Archimedes, Reading, and the Sustenance ofAcademic Research Culture inLibrary Instructionby Amanda Cain

Leisure, reflection, andcreativity have sustained a

culture of research andscholarship throughout much

of academia’s history. Thisarticle argues that these

cultural elements should beintroduced to the present

generation of undergraduatesand contends that “deep”

reading, rather thaninformation literacy

competency, cultivates theseelements.

Amanda Cain is InformationLiteracy/Humanities Librarian, F.H. Green

Library, West Chester University, WestChester, Pennsylvania 19383-3310

�acain@wcupa.edu�

P roviding library instruction is adaunting task. Introducing stu-dents to concepts and skills related

to scholarly communication, the processof research, and accessing, using, andevaluating resources is, in part, introduc-ing students to the culture of academicscholarship. But in the new millennium,the culture associated with scholarshipand research—the conditions, habits, andvalues—is under an onslaught of techno-logical, social, and economic change. Iflibrary instruction is to achieve more per-manence in the lives of students than fluc-tuations in database licensing agreementsor assessment mandates of public govern-ing bodies, then instructional librariansmust teach concepts and skills that endureand surpass such change.

The condition of leisure, the habit ofreflection, and the value of creativity areelements of culture that have nourishedand sustained research and scholarshipthroughout much of academia’s history.Arguably, these elements should be intro-duced to the present generation of under-graduate researchers as well. The bur-geoning of electronic information andincreasing demands for accountability inhigher education pose particular chal-lenges to these pursuits, however. As thisarticle will argue, instructional librarians’focus on “information literacy” compe-tency standards for teaching and assessingundergraduate research could also be con-sidered adverse to cultivating leisure, re-flection, and creativity among undergrad-uates.

College students increasingly are re-quired to do research during their under-graduate years. No doubt, college stu-dents arrive at this task less skilled thanestablished scholars in their ability to ac-

cess, evaluate, and create information.Specifically, students may not know howto use their library’s catalog and indexesor how to evaluate the credibility ofsources in the way that established schol-ars use or evaluate these materials. It isthe instructional librarian’s role to helpstudents get up to speed. But undergrad-uates may also not know how (and are notnecessarily learning) to read the books intheir library in the way that most estab-lished scholars know how to read books,with sustained attention and enjoyment.Recreational reading has, in fact, de-creased significantly among college-bound students in the last 20 years.1 Nev-ertheless, sustained or recreationalreading of printed books provides a natu-ral framework for scholars’ leisure, re-flection, and creativity. In their efforts tointroduce students to the culture of re-search and scholarship through libraryuse, instructional librarians should pro-mote what has historically been a main-stay of scholarly culture: the reading ofprinted books.

This article traces the conditions, hab-its, and values traditionally associatedwith academic research and, likewise, ar-gues for a promotion of these elements inlibrary instruction programming throughwhat is clearly in the librarians’ jurisdic-tion: reading. To begin this argument, Irecount, with some artistic license, an oldstory that provides a useful analogy forthe discussion:

Over 2000 years ago, there lived a greatmathematician and scientist namedArchimedes. Archimedes was employed byKing Hiero, II, who, at the time of our story,had recently conquered the small kingdom ofSyracuse. Perhaps because the conquest hadbeen so small, King Hiero resolved to pos-sess a very large gold crown as a mark of his

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 28, Number 3, pages 115–121 May 2002 115

conquest. As was the custom, Hiero plannedto dedicate the crown to the gods in Syra-cuse’s temple.

Hiero commissioned a goldsmith who wasknown for his handiwork but who had alsoearned himself a reputation as a swindler.The goldsmith was given a 10-pound lumpof rich red gold, and the king asked him tofashion it into a grand crown that weighedexactly the same as the lump of gold. Indeed,in a few weeks, the artisan returned with abeautiful crown that weighed exactly 10pounds. The king placed it on the heads ofone of the temple statues and admired it.After a while, however, he realized that thecrown was a much lighter color than that ofthe lump of gold he had initially given to thegoldsmith. Wanting to find out if he hadbeen cheated, the king called in his trustyservant Archimedes and explained his bewil-dering situation. He asked Archimedes todetermine if the gold of the crown was pureon the condition that he not disturb the sa-cred crown in any way.

Taking great delight in the challenge of hisassignment, Archimedes returned to his lab-oratory in the palace and got to work. Hezealously read and worked out formulas dayafter day with no breakthrough until finally,after about a week, he suddenly stood upfrom his backbreaking chair and shouted, “Ihave got to get on with my life!” He grabbedhis towel and set off toward the public baths.

