Doctoral students faced with seemingly infinite reading
assignments often ask me how for advice on how to keep up with the reading
demands. They ask how much of the assigned reading do they actually have to
read. Well, all of it, I tell them. There is a mild panicked response, a deep
sigh, a hand rubbed through their hair as if they are about to clear a large
swath of jungle. Which they are, in a way. If the literature is the jungle then
their skills at reading and comprehension and time management are the little
machete they need to swing to make a path. There is no magic answer, I tell
them. There is no magic formula to use, no magic solution. One simply needs to
start reading.
My core doctoral course is the first one most students take
and it is an interdisciplinary program so we have students coming from outside
of information science who have never read any IS literature. How does one
approach a the mountain of literature that all fields create? The syllabi we
create provide modest direction by creating categories of readings –introductory
articles or chapters, readings on theories and models used, sections on
research methodologies, core concentrations, thought pieces, etc. It is a tree
to be climbed, a mountain to be conquered, a river to be forded. But, again,
there are no secret strategies to surmount the obstacles. One simply needs to
start reading.
Each ‘work’ that is read paints part of a picture. That
picture is individual and unique to the person doing the reading—it adds to
their knowledge and understanding of the many topics they have to cover. I have
been painting this particular LIS picture for over 20 years, longer even, and it
is broad and has depth but some areas need further definition. It constantly
changes, too, like a Pollock painting that keeps morphing in and out of focus.
New information replaces old information, but even then that older information
is still valuable. Areas that were once shallow deepen and areas that were once
very ‘rich’ can shallow based on new developments and changes to old practices
(i.e., my understand works in proportion to the whole of literature written
about it). I work and study primarily in
information organization, specifically cataloging and classification in
libraries, and the rapid changes in our practices and standards over the last
10 years or so has left me breathlessly trying to keep up with all the
literature and new ideas. I want also to reestablish my interests in scholarly
and scientific communication, bibliometrics, etc., which means I have to emerge
myself back into the literature that has grown since I first studied it years
ago.
I’ve also reestablished my roots in theory development
overall and in library and information science in particular---meaning I had to
investigate how I learned originally from Elfreda Chatman back in 1998. In
doing so I finally understood a bigger picture—that she was drawing primarily
from sociological theory, which I didn’t understand as a young doctoral
student. Sometimes we don’t really understand what we are reading the first or
second time around, sometimes it takes years because in that time we had to
build up our knowledge base. My father used to tell me---rarely do we truly
understand the ‘meat’ of what we are reading. It takes time. Its take
contemplation.
There are all sorts of tools and techniques for reading---go
to any section of a bookstore on reading and you can find hundreds of works
relating theories and best practices. In the end, though, I think it is just
sitting down and reading that really works. Take notes, or not. Read, re-read,
sit, think, write out some thoughts or make a map, build outlines, draw bridges
over intellectual landscapes….whatever works.
