised) knowledge that it provides’
(Grant, 2010). Comprised solely by open access content, the Blog promotes a dual activism
in relation to current 2.0 web, because the serious study of open access articles advocates
for the quality of such material and campaigns for its use in teaching and learning, while
simultaneously this policy stipulates the improvement of newly created open source
material and presses on the opening up of access to pre-‐existing sources. Grant predicts
that ‘we are going to have a “mixed economy” for the foreseeable future (…). But Open
Access/electronic material will undoubtedly comprise an increasing part of scholarship and
pedagogical support’ (2010).
A twofold conclusion:
Instead of venturing into a hypothesis in the attempt to describe the paradigm of the
academic Blog Film Studies For Free as a successful one, we should simply confirm that it
meets the demanding criteria that O’Donnel puts forward to describe blogging practice that Figure 6: An academic databank
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he terms serious: ‘If taken seriously blogging practice can help us develop a range of new
ways to address our literacy as learners and educators and it can help initiate students into
an understanding of learning as an ongoing, dynamic conversation with self and others’
(2006). This advantageous mode of learning which is observable as an interactive exchange
that leads to educational benefits for both the user and author is indeed affirmed by Grant:
‘There are advantages in using these new communicative technologies, so if better or more
varied communication can innovate teaching and learning, then the use of them will do this.
I receive as much as, if not more than I give on both Twitter and Facebook; they are great as
With her individual
‘seriousness’ (a word that acts as vehicle for the concepts of moral liability, attentiveness,
creativity and scholar care), academic Dr. Catherine Grant managed to create a truly
remarkable open access based web-‐archive, guised as a lighthearted Blog. The fact that a
creative effort by a single academic, can successfully extent to this scale of utilization as a
teaching and learning tool, is a clear indication that institutions have to consider more
thoughtfully the implications of integrating 2.0 web to their current practices of teaching
and learning, but also in relation to the creation, transmission, evaluation, inscription,
archiving and networking of knowledge. Unfortunately academic institutions are hesitant to
proceed to such fundamental re-‐thinking of teaching and learning practices, that would
enable integration of numerous existing 2.0 web successful projects to their current
programmes even though examples like the Blog Film Studies For Free act as paradigms for
the ‘the iterative, collaborative and open-‐ended creation and extension of information and
knowledge as enabled by Web 2.0’ (Ang & Pothen, 2009).
A collective responsibility:
This change of attitude in relation to the integration and use of Web 2.0 in the academic
environment is not the sole responsibility of the institution but academics can lead the way
by re-‐thinking teaching and learning of the modules they design and convene. Allen has long Figure 7: Integrating Web 2.0 in Academia
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suggested that, ‘the really important step forward that universities can take is to begin
fostering communities that are less specifically connected to units and are, instead, about
issues, subjects, disciplines or professions and which are distinct from those already forming
in the virtual world of the Internet by being associated with overall courses offered by that
university. Student membership of these communities should become integral to their
course completion; where necessary, whole components of the course should become
(instead of 'study') knowledge-‐based community participation’ (1999, in: Williams & Jacobs,
(2004)). That is the reason why individual academics should design and propose modules
that are based solely on electronic Open Source material, both in terms of written content
and other multimedia sources. Such modules present additional advantages: they can be
designed as interdisciplinary modules and hence be offered to students of Film, Drama,
Architecture, Media and Communication, History of Art and Visual Anthropology. They can
also be extended over the course of two or more academic terms, to allow for a new mode
of teaching and assessment, that is adjusted to become discipline specific by using the
flexibility of Web 2.0 technologies. Most importantly the participation mode, assignments
and evaluation will be community based, in an attempt to challenge the classroom centred
mode that seems to be unsuitable especially for practice based disciplines. Such a module
will be extremely valuable for Higher Education teaching and learning in countries where
newly developed Universities offer such study programmes but provide under-‐equipped
libraries. Such a proposal will allow for an informed engagement with current academic
discourses, while overcoming the shortcoming of undeveloped resources by the small scale
institutions. For those still in doubt about the existence and usefulness of Borgesian
libraries, let them take Grant’s word that ‘this kind of anthologizing, virtual librarianship or
digital curation is completely made possible by Web 2.0 technology’ (2010).
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ALL IMAGES ARE SCREEN PRINTS FROM FILM STUDIES
FOR FREE BLOG OR DIRECTLY RELATED TO INTEGRATION
OF WEB 2 .0 TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE NEEDS OF THE BLOG
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