As Archimedes entered the baths, he felthis muscles relax. The motion of the warmwater and the buoyancy of his body quietedhis mind. He stared off as if to see rightthrough the other people in the water withhim. Meanwhile, as the other bathers enteredand exited the baths, the water surroundingArchimedes rose and fell and rose and fell.Archimedes began to become heedful of thissensation and then quite suddenly he stoodup from the baths and shouted, “Eureka!”Archimedes ran naked through the townback to the palace. He realized in those fewtranquil moments that by using water,weights, and by measuring the water’s over-flow, he would be able to prove the purity ofthe gold crown for his king.2

THE CONDITION OF LEISURE

The story of Archimedes suggests condi-tions, habits, and values essential to whattoday might be considered successful re-search. Conditions are external factors,such as surroundings, as well as internalstates of being, which are prerequisites fora happening or an occurrence. The occur-rence of Archimedes’ breakthrough came,of course, when he was taking a bath: atime of emotional and physical equilib-rium, tranquility, and leisure. Granted, thecontemporary conception of leisure mayconjure up meanings of diversion or idle-ness. But Archimedes was not watching a

DVD movie, talking on a cell phone, orengaging in other forms of blaring enter-tainment while he was in the bath; theseacts would render the true condition ofleisure impossible. Leisure, in the wordsof Joseph Pieper, implies non-activity, in-ward calm, silence; “it means not being‘busy’; but letting things happen.”3 And,indeed, the condition of leisure has beenheld up for centuries as a prerequisite ofscholarship. Again, Joseph Pieper writes:

It is essential to begin reckoning with the factthat one of the foundations of Western cul-ture is leisure. . . And even the history of theword attests the fact: for leisure in Greek isskole, and in Latin scola, the English“school.” The word used to designate theplace where we educate and teach is derivedfrom a word, which means leisure. “School”does not properly speaking mean school, butleisure.4

It follows that the silence and tranquil-ity of the bath allowed Archimedes to, ineffect, hear himself think. This conditionin turn allowed for reflection, a habit alsovalued in scholarly research.

THE HABIT OF REFLECTION

Archimedes made a great discovery abouthydrostatics while observing the fluctua-tion of water in the bath. In fact, he hadmade countless important discoveriesand inventions during his lifetime.Archimedes had a mind honed in mathe-matics and the science of nature. We cansurmise that he was practiced in the pro-cedures—in other words, he was in thehabit—of acquiring scientific knowledge.A component of this success was doinghis homework. We know from the storythat Archimedes had wrestled with thequestion of the gold crown for many days,and he may have used a variety of mate-rials, theories, and methods to solve it.Thus, what he already apprehended con-tributed to his eventual discovery.5 In thestory, however, one can also surmise thatArchimedes was, on some level, attentiveand open to the sensation of motion andbuoyancy he was experiencing in thebath, and it was at this point in the story,of course, that he made the leap. In TheDictionary of Philosophy, this “source ofour awareness of our existence and men-tal states and activities [including] hear-ing, touching, seeing [is termed] reflec-tion.”6 And, reflection when coupled withexternal sensation, may provide one withcomplex ideas, such as solidity, exten-sion, and cause and effect.7 PhilosopherJames B. Riechmann affirms that insight

from reflection “is much more a matter ofinner awareness than of its outer circum-stances . . . In essence, understanding is atrue dialogic between matter and spirit.”7

Archimedes’ operational activity of si-multaneously studying, interpreting, andunderstanding himself and the outsideworld allowed him to ultimately makeconnections that, in the words of Pieper,“transcend[ed] the frontiers of all and any‘environment.’ ”9

THE VALUE OF ORIGINALITY AND

CREATIVITY

Thousands of people had witnessed thefluctuation of water in the baths countlesstimes before Archimedes, and to ourknowledge, they never made his same dis-covery. The baths of Syracuse are famousin the annals of health spas partly becausethey mark the place where Archimedes’discovery originated, or where his unprec-edented thought occurred. A value com-mon to the culture of scholarship has beenoriginality, or a related term, creativity,both of which refer to the generative po-tential of the individual. In his bookHigher Faculties: A Cross-National Studyof University Culture, Adam Podgoreckidiscusses how scholarly creativity de-pends on unprecedented originality ofthought. “The problems connected withscholarly creativity,” he writes, “pertainto all human activities that try to constructsomething new.” Podgorecki emphasizes,however, that “what is specific to schol-arly activities and what distinguishesthem from artistic creativity [is that theyare not oriented] toward beauty or good-ness but truth.”10

In much of the history of Westernthought, truth has been believed to pos-sess universal qualities. Related to thisassumption is the idea that truly creativeacts possess universal qualities becausethey are of a constructionist nature, or, inother words, they are forms of reorgani-zation or reconstitution from what alreadyis.11 These universal qualities are con-ceivably communicable, transcending the“limitations of the individual mind whichgrasp it and thus by nature make it apotentially ‘public event.’ ”12 Likewise,in the words of Podgorecki, “scholarlycreativity . . . depends not only on unprec-edented originality of thought . . . [butalso] . . . on explaining why its point ofview constitutes the most adequate under-standing of the data pertaining to what-ever the aspects of reality with which it isconcerned.”13 Indeed, Archimedes wasable to run back to the king and explain

