Way of St. James - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

or St. James' Way (Galician O camiño de Santiago, Spanish name, El Camino de Santiago), is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where legend has it that the remains of the apostle, Saint James the Great, are buried.
Contents
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* 1 A major Christian pilgrimage route
* 2 History of St James's Way
o 2.1 Pre-Christian history of the route
o 2.2 The significance of the scallop symbol
o 2.3 The route during the Medieval period
o 2.4 The pilgrimage as penance
* 3 The modern-day pilgrimage
o 3.1 Routes to Santiago
o 3.2 Pilgrims' accommodation
o 3.3 The Pilgrim's passport
o 3.4 The compostela
o 3.5 Pilgrim's Mass
o 3.6 The modern pilgrimage in television and film
o 3.7 The pilgrimage as tourism
* 4 The Way's name in other languages
* 5 Further reading
o 5.1 Pilgrim's guides and travelogues
o 5.2 Fiction and other literary works
* 6 See also
* 7 External links
o 7.1 General information
o 7.2 Camino Confraternities
o 7.3 Travel information
o 7.4 Link collections
* 8 References

[edit] A major Christian pilgrimage route
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the ultimate goal of the pilgrimage.
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the ultimate goal of the pilgrimage.

The Way of St James has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times. It was considered one of three pilgrimages on which a plenary indulgence could be earned;[citation needed] the others are the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Legend holds that St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where they were buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela. There are some, however, who claim that the bodily remains at Santiago belong to Priscillian, the fourth-century Galician leader of an ascetic Christian sect, Priscillianism, who was one of the first Christian heretics to be executed.

There is not a single route; the Way can take one of any number of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. However a few of the routes are considered main ones. Santiago is such an important pilgrimage destination because it is considered the burial site of the apostle, James the Great. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly travelled. However, the Black Plague, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th- century Europe resulted in its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims arrived in Santiago annually. However, since then, the route has attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. The route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in October 1987; it was also named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites in 1993.

[edit] History of St James's Way
Monument to pilgrims, in the town of Burgos, Spain.
Monument to pilgrims, in the town of Burgos, Spain.

The pilgrimage to Santiago has never ceased from the time of the discovery of St. James' remains, though there have been years of fewer pilgrims, particularly during European wars. During the war of American Independence, John Adams was ordered by Congress to go to Paris to obtain funds for the cause. His ship started leaking and he disembarked with his two sons in Finisterre in 1779, where he proceeded to follow the Way of St. James in the opposite direction, in order to get to Paris overland. He did not stop to visit Santiago, and came to regret this during the course of his journey. In his autobiography, he gives an accurate description of the customs and lodgings afforded to St. James pilgrims in the 18th century, and mentions the legend as it was then told to travellers:
“ I have always regretted that We could not find time to make a Pilgrimage to Saint Iago de Compostella. We were informed, ... that the Original of this Shrine and Temple of St. Iago was this. A certain Shepherd saw a bright Light there in the night. Afterwards it was revealed to an Archbishop that St. James was buried there. This laid the Foundation of a Church, and they have built an Altar on the Spot where the Shepherd saw the Light. In the time of the Moors, the People made a Vow, that if the Moors should be driven from this Country, they would give a certain portion of the Income of their Lands to Saint James. The Moors were defeated and expelled and it was reported and believed, that Saint James was in the Battle and fought with a drawn Sword at the head of the Spanish Troops, on Horseback. The People, believing that they owed the Victory to the Saint, very chearfully fulfilled their Vows by paying the Tribute. ...Upon the Supposition that this is the place of the Sepulture of Saint James, there are great numbers of Pilgrims, who visit it, every Year, from France, Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe, many of them on foot. ”

—Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society, [1]

[edit] Pre-Christian history of the route

Prior to its existence as a Christian pilgrimage, the route is believed to have had significance for the ancient pagan peoples of the Iberian peninsula also, among them the Celts, and later the pre-Christian Romans who conquered Spain.[2] The site of Santiago de Compostela itself may have been a Roman shrine[citation needed] or trade route.[3]

To this day, many pilgrims continue from Santiago de Compostela to the Atlantic coast of Galicia, to finish their journeys at Spain's westernmost point Cape Finisterre (Galician: Fisterra). Although Cape Finisterre is not the westernmost point of mainland Europe (Cabo da Roca in Portugal is further west) the fact that the Romans called it Finisterrae (literally the end of the world, or Land's End in Latin) indicates that they viewed it as such.

