:: geogrow ::

As I start the summer push-the-project-forward time, I am not sure how useful this blog will be.  Right now I am organizing all of the citations and articles I have accumulated this year.  It is quite a juggling act and so that is consuming my time right now.

Still, I shouldn’t neglect this space.   I must find a use for it.

Summary of thesis proposal

Geographic literature that describes how Internet content is created and how it flows within and across national boundaries is virtually non-existent. This creation and flow is so much like that of capital and commodities that the topic should be of similarly great interest to geographers. Some geographic questions that may arise would therefore be:

• What makes certain areas rich with content, despite technologists’ rhetoric about an emerging spaceless society?
• How is Internet content produced differently in different locations?
• To what extent does internet content contribute to economic development?
• What are appropriate scales at which to measure the economics of internet content?

To help answer these questions, I am examining a project that is seeking to digitize cultural heritage information and to build an infrastructure for its use in China. This project, the National Digital Culture Network of China (NDCNC) is being built by provincial libraries in China, at the behest of the National Library and the Ministry of Culture. My main research question thus remains: does the ability of a region to successfully mobilize its cultural heritage information on the internet correlate directly to that region’s overall economic development.

Preliminary findings

During the summer of 2007 I had the opportunity to visit the capitols of several Chinese provinces and their libraries. I attempted to visit libraries from an economic cross-section of China, and succeeded. Moreover, the libraries also represented a geographic cross-section, from developed coastal regions to the relatively undeveloped west of the country. With the help of local translators, I was able to have extended conversations with librarians and library technologists who are directly involved with digitization projects, including the NDCNC. Each library was extremely welcoming, and made every effort to accommodate me.

Unfortunately, my own lack of language skills sometimes prevented me from getting my point across. On one occasion the word ‘satellite’ stymied everyone’s best efforts to translate for several minutes. This sort of situation arose repeatedly when the topic of discussion involved library-specific vocabulary.

Even with these difficulties, I was able to gather much more information about the NDCNC during these visits than I was able to discover on my own. Moreover, I was able to experience firsthand the urban landscapes of China—significantly different than all of the North American and European cities I have visited in the past.

Several points stand out from my visits:

• The language of development
  I was struck to hear individuals actually using the words ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ to describe their cities. Indeed, the Chinese frequently describe the general state of their economy and infrastructure as undeveloped. Even when I would add “but catching up fast,” many would shrug their shoulders as if to say “not fast enough.” As a visiting student, Beijingers frequently apologized for everything from the availability of air conditioning to restaurant cleanliness.
• NDCNC is about building infrastructure
  The NDCNC is not simply the National Library collecting local artifacts in a centralized database, but go far beyond creating digital surrogates for physical objects and real-world events. The provincial libraries have been charged with creating a two-way street of information creation and exchange. In addition to digitizing local cultural information, the libraries are designing ways to deliver a wide variety of information to rural areas for the benefit of local residents who have had access neither to computer technology nor to the types of information that might be found in an American rural setting. For example, informants described the distribution of agricultural and hygiene information that in the United States would be functions of a county extension service or state public health officials.The NDCNC also appears to be responsible for building an infrastructure to use this information as well. Public computing facilities are being built in public libraries or, in villages too small to have a public library, in the local “Culture Station.” Where public-access computer facilities exist, content servers and training are being added on top of existing services, creating what might be described as local intranets. In even smaller villages, the local elementary school would serve this function.

  This two-fold nature of the NDCNC project—content creation and public computing infrastructure development– was a surprise to me. On one hand, the rural-networkification aspect of the project is incredibly interesting and would be an incredibly rich research topic. On the other hand, attempting to evaluate regional variation in this aspect of the project would present a whole host of complications to my thesis and would most certainly delay its completion.

• Library organizations in China have direct analogs to American libraries
  Chinese libraries, just like their American counterparts, undertake technology projects using a variety of funding sources and labor streams. In provincial libraries I saw digital projects being created by reference librarians as side projects, by existing systems staff as collateral duties, and by temporary employees hired for specific grant-funded projects.Some librarians described a lack of project management and information architecture skills that hampered the development and distribution of digital content. This confirmed information presented by a Chinese expatriot interviewed in 2006, and is similar to problems in lower-tier American libraries described by librarians at Association of Research Libraries member institutions in a pilot study I conducted earlier in 2007.