116 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

his discovery through the understandableexample of weight and water. But thiscommunication was not limited to theking’s ears, and the result of the commu-nication was not limited to the rewardpresumably received by Archimedes. Theinsight gained by Archimedes spreadaround the world, and the connections ituncovers has rewarded science and sci-ence education for 2000 years. Reich-mann observes that “the task of the com-munication of insight is, and will everremain, one of the principal tasks of hu-mankind, for of such communication iscivilization born, nourished and en-hanced.”14 The final aim of individualdiscovery, therefore, has been valued inacademic research culture because it con-tributes to the general process of discov-ering truth and finally raises possibilitiesfor using this truth to implement the ideasof global ethics.15

THE NATURE OF 21ST CENTURY

RESEARCH

Thus far, it has been argued that there arethree elements traditionally important tothe culture of academic research: the con-dition of leisure, the habit of reflection,and the value of creativity and originality.From Podgorecki’s and Reichmann’s dis-cussions, these cultural threads make pos-sible a dynamic communication of knowl-edge, that, if allowed to flourish,potentially usher human understandingand ethical action.

“Thus far, it has been arguedthat there are three elementstraditionally important to theculture of academic research:the condition of leisure, thehabit of reflection, and the

value of creativity andoriginality.”

In the next section of this discussion,the presence of leisure, reflection, andoriginality in the current culture of aca-demic research and scholarship will beconsidered. Specifically, these elementswill be examined in light of social, eco-nomic, and technological demands placedon teaching faculty and incoming stu-dents. The instructional librarian’s role inthis milieu will also be considered.

PRODUCTIVITY AND FACULTY

RESEARCH CULTURE

Faculty play a critical role in introducingundergraduates into academic researchculture and to the larger goals of whattoday is called “lifelong learning.” Theyare the models for the process of inquiry,they create the assignments that under-graduates must complete, and they filterdown the assumptions and values of theinstitution to the classroom through grad-ing and class interactions and activities.The elite culture within which faculty op-erate no doubt impacts this enculturationas well.

Interestingly, the current conditions,habits, and values associated with facultyappear, in many institutions, to be anti-thetical to what was delineated earlier inthis discussion. In terms of leisure, heavyteaching loads, the conducting of re-search, and engaging in public service arerealities for faculty. A law professor,quoted in an article by Larry Hardesty,expands on the lack of free time availableto faculty:

If one adds in even modest amounts of timefor meetings with students; serving on com-mittees; attending lectures, scholarly meet-ings, and a respectable number of academi-cally related social events; reading drafts ofpapers by colleges and finished papers fromstudents; developing research designs; par-ticipating in disciplinary societies; and aid-ing people and firms interested in utilizingone’s expertise, all of the time of youngfaculty and much of the time of senior fac-ulty is used up without any major scholarlyeffort having been put forth. . . . One of theparadoxes of academic life is that we aredrawn to it by the lure of free time16

At the same time, the climate of ever-shrinking public funding and the resultingdemands for accountability by public andprivate sources place pressure on facultyto be, in the words of Pieper, “function-ary” in the productive world of “totalwork.”17 Scholars are pressed to staybusy, producing and marketing their ideasfrom the perspective of defending, main-taining, and proving their functionality tothe society supporting them. Phrases thatsuggest meditative inactivity such as “Iwas thinking,” writes Podgorecki, haveturned into phrases such as “I was doingsome thinking.”18

Time constraints and utilitarian expec-tations no doubt transform the fundamen-tally inward habit of reflection into anoutwardly focused habit of managementand production. According to Podgorecki,

the “armchair” scholar of past decadeshad more opportunities to engage and tonourish mental activities that allowed himor her to develop ideally true and pureaccounts of his or her inquiry. The scholaris now pressured to develop ideas simplybecause he or she understands that theprocess of generating ideas is his or herprofessional job.19 Currently, the profes-sional, or, “career” scholars are almostexclusively concerned with the detailedanalysis of limited subjects and concen-trated on small discoveries “treating themnot as constructive elements in a morecomprehensive picture of natural or hu-man reality but as steps up a personalcareer ladder.” Thus, scholars do not re-gard these discoveries as autotelic—hav-ing a value in themselves—but as hetero-telic, or having an outside value.20

Another expectation that encroacheson faculty culture is the idea that highereducation is a public investment thatshould yield a respectable economic re-turn.21 Podgorecki considers how this ori-entation puts a heavy mark on the value ofcreativity and originality among faculty:

The modern twentieth-century scholar is ori-ented toward the development of intellectualparadigms that may help others (especiallystudents and practitioners) to learn quicklyand effectively how to put existing knowl-edge into practice. Instrumentality is a greatasset here. . . . Professional scholars, by cur-rent expectations, are supposed to becomeeffective intermediaries between the storesof knowledge and the practical demands ofthe market. As such, they are supposed to beequipped with a sui generis intelligence thattells them how to infuse that knowledge intopractical life. In industrial and developingsocieties alike, there is great pressure to pro-duce professional types of scholars who canexplore existing knowledge in practicalterms. Presently, society understands the es-sential task of academia as a crusade to uti-lize in the most extensive form the existingpotentialities of an accumulated pool ofknowledge.22