Pagan influences can still be seen along the Way; indeed, some of the modern-day pilgrims declare themselves more attracted to the pagan legends associated with the Way than to the Christian ones. One legend holds that walking the route was a pagan fertility ritual; this is one explanation for the scallop shell being a symbol of the pilgrimage.[citation needed] An alternative interpretation is that the scallop, which resembles the setting sun, was the focus of pre-Christian Celtic rituals of the area. That is to say, the pre-Christian origin of the Way of St. James was a Celtic death journey, westwards towards the setting sun, terminating at the End of the World (Finisterra) on the "Coast of Death" (Costa de Morta) and the "Sea of Darkness" (that is, the Abyss of Death, the Mare Tenebrosum, Latin for the Atlantic Ocean, itself named after the Dying Civilization of Atlantis).[4][3]

The Pilgrims' road seems related to prehistoric cults of Fertility arriving to Atlantic Europe from Mediterranean shores[citation needed]. Symbols of Ashtarte ,the star within a circle,or Aphrodite,Venus coming on a shell,have been found along the roads to Compostela[citation needed] and among the ancient basques' mythology and legends,those related to Mari, the Mairu and the rising of Megaliths.[citation needed] Joseph Campbell associated the cult of Mari to that of Ishtar and Kali and in pre-Israelites times, the rejected consort of God called "the great prostitute",Asherah.[citation needed]

[edit] The significance of the scallop symbol
St. James pilgrim accesories
St. James pilgrim accesories
St. James is sometimes depicted as St. James the Moor Slayer, as well as 'St. James' the Pilgrim.
St. James is sometimes depicted as St. James the Moor Slayer, as well as 'St. James' the Pilgrim.

See also: Shell of Saint James

The scallop shell, typically found on the shores in Galicia, has long been the symbol of the Camino de Santiago. Over the centuries the scallop shell has taken on mythical, metaphorical and practical meaning.

There are different accounts of the mythical origin of the symbol. Which account is taken depends on who is telling the story. Two versions of the most common myth are:

James the Greater, the brother of John, was killed in Jerusalem for his convictions about his brother. James had spent some time preaching on the Iberian Peninsula.

1. (version 1) After James' death, his disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. Off the coast of Spain a heavy storm hit the ship, and the body was lost to the ocean. After some time, however, the body washed ashore undamaged, covered in scallops.
2. (version 2) After James' death his body was mysteriously transported by a ship with no crew back to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. As James' ship approached land, a wedding was taking place on the shore. The young bridegroom was on horseback, and on seeing the ship approaching, his horse got spooked, and the horse and rider plunged into the sea. Through miraculous intervention, the horse and rider emerged from the water alive, covered in seashells.[citation needed]

Besides being the mythical symbol, the scallop shell also acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which come together at a single point, represent the various routes pilgrims traveled, eventually arriving at a single destination: the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. The scallop shell is also a metaphor for the pilgrim. As the waves of the ocean wash scallop shells up on the shores of Galicia, God's hand also guided the pilgrims to Santiago.[citation needed]

The scallop shell served practical purposes for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago as well. The shell was the right size for gathering water to drink or for eating out of as a makeshift bowl. Also, because the scallop shell is native to the shores of Galicia, the shell functioned as proof of completion. By having a scallop shell, a pilgrim could almost certainly prove that he or she had finished the pilgrimage and had actually seen the "end of the world" which at that point in history was the Western coast of Spain.[citation needed]

The reference to St. James rescuing a "knight covered in scallops" is therefore a reference to St. James healing, or resurrecting, a dying (setting sun) knight. Note also that the knight obviously would have had to be "under the waters of death" for quite some time for shellfish to have grown over him. Similarly, the notion of the "Sea of Darkness" (Atlantic Ocean) disgorging St. James' body, so that his relics are (allegedly) buried at Santiago de Compostella on the coast, is itself a metaphor for "rising up out of Death", that is, resurrection.[citation needed]

