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Boyer’s (1990) four components of scholarship – discovery, integration, application, and teaching – and to explore them as a techno-cultural system of scholarship suited to an era of knowledge abundance. Not only does the paper find that networked engagement both aligns with and exceeds Boyer’s model for scholarship, it suggests that networked scholarship may enact Boyer’s initial aim of broadening scholarship itself through fostering extensive cross-disciplinary, public ties and rewarding connection, collaboration, and curation between individuals rather than roles or institutions.

The way Twitter draws scholars from multiple disciplines and geographic areas together via conversations and hashtags emerged as a clear manifestation of scholarship of integration. Participants demonstrated active engagement with multiple audiences, across fields and disciplines. The accounts that participants connected with in their 24-hour reflections were traced, and in all cases but one participants were found to engage across both geographic and disciplinary boundaries.

Boyer (1990) emphasizes scholarship of integration as “research at the boundaries where fields converge…[T]hose engaged in integration ask “What do the findings mean?” (p. 18). Thus scholarship of integration centers on public discussions and negotiations of meaning; what distinguishes the techno-cultural system of NPS is that this happens in constant, abundant real-time. This indirectly reinforces the system’s emphasis on individual rather than institution; the regular unsettling of the boundaries of what is known or understood makes formal hierarchies and categories – tenets of the techno-cultural system of institutional, disciplinary scholarship – difficult to enact and enforce.

Chris ShoemakerCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal Gr 7-10Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team. Meeting his old classmates on the court, Junior grapples with questions about what constitutes one's community, identity, and tribe. The daily struggles of reservation life and the tragic deaths of the protagonist's grandmother, dog, and older sister would be all but unbearable without the humor and resilience of spirit with which Junior faces the world. The many characters, on and off the rez, with whom he has dealings are portrayed with compassion and verve, particularly the adults in his extended family. Forney's simple pencil cartoons fit perfectly within the story and reflect the burgeoning artist within Junior. Reluctant readers can even skim the pictures and construct their own story based exclusively on Forney's illustrations. The teen's determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message in a low-key manner. Alexie's tale of self-discovery is a first purchase for all libraries.