Podgorecki goes on to say that tradi-tional scholars, “innovators,” or thosewho:

[C]reate new ideas, who take pains with theirwork, who are full of hesitation, who aretroubled by conditional quantifiers and whofeel themselves restricted by practical re-quirements . . . are pushed to the margins.. . . Because the professionals know how tograsp what is useful, they immediately be-come ennobled by their new role as highpriests among the disseminators of knowl-edge. . . . [T]hese new priests preach thevalue of aping others.23

May 2002 117

Podgorecki’s strong, even dehumaniz-ing language, alerts the reader to anemerged culture in academia that threat-ens an arguably fragile chain of condi-tions, habits, and values associated withscholarship and all of its correspondingmanifestations, whether they be tenure-granting processes, publication, or teach-ing students.

CONSUMERISM AND UNDERGRADUATE

RESEARCH CULTURE

The proof that work is being done—thepublication—is paramount in the presentacademy. Perhaps this is one of the rea-sons why research universities are callingfor an increased emphasis on undergrad-uate involvement in research.24 The con-ditions, habits, and values with whichpresent-day youth arrive at the task ofresearch are distinctive from the cultureexperienced by their cadre of morebook-learned instructors and is radicallydifferent from traditional scholarly cul-ture defined by such authors as Pod-gorecki. The condition of leisure is per-haps the most obvious deviation. Forone, incoming students work. Accord-ing to Karen Bauer’s report CampusClimate, more than half of undergradu-ates are employed at least 20 hours perweek. “Whether it is to pay for theirexpensive high-tech gadgets or for theincreasing college tuition,” Karen Bauerand Laura Saunders write, “we see stu-dents spending less of their out-of-classtime in campus activities, and more timein employment.”25 Students are alsospending more time on what sociologistOrrin Klapp describes as “fun industriesgoing full blast.” These industries,writes Klapp, are “pouring entertain-ment and products on people, every-thing one could think of to make leisuremore satisfying.”26 This outpouring of“noise and dysfunctional redundancy”interfere with satisfaction, resonance,and meaning. Ironically, argues Klapp,this interference creates a paradigm of afelt need for more of the entertainment,products, and information students’consume.27

Indeed, undergraduate students todayare what Bauer and Saunders call “goodconsumers . . . on and off campus.”28 Thisconsumption includes procuring goodsand services that promise the acquisitionof knowledge and the highest value ofconsumerism: productivity. The habit ofconsumption, however, differs from thehabit of reflection. Whereas reflectionconsists of making meaning by attending

and incorporating one’s own inner mineof accumulated experiences—a decidedlyslow process—consumerist habits are ori-ented outward and demand immediacy.Consumers seek, in the case of knowledgeacquisition, to use products that willspeedily manage, manipulate, and evengenerate thought. Managing intellect ap-peals to consumerism. Michael Heimnotes that “the appeal is thoroughgoingproductivity, a productivity that manageseven the spontaneous meanderings of themind.” This managerial mode of thought,writes Heim, “especially when it has be-come second nature . . . can distract fromcontemplative thought [and] requires . . .inner distance.”29 With the sheer amountof the commercial market’s supply ofknowledge-touting products that a con-sumer must sort through, purchase, andmaster, there is also less time and energyfor habitual reflection. “One cost for suchrapid scanning is distraction, living in thefront of one’s mind, lacking time to con-nect deeply with one’s inner self,” writesKlapp. “Hastily scanning, switching,gulping gives people a sort of chronicindigestion of information in which bitsdo not assimilate into character and wis-dom.”30

The abundant supply and demand ofdisconnected and disconnecting knowl-edge, this atmosphere of what MilanKundera calls an “irresistible flood ofreceived ideas,” makes valuing and at-taining creativity and originality diffi-cult for students.31 Superabundant andaccessible word-processed text receivedover the Internet, for example, is inte-gral to the current undergraduate re-search milieu. Heim writes that in thisenvironment:

Boiler-plate text and reusable fragmentshaunt all word-processed writing as a con-stant lure and possibility. Fragments, the ex-perienced user learns, can be used and re-used, can be fit in somewhere and withoutmuch effort. . . . Possibility dominates overconsistency of vision . . . Mental excitementand stimulation supplant mental compo-sure.32

In one sense, nothing is chosen deeply,authentically, existentially. In anothersense, laments Heim, this cut and pastesensibility “manifests truth destabi-lized.”33

WHAT IS FAST ENGULFING THE

CULTURE OF THE BOOK

Electronic or computer-based frame-works of knowledge that include the

World Wide Web, word processing pro-grams, and forms of electronic discus-sions, are the environment in whichboth faculty and especially students arepresently expected to inquire, learn, andcreate. This framework too, is radicallydifferent from the conditions and result-ing habits and values experienced by thetraditionally meditative scholar.

