#scio12 Pt2: Elephant in the Room: Infrastructure and the Digital Divide

SCIO12 spelled out in multicolored Legos on top of a round black table.
SCIO12 Legos

A recurring theme in the sessions I attended at #scio12, and some after hours discussions, was technological infrastructure, and the need to remember that there is a huge digital divide between the haves and the have nots. It’s a problem you expect in developing nations (who we should be communicating with too, not ignoring), but you don’t expect that sort of problem in a country like the United States.

Sadly technological inequality is a huge problem in the United States. In Philadelphia, one of our major metropolitan areas, 40% of the households do not have internet access, in some neighborhoods only about 10% of households have Internet access. That’s at least 230,000 households in without access to the Internet in one city.

As we create activities and resources we need to remember that not all of our students have cell phones, not all students or researchers have Internet access depending on where they are in the US and the world.

A hot button for me is when people assume that all students have laptops and smartphones.? Just because some or even most students have something doesn’t mean that they all do, next time you want to assume something about technology that students have before asking, just don’t. Better yet provide the technology and access if it’s required for a course and not provided more broadly by your educational institution.

The other problem is Infrastructure, while modern cities have tons of infrastructure compared to rural areas in reality our infrastructure is substandard. Don’t believe me? Check out the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure and be prepared to be scared silly by how badly maintained our vital infrastructure has been maintained. Look at those grades, almost all D’s with a few C’s, the nation’s overall grade was a D, let’s think about that, just a little higher than an F for failed infrastructure. (In the 11 years since this blogpost was published the nation’s overall grade has “improved” to a C-). If we can’t even prioritize our water, energy and road safety and maintain them it’s no wonder that we are failing so many people in creating and maintaining our cyberinfrastructure.? The biggest barriers I am seeing to science communication, education, and innovation are a lack of infrastructure and technological inequality.

If you don’t have internet access and electricity it doesn’t matter if someone gives you a computer.

If you don’t have internet access it can be difficult, if not impossible, to apply for a job, to college, for government benefits, file your taxes for free.

Without the tech support, programers, and cutting edge computers many researchers will be limited to what they can do with what they have instead of innovating the future.

Without the ability to easily download, compare, and analyze multiple compounds from the large government databases our ability to find new relationships between these compounds is limited.

I can’t help wondering if our tendency to ignore of basic infrastructure needs is part of why we tend to treat cyberinfrastructure as something we can do later, when things get better, when we have more money, etc.

Disclaimer: I’m biased towards Japan being born there and part Japanese.

I was really impressed by this story about how quickly they repaired a road that was completely destroyed by the tsunami and earthquakes that struck Japan last year. They repaired the road in six days. Road repairs in Lincoln go pretty quickly, especially compared to California but I have to say, I don’t think we have the infrastructure anywhere in the USA to do that much work so quickly after such a huge emergency situation.

So how can we start to address these issues?

The first thing we need to do is admit that they exist and educate ourselves and everyone else that we can about these issues. Infrastructure isn’t just for librarians and scientists and tech geeks, it affects our ability to call for help in an emergency, the safety of our drinking water, and whether the bridges we drive over will bear our weight or collapse.

Once we admit openly and consistently that these problems exist we need to put our money and efforts towards these projects, infrastructure (traditional and cyber) is needed for safety, education, and a connected participatory society. If we don’t fund infrastructure that says that it’s not a necessity it’s a luxury, and that my friends is faulty thinking. Ignoring our infrastructure needs is almost as bad as cutting education funding (I will stay off that soap box for now, no raising the blood pressure before bed).

I don’t have any easy answers but I do know this:

We don’t all need to be on the cutting edge of technology but there is a certain minimal level of access without which it is difficult to fully participate in society. There is a level of IT support & infrastructure without which we will not reach our maximum research potential.

It’s a bit Pollyanna I suppose, but I’d really like to see all of us reach our full potential and we can’t do that without a strong base to stand on.

#Scio12 Pt 1: Family Reunion

#Scio12 aka Science Online 2012 is an annual event held in North Carolina that brings together librarians, scientists (all disciplines), students (k-12, ug, & grad) researchers, publishers, non-profits, communicators, authors, journalists, videographers, tech geeks, podcasts, comedians, and anyone else you can think of that is involved with science.? I was fortunate to grab one of about 450 spots to attend this conference for a second year in a row.? For every person who had to cancel and couldn’t attend another two were added to the waiting list.

I met many more people in the online community than I did at #scio11,? the fact that there is a constant community presence online means that you are never without your science family.? If you’re interested in joining in the current hashtags in use are #scio12 and #scio13 (the tag for next year’s conference).? In many ways we are kinda like the science version of the Island of Misfit Toys, if you read the #IAmScience stories (started by Kevin Zelnio) curated on the I Am Science Tumbler (both on twitter and long form on blogs) you’ll see that over 140+ stories have been shared and very few if any of us fill the science stereotypes.? I suspect in part that people who are drawn to Science Online are the misfits, the risk takers, the innovators, the people who never stopped asking why.? If we were square pegs in square holes we’d never be interested in attending a conference built by a community, ran by a community, and based on discussion instead of presentation.?? If you have a chance to attend next year I highly encourage you to try and grab a spot, but even if you can’t you can join the online family of science communicators that is Science Online.

To give you a taste of how diverse the participants on this conference are in every way please check out this fun and quirky music video put together by the smart, talented, and oh so witty @DrBondar

Notice the large number of people in the video, I know about half of them, what other conference video can you say that about?

People don’t usually understand why a science librarian would go to such a conference, here’s why I attend:

It’s the only conference I attend where I get to meet top people in every discipline I work with.? This is incredibly valuable to me, it gives me friends who I can trade advice with, insight into how researchers and students view specific resources, and increases my knowledge of their subject areas so that I can better serve the faculty and students at my school.

There is a huge science librarian contingent. Being part of the Science Online Science Librarians subfamily is a fantastic experience, these are the peers who do what I do, who solve the same problems, deal with the same challenges and many of them are not only subject specialists but also library directors and managers.? We always try and have a group lunch one of the days so that everyone knows what each other look like and then we seek each other out as time permits.? We dish the dirt on our pet projects, we ask for advice, we encourage, and we plot world domination through information dissemination :-)

There is a huge Open Access Open Data contingent, I get to find out what just came out, and what’s in the works from the people who are working on these great projects.? I learn so much in just a few days about which projects are hot, what people think is really great that I’ve never heard of.? There’s so much great stuff out there that you can’t find it all on your own.

Networking.? Everyone who attends is amazing and with this group you never know when a request will come for career advise, peer-review, a speaking engagement, an invited paper or article, or for collaboration.? You may even get to help advise or become part of a new science non-profit or educational group.? But beyond the career benefits it’s simply wonderful to make friends with a group just as obsessed about science and diverse in their interests as you are.

I’ll write more another day on some of the things I learned at Science Online, but for today I’ll leave you with a question.? Who are your communities?? Where do you go for unconditional professional support, guidance, and friendship?

I’m very fortunate to have additional support communities through ALA, ACRL, and ARL.? That might seem like overkill but if we were honest we’d admit, people are rarely truly successful without support.