  Additionally, multiple informants described some NDCNC efforts as simply following the directions of a central authority in Beijing, and were not able to describe any larger goals or benefits of the projects. This seems to match a common rhetoric that describes America’s remaining economic advantages as lying chiefly in its entrepreneurial and creative classes.

Next steps

Overall, my summer in China exceeded my expectations. My language skills advanced far more than anticipated; I conducted four lengthy visits to provincial libraries; and I returned with several offers of future collaboration and cooperation. As expected though, I did not gather enough information to begin writing.

I continue to have some very basic questions about NDCNC projects. Some of these might be answerable simply by reading their websites, but keep in mind that I am functionally illiterate. For example, I only was able to figure out what sorts of materials are being digitized in two of the four provinces I visited. One informant mentioned that one of the goals of the NDCNC is for every village in China to have a website by 2010. However, no one else mentioned that, and I have never read that anywhere.

To help clear up these issues, as well as continue to gather information, I am currently following up with contacts in China in an effort to:

• Gather statistical information about the project, such as:
• Funding sources and levels for each province
• Any quantitative goals that were set for each project. Examples might include: numbers of files digitized, amount of disk space used in the central repository, number of village computer labs created.
• Acquire the written instructions that were provided to each provincial library by the National Library.
• Obtain the cooperation of additional libraries and collaborators.

Finally, as I continue to evaluate the information gathered in the field, I find myself continuing to search for geographic literature that relates to my research. Ongoing coursework as well as independent library research are both parts of this effort.

Actually, I have been back longer than I was away.

Time has flown by, and little progress was made on the project during fall quarter.  My main preoccupation has been to attempt to keep my hard-won language skills from completely fading away.  This past week has seen a renewed attempt to simultaneously get work on the project done and practice my Chinese.  I feel that I am starting to get a little bit of momentum now.

If you are visiting from China, please stand by for a summary of my visits to provincial libraries.

You can’t say I didn’t try.  I dropped in on two provincial libraries this week.  Just dropping in is not the way to go.  While just seeing the facilities and a bit of their cities was very informative, I can’t say that it will provide me with a large amount of evidence.  However, the two libraries were so contrasting that I am almost hesitant to write about them.  One was crumbling, the other brand new.

Because my language skills are still embarassingly basic, I cannot really carry on a conversation in these places.  It takes a Chinese person with the patience of Job to understand me, and many adults are not up to the task.  I find that middle-schoolers are most likely to try to have a conversation with me.  They have a big enough (and fresh enough) English vocabulary to make a go of it. 

The staff at the two libraries did try.  One even sat me down, made me a cup of tea, and had me wait while they fetched their foreign language cataloger.  Still, I could not get across what I wanted to talk about other than to ask to have a look around.  That is a request easily granted.  Even the first library was able to understand that. 

There are questions I think I could have gotten across at both of them.  For example, I think that the first library just may be building a new building for itself.  If it hadn’t have been my very first one, I probably would have pressed the issue.  But, I’m afraid my bashfulness go the better of me in that instance. 

I think that the next steps for this trip is to concentrate on making the connections ahead of time and preparing a short text that explains what I am after.  Both of these seem like very plausible goals.

I am currently in Shijiazhuang, the capitol of Hebei province.  Being here reinforces the idea that all the bi-lingual signage in Beijing makes one lazy.  It is much more difficult to navigate here with my limited language skills.  It makes me realize that being at BeiDa is not really an immersion experience.

Shijiazhuang is described by the Lonely Planet guide as a ‘bustling and sprawling’ provincial capitol, and from what I have seen this is true.  Except that some of the new development is empty.  In the downtown core there are a number of commercial buildings that look brand new but abandoned.  And still, there are construction cranes everywhere.