Unlike the conditions of Archimedes’warm bath, interaction with electronic in-formation requires physical proceduresthat are, at present, incompatible with thesilent inactivity of leisure. A modern re-searcher is compelled to hit keys, massagemice, drag arrows, scroll up and scrolldown, print, and heed prompts of com-puter generated clamor.

Likewise, one’s focus is on outwardlymanipulative and instantaneous tasks;tasks that are essentially contrary to theinwardly focused and time-demanding actof reflection. In his article “TowardMetareading,” Patrick Bazin enthusiasti-cally declares that the old protocols forreading printed books, what he cites as“self-reading,” or “the mirror of the read-ing consciousness,” are changing.34 Newpractices of textuality “cross the mirror”and potentially allow “researchers, teach-ers, librarians, authors, graphic designers,artists and so on” to engage simulta-neously in “numerous forms or levels ofreading” and “multiply around a givencontent the different angles of approach,to make parameters vary, to process thetextual material, and finally to reconstructit.”35

The implicit formlessness and author-lessness of intertextuality has implica-tions for the cultural value of creativityand originality as well. In such an atmo-sphere, the authorial voice deteriorates asa model of mental integrity. In one of hisconcluding chapters, Heim addresses thecultural consequences of texts that arecharacterized by linkage in an essentialway:

Fragments, reused material, the trails andintricate pathways of “hypertext” . . . allthese advance the disintegration of the cen-tering voice of contemplative thought. . . . Asthe model of the integrated private self of theauthor fades, the rights of the author as apersistent self-identity also become more ev-anescent, more difficult to define . . . as theauthoritativeness of text diminishes, so toodoes the recognition of the private self of thecreative author.36

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ENTER THE INSTRUCTIONAL

LIBRARIANS

“The shift of scholarship frompage to screen means that

students must learn multipleand ever-changing skills to use

technology that inevitablyimpedes on time spent

engaging texts conscientiouslyand writing original work.”

The speed, growth, and change withwhich information technology impactsthe look, feel, and perhaps quality ofscholarship are causes for concern amongcollege and university educators. Theshift of scholarship from page to screenmeans that students must learn multipleand ever-changing skills to use technol-ogy that inevitably impedes on time spentengaging texts conscientiously and writ-ing original work.37 Librarians, who areexpert practitioners in navigating, manag-ing, and evaluating information recognizetheir potential role for mitigating the mis-information, plagiarism, and informationoverload that too often characterizes un-dergraduate electronic research. Indeed,in current library literature, proclamationsthat librarians will be the link among anexpanding knowledge base, technology,and learning abound. Association of Col-lege and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) In-formation Literacy Competency Stan-dards for Higher Education is a documentthat helps promulgate this role on collegecampuses. To the delight of many librar-ians, various associations in higher edu-cation, including the American Associa-tion of Higher Education, are fastadopting it. The Standards deserve amuch more detailed scrutiny than will beattempted here, but their influence inpresent academic research culture war-rants brief exploration. ACRL’s docu-ment, composed of five standards, 22 per-formance indicators, and 87 outcomes,appears to be a responsive effort for reit-erating what scholarship is and how it isexecuted in the face of the current com-munication explosion in the disciplinesand the constantly changing market oftechnologies for accessing this informa-tion. The Standards are also intended as atool for “measuring student learning”with regard to these inferred skills and

concepts.38 The Standards offer invalu-able guidelines for research that include:identifying key concepts and terms thatdescribe an information need, designingand refining a search strategy, and criti-cally evaluating information and itssources. However, in a larger context, thedocument does little to challenge thebusyness, consumerism, and productivityalready encroaching on academic re-search culture.

The introductory text of the Standardstypifies the claims in library literature thatinformation literacy should be promotedas “the next educational reform move-ment.”39 Specifically, the authors boldlyattempt to equate a mastery of the Stan-dards with civic, economic, and quasi-philosophical (“lifelong learning”) values.In the introductory section on “Informa-tion Literacy and Higher Education,” theauthors of the document assert:

Information literacy is a key component of,and contributor to, lifelong learning. Infor-mation literacy competency extends learningbeyond formal classroom settings and pro-vides practice with self-directed investiga-tions as individuals move into internships,first professional positions, and increasingresponsibilities in all arenas of life.40

At the same time, the text of the Stan-dards, with its methodical guise of “indi-cators” and “outcomes,” poses as a quasi-scientific model that conceivablyaddresses present and projected problemsin modern undergraduate learning. Butthe Standards are neither science nor phi-losophy. They fail in both of these en-deavors foremost because there is no at-tempt in the document to engage or definethe origin, perception, and manifestationof just what information is. This shakytheoretical grounding is, of course, noth-ing new in library studies. As TerrenceBrooks contends, library literature standsas more of a “record of witness” or even“truisms and folk wisdom” than as a sci-ence or a philosophy.41 But more trou-bling than the document’s lack of theoret-ical grounding (and thus, the potential forits ultimate rejection among academics),is the document’s manifestation as an as-sessment tool.

