I made a presentation and had a great discussion with the Information Futures group, an association of library and information scientists. The main points of my presentation:
- From my experience in running a legal aid website for the general public, education is different than just putting information out there.
- A course textbook is a curated selection, not an open database.
- Education is knowledge that is highly mediated by culture, as is teaching itself.
- Detour: Consider whether computers allow us a quantum leap from information to systems; that is, games illustrate how you can “publish” systems
- eLangdell goes beyond e-books into networked knowledge — which is really more about creating a culture of knowledge.
- (I went on to describe eLangdell as I’ve usually done in the past.)
- What happens to publishers?
- The role of editors (= community managers?)
- Distribution (= user interface?)
- Marketing
- Validation
- Aren’t these publisher functions what librarians do? Are they something that librarians can and should be doing in a new world of global commons publishing?
While I’ve been speaking of “communities of practice” often with reference to eLangdell, my recent thinking about postmodernism and knowledge has thoroughly permeated my current description of eLangdell. Understanding knowledge through the lens of culture is a thoroughly postmodern concept. I think it’s also a cornerstone of eLangdell’s multiple-paths view of the future of legal education.