My purpose in coming here was to see if I could just drop in at a provincial library and find someone to talk to.  Apparently I can’t do that here.  The staff was small, no one spoke English, and my broken Chinese was only good enough to let me look around a bit.  There must have been a bigger back-office space that I didn’t wander in to, because the two reading rooms do not reflect the library’s description online.  If the three people working in the ‘non-book’ section developed the library’s web presence, I am very impressed.  Additionally, the corridor that had the ‘vice-chief’ and ‘chief’ offices was fairly abandoned, and I don’t think that’s just because it was lunch time.  I’m betting the administrative offices have been removed to some other location.  There is also a very conspicuous construction site right behind the building.  So I think that Hebei is about to get a shiny new library.  Although I would have thought that the reference librarians would have gone to the window and pointed at it a bit.

The gap between rich and poor is even more abrupt here.  New office buildings are right next to old alley dwellings.  The small shops appear even less organized than their Beijing counterparts.  I would also guess that the overall level of Internet development is lower, because the net cafe is much more visible that it has been in the parts of Beijing that I have visited. I have seen no less than 5 in the 24 hours that I have been here, and I haven’t been to that many parts of the city.  I can only point to 2 in Beijing, and I’ve been there for almost 4 weeks.  Additionally, I was not able to find anyplace here with wi-fi, but in Beijing I know of 4 places with free access (granted, that’s including the Starbucks).

I’m very happy that I stopped by the office of Wang Bo last week.  He has posted a lengthy account of our meeting.

In his post, he laments his poor spoken English, although he is very gentle in describing my language ability.  He asks for his reader’s help with my project and even talks at length about my Chinese name.  My name, apparently, has sparked a little bit of debate in the comment section of Wang’s blog.

I will be visiting two libraries rather unannounced next week.  It’s a trial run to see if just walking in is even a possibility after I complete my language training in 5 more weeks.  If it’s a complete flop, I suppose I can just limit myself to where I have contacts and make it a bit more of a tourist trip.

Many thanks to Wang Bo for soliciting his colleague’s assistance!

I have written quite a bit about my initial impressions of Beijing over at my personal blog. I think it’s time to write a bit more formally about that.

I keep getting the impression that Beijing is somewhat like the Chicago of the 1970’s, except that instead of being a city on the decline (perhaps even hitting rock bottom before the vast period of urban renewal that continues today), Beijing is a city on the rise. Physically, they compare well. Both have a strong grid pattern and a CBD. Chicago’s lake shore gives it a hard edge, whereas Beijing grows in all directions. Still, I think the comparison is valid.
Near where I am staying is an international district known as 五道口. I have been told that it was a strongly Korean neighborhood in the 1950s, and continues to be an international neighborhood, being at the crossroads of three large universities and being a hub of foreign student life. Korean, Japanese, and Anglo travelers mix each night in a a dozen clubs and thirty or fourty restaurants. Many are internationally themed (a French bakery, American coffee shop, and English pub), but there is a strong Korean presence in the restaurants.

At night large numbers of street vendors open up shop, selling puppies, books, clothes, jewelry, and knickknacks of all sorts. Food carts are present as well. The market combined with the night life make it seem some sort of bastard child of Maxwell and Rush Streets of the 70s. (Or perhaps North Clark of today?)
There is an edge to it all. My first night here I came across a Korean guy bleeding from a split lip, his head being cradled on a friend’s lap. 5 policemen stood by, not doing much. I’m not sure if he walked into a street sign or was in a fight, but no one seemed too concerned. Perhaps the traffic makes people immune to sights of random injury, but it seems more like people are simply used to spectacle: of drunken students, loutish expats, aggressive vendors.
I wish I knew the geography literature a bit better so that I could say whether or not geographers are talking about this sort of scene more. Has it been done already? It’s definitely a qualitative project in the making.

In addition to Chicago, I also can’t get the image of Blade Runner and William Gibson out of my head. Now I understand a lot more about what is going on in cyberpunk novels. I wonder if those novels would appear in GeoBase? That’s definitely on the to do list.

Dates in Beijing: June 23 until August 19.

I hope to arrive in Nanjing on Saturday, September 8. The other cities I mentioned previously (has it really been a month?) will be squeezed in in-between. (Although I might be able to squeeze Taiyuan into a long weekend in July).