See also: Pilgrim's hat

The pilgrim's staff is a walking stick used by pilgrim's to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.[5] Generally, the stick has a hook on it so that something may be hung from it. The walking stick sometimes has a cross piece on it. [6]

See also: Pilgrim's staff

[edit] The route during the Medieval period
Saint James the Great with his pilgrim's staff. The hat is typical, but he often wears his emblem, the scallop shell on the front brim of the hat or elsewhere on his clothes (it may have been lost because of the deterioration of the painting)
Saint James the Great with his pilgrim's staff. The hat is typical, but he often wears his emblem, the scallop shell on the front brim of the hat or elsewhere on his clothes (it may have been lost because of the deterioration of the painting)

The earliest records of visits paid to the shrine dedicated to St. James at Santiago de Compostela date from the 8th century, in the time of the Kingdom of Asturias. The pilgrimage to the shrine became the most renowned medieval pilgrimage, and it became customary for those who returned from Compostela to carry back with them a Galician scallop shell as proof of their completion of the journey. This practice was gradually extended to other pilgrimages.[citation needed]

The earliest recorded pilgrims from beyond the Pyrenees visited the shrine in the middle of the 10th century, but it seems that it was not until a century later that large numbers of pilgrims from abroad were regularly journeying there. The earliest records of pilgrims that arrived from England belong to the period between 1092 and 1105. However, by the early 12th century the pilgrimage had become a highly organized affair.

One of the great proponents of the pilgrimage in the 12th century was Calixtus II who started the Compostelan Holy Years.[7] The official guide in those times was the Codex Calixtinus. Published around 1140, the 5th book of the Codex is still considered the definitive source for many modern guidebooks. Four pilgrimage routes listed in the Codex originate in France and converge at Puente la Reina. From there, a well-defined route crosses northern Spain, linking Burgos, Carrión de los Condes, Sahagún, León, Astorga, and Compostela.

The daily needs of pilgrims on their way to, and from, Compostela were met by a series of hospitals and hospices. These had royal protection and were a lucrative source of revenue. A new genre of ecclesiastical architecture, Romanesque, with its massive archways, was designed to cope with huge devout crowds. There was also the now- familiar paraphernalia of tourism, such as the selling of badges and souvenirs. Since the Christian symbol for James the Greater was the scallop shell, many pilgrims would wear this as a sign to anyone on the road that they were a pilgrim. This gave them privileges to sleep in churches and ask for free meals, but also warded off thieves who did not dare attack devoted pilgrims.

The pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela was possible because of the protection and freedom provided by the Kingdom of France, where the majority of pilgrims originated. Enterprising French people (including Gascons and other peoples not under the French crown) settled in towns along the pilgrimage routes, where their names appear in the archives. The pilgrims were tended by people like Domingo de la Calzada who was later recognized as a saint himself.

Pilgrims would walk the Way of St. James, often for months, in order to arrive at the great church in the main square of Compostela to pay homage to St. James. So many pilgrims have laid their hands on the pillar just inside the doorway of the church that a groove has been worn in the stone.

Oddly, the popular Spanish name for the astronomical Milky Way is El Camino de Santiago. The Milky Way was said to be formed from the dust raised by travelling pilgrims in a common medieval legend.[8]. Compostela itself means 'field of stars'.[3]

[edit] The pilgrimage as penance
Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert

The Church employed a system of rituals to atone for temporal punishment due to sins known as penance. According to this system, pilgrimages were a suitable form of expiation for some temporal punishment, and they could be used as acts of penance for those who were guilty of certain crimes. As noted in the Catholic Encyclopedia,
“

In the registers of the Inquisition at Carcassone… we find the four following places noted as being the centres of the greater pilgrimages to be imposed as penances for the graver crimes: the tomb of the Apostles at Rome, the shrine of St. James at Compostella [sic], St. Thomas' body at Canterbury, and the relics of the Three Kings at Cologne.[9]

”

There is still a tradition in Flanders of freeing one prisoner a year[10] under the condition that this prisoner walk to Santiago wearing a heavy backpack, accompanied by a guard.