Assessment tools assume that there isdiscernible evidence or proof of what isbeing measured. Arguably, notions re-lated to information and knowledgeelude tests of matter and substance. Ascited by Curtis Wright, the verbal mean-ing of “in-form-ation” is the noetic orinnate “production of form in” and as

such, “can function as the humanisticreferent for a deeply philosophical studybut cannot possibly constitute the objectof a science.”42 Furthermore, when ed-ucators intend to measure what is onlymeasurable with regard to ideals ofscholarship, quieter, more internal, anddelayed activities such as appreciation,wonder, and insight (which may arisemany years after one has left a class-room), inevitably fall off the academicradar screen. Subsequent devotion todiscussing, debating, and cultivatingthese qualities within students falls offthe screen, too.

In the meantime, the regimen of theStandards keeps students busy and per-haps deafened within a technologically,methodologically, and legalistically satu-rated environment. Leisure may elude stu-dents as they are required to identify “avariety of types and formats of potentialsources for information” and retrieve theinformation “using a variety of methods”to apply the “information to the planningand creation of a particular product orperformance,” while “[following] laws,regulations, institutional policies, and et-iquette related to the access and use ofinformation resources.”43 Reflection mayescape students as well because measure-ment tools uphold a diagram of what isdeemed assessable rather than a mirrorfor what might be there. This schemefor scholarship may never induce morefully realized pictures of what is poten-tially human knowledge and creation: amysterious, individuated composite ofwhat is expressed and known throughthe senses and what is expressed andknown through non-material manifesta-tions of abstract thought and imagina-tion. This is not to say that the Stan-dards are wholly inaccurate, debased, oruseless. As stated earlier, they, too, area fine and admirable “record of witness”of a great number of librarians and fac-ulty. But if librarians promote them assomething more, they may find them-selves the typical career scholar in Pod-gorecki’s illustration who “is orientedtoward the development of intellectualparadigms that may help others . . . tolearn quickly and effectively how to putexisting knowledge into practice.”44 Li-brarians can easily emerge in this con-text as the ennobled “high priests,” butthey may, in fact, be unwittingly con-tributing to a degeneration of scholarlyculture.

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THE ANALOGY OF READING

As discussed earlier, Archimedes’ even-tual insight about hydrostatics was fos-tered in part from his immersion andeventual awareness of the process ofmovement and fluctuation of water in hisbath. From our account, Archimedes ap-pears to be what might be called a kines-thetic learner. Not every successfullearner gains knowledge through a decid-edly physical kinesis, however. Manyscholars have made significant discover-ies via different but perhaps analogousprocesses. Sustained or “deep” reading ofprinted books is one of those processes.45

Like Archimedes’ route to knowledge, theprocess of reading printed books also de-mands leisure; incites habitual reflection;and, like a nice hot bath, can set the stagefor original insight. Indeed, as manythinkers have argued, the culture of thebook and the culture of scholarship havebeen symbiotically born, nourished, andenhanced for hundreds if not thousands ofyears.

Historically, the symbolic associationof books with their readers has, of course,implied intellectual richness and loftypursuits. Catherine the Great’s courtiers,for example, showcased rows of bindingsstuffed with wastepaper to garner favorfrom their bookish empress.46 But the actof reading of books is also credited with amuch more genuine relationship to schol-arship. Kafka, who was schooled in thelong and cumulative tradition of Talmu-dic textual analysis, equated reading withwhat is the basis of scholarly activitywhen he said that “one reads in order toask questions.”47

“Real reading,” however, requires sub-mitting to “altered tempos,” writes HaroldBrodkey. In this regard, reading mimicsleisure. In leisure, writes Pieper the trulyhuman values are saved and preservedbecause . . . the means where by thesphere of the “specifically human” can,over and again be left behind . . . as in anecstasy . . . and it is itself a state at oncevery human and superhuman.48 A similarparadigm of metaphysical leaving is inBrodkey’s description of reading:

But the disappearance from the immediateworld of one’s attention, that infidelity toone’s alertness toward outside attack, andthen the gullibility required for a prolongedact of attention to something not directlyinferior to one’s own methods and experi-ences . . . that and the risk of conversion, thecertainty that if the book is good, one willtake on ideas and theories, a sense of style, asense of things different from those one had

before—if you think of those, you can seethe elements of middle-class leisure and free-dom, or upper-class insolence and power, orlower-class rebelliousness and hiddennessand disloyalty to one’s surroundings, that arerequired for real reading.50

The leisurely state of reading, then,allows for an internal transition to takeplace. When one takes up a book, he orshe quite rapidly switches from respond-ing to his or her immediate surroundingsto processing a set of codes and respond-ing to those instead.51 This activity of theself-responding to codified surroundingsis in essence induced reflection, and likeall habits, it proceeds with “astonishingfacility” if one is practiced at it. Birkertsspeculates:

[M]ost adults who are now devoted readersbegan at a young age, and . . . they formed agood part of their essential selves throughinteraction with books. That is, they some-how founded their own inwardness, the morereflective component of their self, in thespace that reading opened up. The space isimplicit in the act of reading: it is created bythe act, and the act constantly reinforces it.Again I use the spatial analogy to represent away of perceiving the world and of situatingthe self vis-a-vis experience.52