Time is drawing very near. I was hoping to savor Yi-Fu Tuan’s new book Coming Home to China on the plane and while in Beijing, but it’s a small book, and I might devour it before I leave because I lack self-control. Besides, why would I take up space in my luggage with a small book.

Little progress on the scale reading. Sorry about that, some things came up. But what I do have to offer is an ideal itinerary for my travels in August-September. I know I won’t be able to get to all of these cities, but a boy can dream:

• Shijiazhuang
  Hebei
• Taiyuan
  Capitol of Shanxhi
• Xian
  Capitol of Shaanxi
• Lanzhou
  Capital of Gansu
• Xining
  Capital of Qinghai
• Zhengzhou
  Capitol of Henan
• Hefei
  Capitol of Anhui
• Nanjing
  Capitol of Jiangsu

These would provide a great cross-section of  economic and IT development.  I’m double checking the presence of provincial libraries in these cities right now.  If anyone has connections to any of these places, please let me know.

I will try to make the list bilingual soon.

It’s great that Bruno Latour has come up in the scale debates so early in my reading. I haven’t had a good reason to think about him since I stopped being a science librarian. Even then, it was pretty casual thought.

The last time I did any serious thinking about him, I produced a piece that encouraged librarians to use the analogies of Actor-Network Theory
to get some work done. In the first week of the scale seminar, he was brought up in passing, and I was looking forward to see how his work has been used in geography. This week, a review article seems to completely miss ANT’s point.

The article says that discussions of networks “simplify/homogenize the role of geography as a form of knowledge/practice and as an institution.” Well, that’s what ANT was formed to do from the ground up: to take all factors in a given situation and to treat each of them as equal, individual actors in a network. The idea that an academic discipline should be privileged over a printed map or a feature of the landscape is anathema to the ontology that Latour has designed. To say (as Paasi does) that “Geography, boundaries and scales are not ‘intuitive fictions’ and their rejection/acceptance can hardly be a matter of the choice of a specific ontology” rejects using any of ANT.

For sure, there are other network theories that can be used instead. Graph theory has a host of methods that can be applied to geography (network mapping of any sort: whether commodity flows or transport networks) without directed graphs. Social networks are similar (and I assume don’t pre-date mathematical graph theory, so I imagine social science borrowed them from math across the board).

Privileging geography, boundaries, and scales as ‘inherently real’ is specifically what Latour and ANT reject. While Latour may do so playfully, he is serious when he builds a knowledge system that attempts to NOT privelege any player over any other. For Latour (and Science Studies, the discipline for which ANT was built) all knowledge is created, and none exists outside of a system. Therefore, geography, boundaries, and scales are all just nodes of a network to be analyzed: not meta-concepts that must be taken for granted as essential to the system. To say otherwise is really being an unreconstructed positivist (which I say only as one who has been accused of the same).

So yes, Latour argues that Pasteur ‘invented’ brewers yeast and bacteria. He also turns that language around and argues that it is just as valid to say that microbes discovered Pasteur. He’s playing with language folks: let’s not take this stuff too literally, but let’s try and understand the message. Pasteur, brewers yeast, and the French Academy are equal actors in the network. All affect the others.

I think, in the end, ‘network geographies’ are something quite different from Latour’s networks. Perhaps the terminology is too confusing. Latour’s networks are subsets of network and graph theory. When I talk about ICTs and networks, I’m going to try to be very careful to distinguish between computer networks and actor networks. I might have to invent a new word. Or maybe someone already has. Actually: using the ICT acronym goes a long way toward eliminating the use of internet and the hyper-generic ‘network.’ Maybe that’s why ICT got invented in the first place.

And for what it’s worth: geographers have been known to get basic facts about Latour wrong. For example: in the ‘Dictionary of Human Geography’ Latour is identified as an engineer, although his training is in philosophy and anthropology. He is emplyed as a sociologist. One of the first groups that he studied, however, was engineers. And, if I remember correctly, one of his earliest books is a Socratic dialog in which one of the speakers is a young engineer. I can understand the confusion, but a sloppy dictionary entry?