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I want to suggest that the theory and practice of data curation can augment our notion of “publishing” in a way that will serve the needs of the digital humanities community

Data-curation-as-publishing is publishing work that draws directly on the unique skills of librarians and aligns directly with library missions and values in ways that other kinds of publishing endeavors may not.

Treating data curation and publishing as kindred services may offer the prospect of expanding a library’s stable of “innovative” offerings while not straining resources because there are management efficiencies in having both the “front end” and “back end” people in the library. However, in this model, neither libraries nor publishing seems truly transformed and this is a problematic mismatch when so many other aspects of scholarly work are being transformed.

In referring to “data curation,” I am speaking specifically of information work that integrates closely with the disciplinary practices and needs of researchers in order to “maintain digital information that is produced in the course of research in a manner that preserves its meaning and usefulness as a potential input for further research.”

Kathleen Fitzpatrick has argued that humanists “might … find our values shifting away from a sole focus on the production of unique, original new arguments and texts to consider instead curation as a valid form of scholarly activity” (Fitzpatrick 79)

It is also increasingly common to see the release of open data sets as enticement to attract digital humanists to work on particular sets of questions,

Publishers add value to end products through peer review and high quality production and presentation. Libraries standardize and preserve these outputs and continue to make them available to a community over time. Organizations which comprise both library and publisher can imagine this as a unified suite of services that cover the entire data lifecycle.

The workload of academics has increased exponentially in recent years, as has been well-documented

I have found that writing for popular audiences is not solely an internal passion, but has actually become an external demand of young scholars, another metric by which their job application or tenure-file is evaluated.

The problem is that Robin goes on to romanticize the lives of young scholar-writers, saying that their work arises from intrinsic desires, whose realization is made possible by new technology:

Young scholars are compelled to transform themselves into academic entrepreneurs, creating a brand that they promote through their blogs, tweets, and online profiles.

The swelling workloads of academics are indicative of the micropolitics of neoliberalism

The mantra of “publishing early and often” has intensified, especially in a tight job market. As tenured horizons grow grimmer, new scholars must do anything they can to stand out above a crowd of over-achievers. Publish early, publish often — and now, publish online.

Consider the website Academia.edu

But the site also exemplifies the quantification of the productive self, with each profile displaying the number of views, article downloads, and followers for each academic.

The labor of public intellectualism is more than a political project, or even a charitable effort of self-expression — it’s another manifestation of exploitation

As a result, young academics trying to keep up with new media are writing, reading blogs and engaging in Twitter wars during lunch breaks, between teaching commitments, and well into the night.

To meet the demands of academic capitalism, there’s now even less of a chance of ever clocking out.

Yes, let us praise the young writers whose voices are being seen and heard across the blogosphere, and luxuriate in the possibilities of transcending the borders of the Ivory Tower. But let us not forget that writing, even on the Internet, and even for the “public good,” is still work. And whenever we’re encouraged to do more work, we should be a bit wary.