theorywatch

Theorywatch is intended as an episodic, epistemic record of interesting theories that cross my path as I attempt to change careers from “academic publishing” to “published academic.” Most PhD-types are “theory stalkers”: as an admirer of the work of the late Nicholas Mullins on “theory groups,” I’d call myself more of a “theories groupie.” My research interests center on the generation and dissemination of theories of all types, so this is where I’ll be posting theory news you can use. (Or, at least, that I can use!) You might call it cognition in the rough . . . often very rough! I am Betsy Van der Veer Martens, assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Library and Information Studies. Please note that this blog is not hosted on a University of Oklahoma server and represents my opinions rather than those of my employer.

“An infinite collection of all possible theories would bear an uncanny resemblance to “The Library of Babel” envisioned by the poet, storyteller, and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1941). His imaginary library consists of an infinite array of hexagonal rooms with shelves of books containing everything that is known or knowable. Unfortunately, the true books are scattered among infinitely many readable but false books, which themselves are an insignificant fraction of the unreadable books of random gibberish. In the story by Borges, the library has no catalog, no discernible organization, and no method for distinguishing the true, the false, and the gibberish. In a prescient anticipation of the World Wide Web, Borges described people who spend their lives aimlessly searching through the rooms with the hope of finding some hidden secrets. But no matter how much truth lies buried in such a collection, it is useless without a method of organizing, evaluating, indexing, and finding relevant books and the theories contained in them.”
– John Sowa