[edit] The modern-day pilgrimage
The modern symbol of the way
The modern symbol of the way

Today tens of thousands[11] of Christian pilgrims and other travellers set out each year from their front doorstep, or popular starting points across Europe, to make their way to Santiago de Compostela. Most travel by foot, some by bicycle, and a few travel as some of their medieval counterparts did, on horseback or by donkey (for example, the British author and humorist Tim Moore). In addition to people undertaking a religious pilgrimage, there are many travellers and hikers who walk the route for non-religious reasons: travel, sport, or simply the challenge of weeks of walking in a foreign land. Also, many consider the experience a spiritual adventure to remove themselves from the bustle of modern life. It acts as a retreat for many modern "pilgrims".

[edit] Routes to Santiago

For more details on this topic, see Way of St. James (route descriptions).

A post marking the way
A post marking the way

Pilgrims on the Way of St. James walk for weeks or months to visit the city of Santiago de Compostela. They can follow many routes (any path to Santiago is a pilgrim's path) but the most popular route is the French Way or Camino Francés; the most common starting points are cities in Spain situated along this route. Historically, most of the pilgrims came from France, due to the Codex Calixtinus. For this reason, the Spanish consider the Pyrenees the starting point. Common starting points along the French border are Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port or Somport on the French side of the Pyrenees and Roncesvalles or Jaca on the Spanish side.

However, many pilgrims begin further afield, in one of the four French towns which are common and traditional starting points: Le Puy, Vézelay, Arles and Tours. Cluny, site of the celebrated medieval abbey, was another important rallying point for pilgrims, and, in 2002, it was integrated into the official European pilgrimage route linking Vézelay and Le Puy. Some pilgrims start from even further away, though their routes will often pass through one of the four French towns mentioned. Some Europeans begin their pilgrimage from the very doorstep of their homes just as their medieval counterparts did hundreds of years ago.

Pilgrims coming from Northern and Eastern Europe historically passed through Switzerland. Today the historic route has been restored, beginning at the Lake of Constance and ending in Geneva at the French border. The route passes by three traditional pilgrimage places, Einsiedeln, Flüeli Ranft, and the Caves of Saint Beatus. The path also passes through historic cities including St. Gall, Lucerne, Schwyz, Interlaken, Thun, Fribourg and Lausanne.

[edit] Pilgrims' accommodation
St. James's shell, a symbol of the route, on a wall in León, Spain
St. James's shell, a symbol of the route, on a wall in León, Spain

In Spain and southern France, pilgrim's hostels dot the common routes providing overnight accommodation for recognized pilgrims, those who hold a credencial. (See below.) In Spain this type of accommodation is called a refugio or an albergue, both of which are similar to youth hostels or hostelries in the French system of Gîtes d'étape; beds are in dormitories, and they usually cost between three and seven Euros per night, but a few operate on voluntary donations and are known as donativos. Pilgrims are usually limited to one night's accommodation.

These hostels may be run by the local parish, the local council, private owners, or pilgrims' associations. Occasionally these refugios are located in monasteries, such as the one in Samos, Spain, run by monks or the one in Santiago de Compostela.

[edit] The Pilgrim's passport
St. James pilgrim passport stamps in Spain for the Camino Frances
St. James pilgrim passport stamps in Spain for the Camino Frances
St. James pilgrim passport stamps in France on the Via Turenensis (Tours route) for the Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle. The World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France lists the major French towns with stamps.
St. James pilgrim passport stamps in France on the Via Turenensis (Tours route) for the Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle. The World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France lists the major French towns with stamps.

Most pilgrims have a document called the credencial, which they have purchased for a few euros through a Spanish tourist agency or their local church, depending on their starting location. The credencial is a pass which allows (sometimes free) overnight accommodation in refugios. Also known as the "Pilgrim's passport", the credencial is stamped with the official St. James stamp of each town or refugio at which the pilgrim has stayed. It provides walking pilgrims with a record of where they ate or slept, but also serves as proof to the Pilgrim's office in Santiago that the journey is accomplished according to an official route. The credencial is available at refugios, tourist offices, some local parish houses, and outside Spain, through the national St. James organisation of that country. The stamped credencial is also necessary if the pilgrim wants to obtain a Compostela, a certificate of completion of the pilgrimage.