“Being bathed in the energies of thebook,” as Birkerts puts it, provides thereader with a silent, meditative state inwhich to travel and surface in new orien-tations of understanding.53 Reading alsosupports reflection in that it aids the mindin the dialogic of fragmentary successionsof inner experience with the encompass-ing wholeness of an outside text. Finally,like the baths at Syracuse, the book hasearned a name for itself because it hasfostered the integrity of the private mind.The book has created space where percep-tions and experiences can gather to beorganized and contemplative transcen-dence can occur through the formulationof ideas.54 In its passive aspect, this ac-tivity is readership. As the felt locus of theorigination of an idea, reading fosters apresence of mind also known as author-ship.56 Heim writes:

Being an origin for formulation is to be orig-inal in the truest sense . . . Originality occursin the intimate privacy of the creative actincluding the re-creation of an author’s ideasin the reader’s integral act of thought . . .Something stirs deeply from within thepsyche and allows one a sense of cominginto one’s own, of reclaiming what was al-ways present in the inmost recesses of themind but now only emerges out of silence.With originality arises the author formulat-

ing an idea, bespeaking an eternal creation,as it were.50

Thus, through reading, the celebratedscholarly value of creativity and original-ity can also be attained.

CONCLUSION

Technology and social and economicmeasurement emerge as potent influenceswithin the academic research culture ofthe new millennium. One of many bits ofevidence of a cultural shift is that thenumber of undergraduates who wile awayhours with books has markedly de-creased.57 Yet, books and the potential forreading them deeply, remains a powerfulpsychic framework for scholarship. Read-ing has a lithe capacity to bring aboutthinkers’ authority not only of their ownknowledge, but of their experience ofthemselves as knowledgeable beings.58

This framework, like that of the age-oldstory of Archimedes discovery, is infi-nitely roomier, forgiving, humane, andenduring as an educational tool than com-petency standards (ACRL’s in particular),as yet.

There are few encouraging signs of adeveloping interest in reading in the fieldof library instruction, however. Instruc-tional librarians, too, are influenced bythe consumer imperative, and as such,they often squeeze reading of all kindsinto a marketable package of informationuse and literacy.59 In the literature or“on the street,” there seems little atten-tion given to reading as an element ofintellectual life with its own intrinsicvalue not susceptible to direct economicmeasurement.60

“In the literature or ”on thestreet,“ there seems little

attention given to reading asan element of intellectual life

with its own intrinsic value notsusceptible to direct economic

measurement.”

Reading demands silence and much time;it is intensely private and individualistic;and outwardly, it appears non-productive.In an age when undergraduates are in-creasingly required to log on to electronicnetworked environments to have and,more important, report a learning experi-ence, “deep” reading may even be subver-

120 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

sive. Perhaps this is all the more reason tolead students to it. Foremost, reading ofbooks is both a source for and a means toscholarship. It is a framework of condi-tions, habits, and values that should behanded on to the learning communitiesthat instructional librarians serve.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Jude D. Gallik, “Do They Read for Plea-sure? Recreational Reading Habits of Col-lege Students.” Journal of Adolescent andAdult Literacy 42 (March 1999): 481.[Online]. Availiable : ProQuest. Washing-ton State U. Libs., Pullman, WA. http://proquest.umi.com (accessed July 17,2001).

2. James B. Reichmann, Philosophy of theHuman Person (Chicago: Loyola Univer-sity Press, 1985), pp. 95–96. Refashionedand retold by the author.

3. Joseph Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Cul-ture (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,1999), p. 27.

4. Ibid., p. 2.5. Reichmann, Philosophy of the Human

Person, p. 98.6. Peter A. Angeles, Dictionary of Philoso-

phy (New York: HarperPerennial, 1981),p. 243. Locke believed that complexthought was derived from sensate experi-ence. He originated the term “tabula rasa”to indicate the way he believed that ahuman’s consciousness came into theworld as a blank slate.

7. Ibid, p. 243. Sensate experience coupledwith reflection results in being aware ofsolidity (a condition of something beingsolid), extension (a condition of occupy-ing space), or cause and effect (a condi-tion of something influencing an outcomeas in an “if, then” clause.

8. Reichmann, Philosophy of the HumanPerson, p. 98.

9. Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p.87.

10. Adam Podgorecki, Higher Faculties: ACross-National Study of University Cul-ture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), p. 25.

11. Reichmann, Philosophy of the HumanPerson, p. 76.

12. Ibid., p. 99.13. Podgorecki, Higher Faculties, p. 26.14. Reichmann, Philosophy of the Human

Person, p. 100.15. Podgorecki, Higher Faculties, p. 21.16. Larry Hardesty, “Faculty Culture and Bib-

liographic Instruction: An ExploratoryAnalysis” Library Trends 44 (Fall 1995):352.

17. Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p.39.