Most often the stamp can be obtained in the refugio, Cathedral or local church. If the church is closed, the town hall or office of tourism can provide a stamp, as well as nearby youth hostels or private St. James addresses. Outside Spain, the stamp can be associated with somewhat of a ceremony, where the stamper and the pilgrim can share information. As the pilgrimage approaches Santiago however, the increased number of pilgrims cause many of the stamps in small towns to be self-service, while in the larger towns there are several options to obtain the necessary stamp.

[edit] The compostela

The compostela is a certificate of accomplishment given to pilgrims on completing the Way. To earn the compostela one needs to walk a minimum of 100 km (cyclists must cycle at least 200 km). In practice for walkers, that means starting in the small city of Sarria, for it has good transportation connections via bus and rail to other places in Spain. Pilgrims arriving in Santiago de Compostela who have walked at least the last 100 km, or cycled 200 km to get there (as indicated on their credencial), are eligible for this compostela from the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago.

In medieval Catholicism, the compostela counted as an act of indulgence. The pilgrim was entitled to a partial indulgence, or, if the compostela was obtained in a Holy Year, a plenary indulgence. The full text of the certificate is in Latin and reads:

CAPITULUM hujus Almae Apostolicae et Metropolitanae Ecclesiae Compostellanae sigilli Altaris Beati Jacobi Apostoli custos, ut omnibus Fidelibus et Perigrinis ex toto terrarum Orbe, devotionis affectu vel voti cosa, ad limina Apostoli Nostri Hispaniarum Patroni ac Tutelaris SANCTI JACOBI convenientibus, authenticas visitationis litteras expediat, omnibus et singulis praesentes inspecturis, notum facit : (Latin version of name of recipient) Hoc sacratissimum Templum pietatis causa devote visitasse. In quorum fidem praesentes litteras, sigillo ejusdem Sanctae Ecclesiae munitas, ei confero. Datum Compostellae die (day) mensis (month) anno Dni (year) Canonicus Deputatus pro Peregrinis

The pilgrim passport is examined carefully for stamps and dates. If a key stamp is missing, or if the pilgrim does not claim a religious purpose for their pilgrimage, the compostela may be refused. The Pilgrim office of Santiago awards more than 100,000 compostelas per year to pilgrims from over 100 countries.

[edit] Pilgrim's Mass

A Pilgrim's Mass in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is held each day at noon for pilgrims. Pilgrims who received the Compostela the day before have their countries of origin and the starting point of their pilgrimage announced at the Mass.

[edit] The modern pilgrimage in television and film

Art critic and journalist Brian Sewell made a journey to Santiago de Compostela for a television series The Naked Pilgrim for UK's Channel Five in 2003. Travelling by car along the French route, he visits many towns and cities on the way: stop offs include Paris, Chartres, Roncesvalles, Burgos, Leon and Frómista. Sewell, a lapsed Catholic, is moved by the stories of other pilgrims and by the sights he sees. The series climaxes with Sewell's emotional response to the Mass at Compostela.

The pilgrimage is central to the plot of The Milky Way (1969 film) by surrealist director Luis Buñuel. However, the film is intended to be a critique of the Catholic church, as the modern pilgrims encounter various manifestations of Catholic dogma and heresy.

[edit] The pilgrimage as tourism

The Galician government seeks to make the Way into a popular tourist destination. When there is a Holy Compostellan Year (whenever July 25 falls on a Sunday; the next will be 2010) the Galician government's Xacobeo tourism campaign is unleashed once more.

[edit] The Way's name in other languages

The Way of St. James is most often referred to by the names used in the areas it passes:

* Spanish: El Camino de Santiago or simply El Camino
* Galician: O Camiño de Santiago or Ruta Xacobea
* Basque: Donejakue Bidea
* French: O Camiño de Santiago or le chemin de Saint Jacques''
* Portuguese: O Caminho de Santiago

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Pilgrim's guides and travelogues

* Confraternity of St. James, "Pilgrim Guides To Spain 1. The Camino Francés".
* Account of a horse back journey along the St James Way

[edit] Fiction and other literary works

* Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage
* Shirley MacLaine, The Camino
* James Michener, Iberia; contains one chapter about the Camino de Santiago
* Tim Moore, Spanish Steps'
* Tracy Saunders, Pilgrimage to Heresy, a fictionalised account of the pilgrimage. Suggests (after Professor Henry Chadwick) that the tomb in Compostela may be the burial site of Priscillian, Bishop of Avila, executed for "heresy and witchcraft" by the Romans in 385 CE.

[edit] See also

* World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France
* Confraternity of Saint James
* Order of Santiago
* Dominic de la Calzada
* Cross of Saint James

[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Way of St. James

[edit] General information

* The official site of the Santiago de Compostela cathedral
* Compostela Group of Universities - a network of Universities preserving the historical and cultural heritage of the route

[edit] Camino Confraternities

* Site of The Confraternity of Saint James, England
* Site of the American Pilgrims on the Camino
* Site of The Canadian Company of Pilgrims

[edit] Travel information

* Pilgrim Wiki, a pilgrim guide written by pilgrims
* The Camino - The pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in pictures
* General information about the Camino de Santiago de Compostela
* Forum on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
* Way of St. James travel guide from Wikitravel

[edit] Link collections

* Xacowebs Collection of websites related to Way of St. James
* International Bibliography
* Account of two horse back journeys along the St James Way and the via Francigena

Discussion of the dissertation is due July 22nd.

I think the themes i'd like to pursue are along the lines of :

'The viability of the Learning Organisation as a Strategic Choice in for business from different national cultures, eg the UK, Middle East and Asia'.

Sounds a task but I think there's probably much in the literature about this and I think it could be very revealing.

Web 2.0: boon or bane for universities? | E-learning | EducationGuardian.co.uk

Web 2.0: boon or bane for universities?


For some the advantages are limitless but the very strength of the technology also poses inherent risks. Harriet Swain weighs the pros and cons

Monday May 12, 2008
EducationGuardian.co.uk

To find out what the interactive communication tools known as web 2.0 could mean for universities, it is worth looking at the YouTube clip "A Vision of Students Today".

Created by students and faculty in cultural anthropology of Kansas State University, it opens with a student eye view of an empty lecture theatre, before presenting the findings of a survey into the student experience through placards held up by individual students.

These findings, drawn from responses by 133 of the 200 students surveyed, are interesting in themselves. They show that on average respondents expected to read eight books, 2,300 web pages, and 1,281 Facebook profiles that semester. While they would write 42 pages for class, they would write another 500 pages of emails.

But the clip is revealing in other ways, too. First, created from an online text edited 367 times by 200 students, it involved students surveying themselves, demonstrating how useful web 2.0 can be for universities in market research. At the same time, it is an example of how effective web 2.0 technologies are in projects involving collaboration.

It then shows how much more interesting it can be to present survey results through these technologies than through a traditional paper-based report - something worth passing on to any learner graduating in the post web 2.0 era.

All this marks a revolution in the way higher education is organised and delivered. Brian Kelly, UK web focus at UKoln, the national centre of expertise in digital information management, says that two years ago everyone was wondering whether web 2.0 had any relevance for higher education - "I think that's generally accepted now."

Les Watson, interim director of information services at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a consultant for the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc), which supports universities' online activities, goes further. "Anyone who thinks about learning and teaching and looks at these technologies cannot avoid taking advantage of them," he says.

Universities are indeed taking advantage of web 2.0, although not in a uniform way. Some lecturers are allowing students access to podcasts and videos of their lectures. Others are encouraging students to collaborate through wikis and using RSS feeds to organise their own work. Many are now giving feedback on essays through Skype and using social networking sites both for their own research and to encourage student debate. Still others conduct seminars on Second Life.

Watson says Royal Holloway, which is redesigning its library, set up a Facebook site asking for suggestions from students about what they would like to see provided in the new space. Within 24 hours 200 students had registered comments - many of them constructive, although Watson admits: "You also had a few people with an axe to grind."

This highlights the fact that web 2.0 presents dangers too. One institution reported three examples of serious problems in one year involving students' use of the new technology including the victim of a student scuffle using Facebook to identify the address of his attacker, and getting his revenge.