18. Podgorecki, Higher Faculties, p. 3.19. Ibid., p. 43.20. Ibid., p. 26.

21. Thomas G. McFadden & Theodore J.Hostetler, “Introduction,” Library Trends44 (Fall 1995): 229. McFadden andHostetler provide a list of some practicalstrategies for increasing undergraduatereading, including librarians promotingthe reinstatement of required reading listson college campuses, taking their readers’advisory role seriously, and publishingmore formal reading lists.

22. Podgorecki, Higher Faculties, p. 128.(Italics mine).

23. Ibid., p. 129.24. Patricia Somers, James Cofer, Jan L. Aus-

tin, et al., “Faculty and Staff: The WeatherRadar of Campus Climate,” in CampusClimate: Understanding the CriticalComponents of Today’s Colleges andUniversities, edited by Karen W. Bauer(San Francisco: Jossey Bass 1998), p. 40.

25. Laura E. Saunders & Karen W. Bauer,“Undergraduate Students Today: WhoAre They?,” in Campus Climate: Under-standing the Critical Components of To-day’s Colleges and Universities, p. 8.

26. Orrin E. Klapp, Overload and Boredom:Essays on the Quality of Life in the Infor-mation Society (New York: GreenwoodPress, 1986), p. 28.

27. Ibid., p. 1.28. Saunders, “Undergraduate Students To-

day,” p. 8.29. Michael Heim, Electric Language: A

Philosophical Study of Word Processing,2nd ed. (New Haven CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1999), pp. 204–205.

30. Klapp, Overload and Boredom, p. 106.31. Ibid., pp. 218–219. As cited by Heim

from New York Review of Books (June 13,1985), Kundera writes, “For we couldimagine the world without the class strug-gle or without psycho-analysis, but notwith out the irresistible flood or receivedideas which-inscribed in computers, prop-agated by the mass media-threaten soon tobecome a force that will crush all originaland individual thought, and will thussmother the very essence of modern Eu-ropean culture” pp. 11–12.

32. Ibid., pp. 211–212.33. Ibid., p. 211.34. Patrick Bazin, “Toward Metareading,” in

The Future of the Book, edited byGeoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley, CA: Uni-versity of California Press, 1996), p. 162.

35. Ibid., p. 165.36. Heim, Electric Language, pp. 220–221.37. Susan Griswold Blandy & Patricia

O’Brien Libutti, “As the Cursor Blinks:Electronic Scholarship and Undergradu-ates in the Library,” Library Trends 44(Fall 1995): p 268.

38. Association of College and Research Li-braries, Information Literacy CompetencyStandards for Higher Education (Chica-

go: Association of College and ResearchLibraries, 2000), p. 6.

39. Association of College and Research Li-braries and American Library Associa-tion, Instruction Section, Executive Com-mittee, “Information Literacy: the NextKiller App,” 18, no. 1 (2001), p.2.

40. Association of College and Research Li-braries, Information Literacy CompetencyStandards for Higher Education, p. 4.

41. Terrence Brooks, “The Model of Scienceand Scientific Models in Librarianship,”Library Trends 38 (Fall 1989): 237–249.

42. Curtis H. Wright, The Oral Antecedents ofGreek Librarianship (Provo, UT:Brigham Young University Press, 1977),pp. 31, xiv. Curtis argues that information,like language, is a noetic (innate) structureand form, not material substance.

43. Association of College and Research Li-braries, Information Literacy CompetencyStandards for Higher Education, pp.8–12. Standard 1, Performance Indicator2; Standard 2, Performance Indicator 1;Standard 4, Indicator 1, respectively, 44.Podgorecki, Higher Faculties, p. 129.

45. Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies:The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age(Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994), p. 146

46. Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading(London: HarperCollings, 1996) p. 214.Manguel cites a certain Klostermann whomade a fortune by selling long rows ofbinding stuffed with waste paper, whichallowed courtiers to create the illusion of alibrary and thereby garner the favor oftheir bookish empress.

47. Ibid., p. 89.48. Harold Brodkey, “Reading, the Most Dan-

gerous Game,” in Reading in Bed: Essayson the Glories of Reading, edited bySteven Gilbar (Boston: David R. Godine,1995) p. 102.

49. Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 3250. Gilbar, Reading in Bed, p. 106.51. Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, p. 80.52. Ibid., p. 84–85.53. Ibid., p. 84.54. Heim, Electric Language, p. 188.55. Ibid., p. 183.56. Ibid., p. 188.57. Saunders, “Undergraduate Students To-

day,” p. 10.58. Robert H. Kieft, “The Death of the Librar-

ian in the (Post) Modern Electronic Infor-mation Age,” in Information for a NewAge: Redefining the Librarian, edited byLibrary Instruction Roundtable (LIRT),American Library Association (Engle-wood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1995), p.18.

59. Blandy, “As the Cursor Blinks,” p. 28160. Alvin M. Schrader, “Libraries, the Read-

ing Institution?” Feliciter 6 (2000): 306–308.

May 2002 121