And there are other difficulties too. First, it tends to be individual academics who are driving innovative use of the technology in learning, which can present problems when those academics move on, or when they want support from their institution's centralised IT systems.

Assessment also becomes more difficult when academics are not merely having to assign marks to a heap of scripts but to wade through student podcasts and video clips or Second Life presentations.

There is also the fear that, if students have access to podcasts and YouTube videos of lectures, they may not bother turning up to the real thing. And who owns the copyright to these podcasts - the lecturer? The institution that employs him or her to lecture? No one?

Meanwhile, there are issues over who should be responsible if students or lecturers say something online that results in litigation against the university.

Then there is the issue of control. A lecturer involved in a discussion on a public social networking site is operating in a forum that belongs not to his or her institution but to the students, and, ultimately to the private company that runs the site. This company may at some point decide to make commercial use of the information on the site, or to withdraw its services.

Peter Tinsen, executive secretary of Ucisa, the Universities Information Systems Association, says it also puts institutions at the mercy of fashion in terms of the collaborative space they use. "Facebook has been flavour of the month up until now, although it tends to be My Space abroad," he says. "But Facebook has seen a decline in the number of users. Does that mean the next big thing will be, for example, Second Life and we will have to move resources into that area?"

Many of these dangers are surmountable. Institutions are issuing guidelines to students about how to keep safe while social networking, and students are still turning up to lectures. But copyright and intellectual property issues involved in web 2.0 remain vague, and it is not yet entirely clear how far students want universities invading their online space.

A survey carried out for Jisc last year showed that 65% of sixth formers hoping to go to university used social networking sites, but most failed to see how they could be used for teaching and resented the idea that academics could interfere in a forum they saw as primarily social.

Most of those involved in universities' use of web 2.0 nevertheless insist that institutions should not become overcautious. "Universities should be risk-taking organisations, says Kelly. "Learning is a risky process."

As I noted in an earlier post, humanities scholars are beginning to experiment with social scholarship, embracing open access, creating and using social networking sites and collaborative tools, and undertaking joint research projects. But I must acknowledge that social scholarship (which I’m using as a catch-all term to include open access, web 2.0, and a culture of collaboration) is in its early stages and faces significant obstacles—economic, cultural, and technological. These challenges include:

1. Lack of awareness of social scholarship: According a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (“Researchers Develop Online Tools for Science Collaborations“), few scientists are aware of collaborative resources such as blogs and social networking sites. I’ve noticed this lack of awareness among faculty members from pretty much every discipline at my university. As the article points out, many people don’t use new technologies or communication methods unless they have specific needs to meet—why invest the effort in changing how you do work unless there are concrete payoffs?
2. Intellectual property concerns: Some researchers worry that if they make their work available online before publishing it with a traditional publisher they will lose control of it. For instance, a competitor may read their blog entry about ongoing research and scoop them—or even plagiarize their work. They also fear that publishers will refuse to publish a work that has already been made available online. From another perspective, copyright law also limits what material you can incorporate into your own work and share—for instance, museums and other cultural institutions seem to be levying higher fees for publication of digital images to which they hold the copyright.
3. Skepticism about the quality of electronic-only publications: According to research by UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, faculty in five disciplines—English, biostatistics, law and economics, anthropology, and chemical engineering–associate electronic-only publication with the lack of peer review and thus the lack of quality. If researchers don’t believe that tenure committees will give them credit for publishing in open access journals, then they will stick with more traditional means of publication.
4. Lack of recognition for social scholarship: In many disciplines, there is currently little incentive for researchers to embrace social scholarship; the incentives are with the traditional system. When I talk to faculty about social scholarship, many appreciate the vision of sharing but worry about the implementation, particularly whether tenure committees will give them credit for collaborative scholarship. What kind of rewards and recognition do you get for commenting on a colleague’s blog, publishing your articles through an institutional repository, sharing your bibliographies, or keeping an open notebook documenting your research? The UC Berkeley’s new report “Publishing Needs and Opportunities at the University of California” finds that “a significant minority” of faculty are experimenting with alternative publishing models, but that they “are increasingly frustrated by a tenure and review system that fails to recognize these new publishing models and hence constrains experimentation both in the technologies of dissemination and in the audiences addressed.”
5. Lack of time to make work available online: Contributing content to user-generated sites, reading and commenting on blogs, sharing bookmarks and doing all of the other work of social scholarship take a lot of time—time that many busy academics don’t have. In a blog post on why Web 2.0 hasn’t been adopted in the biosciences, David Crotty, executive editor of the online publication Cold Spring Harbor Protocols, details how traditional methods of doing research can often be more efficient than Web 2.0 approaches, at least initially, since you can just email a file rather than finding a collaborative site, setting up an account, uploading the file, inviting participants to view it, waiting for them to establish accounts, etc.
6. Cultural obstacles: Engaging in online discussions and making public thoughts that are in process are not yet part of mainstream academic culture. As David Crotty notes, many academics are unlikely to make critical comments in a public forum, since they don’t want to piss off potential reviewers, employers, or collaborators.
7. Need for sound economic models for open access publication: Producing academic journals isn’t free, as I learned when I served as the managing editor of Postmodern Culture—even if editors donate their time, funds are needed for copyediting, coordinating editorial review, covering travel costs for editorial meetings, paying for web hosts, etc. How will open access journals be paid for—through author fees? University, society or foundation support? What will guarantee the sustainability of these journals and provide long-term access to their content? If scholars worry about the viability and reputation of open access journals, what will entice them to publish in these journals rather than traditional publications? In Open Access Publishing and the Emerging Infrastructure for 21st-Century Scholarship, Don Waters, Program Officer for Scholarly Communications at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, expresses skepticism about the open access model: “One worry about mandates for open access publishing is that they will deprive smaller publishers of much needed subscription income, pushing them into further decline, and making it difficult for them to invest in ways to help scholars select, edit, market, evaluate, and sustain the new products of scholarship represented in digital resources and databases. The bigger worry, which is hardly recognized and much less discussed in open access circles, is that sophisticated publishers are increasingly seeing that the availability of material in open access form gives them important new business opportunities that may ultimately provide a competitive advantage by which they can restrict access, limit competition, and raise prices.”

I believe that these challenges can be overcome and will sketch some strategies for promoting social scholarship in my final posting on this thread.

Starting to turn my thoughts toward Emerald eBooks now. I wonder if we're ready to start contemplating such a thing? I mean, we looked at this some time ago and decided against such a route, but with the Elsevier acquisition all bets are off. And it's not just us, the whole industry is struggling to come to terms with books in the age of the internet - copyright, attention span issues regarding long form, interactivity and so on. Scot Karp writes:

You look at a book, read a book, and you easily perceive a coherent whole. You look at all the information on that book’s topic on the web, all connected, and you can’t see the sum of the parts — but we are starting to get our minds around it. We can’t yet recognize the superiority of this networked thinking process because we’re measuring it against our old linear thought process.

Is it true that before I begin to flesh out what an Emerald eBook might mean I need to first reconsider what a book is in a networked world? This idea of connectivity keeps cropping up - I remember Erin Maclean's delightful keynote at O'reilly Tools of change last year and her passion for the book, specifically her dictionary was evident. However she was happy to concede that the 'bookiness' of the book lay as much in it's relevance, usefulness, accessibility and convenience as it did in the actual content. Can't the these characteristics be enhanced by an e-edition of the book? Does it have be shovelled onto the 'net as PDF and left for users to download and read on some other device elsewhere? The defining characteristic of the web is the ability to link to other relevant content easily and quickly; Skott karp again:

Maybe I don’t need 250 page books anymore because the web enables me to connect ideas and create narratives that I used to depend on book authors to do for me, because I wasn’t able to access all the information and connect all the dots myself.

In the past when eBook and eTextbooks were floated around as a development I think we got hung up on ideas of adding value by adding content - specifically rich, interactive content. Why was this? Well, it was probably to do with believing that what people wanted was richer more interactive experience with the content. However it is now clear to me that people want links and to be able to connect the dots themselves. Question: Would you prefer to access an 'eBook' with rich connections rather rich interactive content? Comments please.