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Short title: B.D.C.(U)Ltd. Religious Investigation Paradigm

Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.
-- Walter Cronkite

Is it not a noble time for Buddhist persons to strengthen their goodwill and help each other develop a further increase in English language translations, commentaries, journals, newsletters, radio broadcasts, television and Buddha Dhamma information for the super highway?

An introduction to tactics to stimulate and stabilise a library information paradigm for religious investigation projects.

The mission is the library stays serviceable for 500 years.

In our 1998 paper, we discussed scenarios and challenges for Buddha Dhamma in the 21st century.

This discussion paper shows how implementation of two decades of action research steps for library advancement resulted in a special library designed for Buddha Dhamma religious investigation projects.

It discusses the potency of using some verifiable and some unverifiable generalisations to develop a general paradigm for comparative librarianship.

This general paradigm gives specialist librarians and end-users sufficient vision to be able to see the place of the library in the achievement of the organisation's goals and objectives.

The paradigm does not specify the highest level of technology must be available in a library system.

The prototype stage of adding a non-traditional method of providing service to remote users in the form of an Internet Newsgroup is under construction. An Internet Newsgroup is not a totally new technology. At present, we think we will be looking at LINUX software which is available for operating Newsgroups.

Advances in telecommunications have come so far that only the most flexible have stayed current.

At any given time, our computer systems have been about one generation behind what is available at the leading edge.

The paradigm is shaped to know only too well that there were ways and means far more effective and much cheaper than following imperious demands to keep updating with the latest technology.

However, since gaining the co-operation of many capable and energetic persons, when we are to make choices about our next-after-next stages, we appear to do so at a more leisurely pace within our paradigm than most organisations. The paradigm has a cultural strength that our organisation remains interested in generating more light than heat; more insight than hype.

At present, our special library planning has built up a number of specialists on its staff, including several translators, for Chinese and Japanese to English, two good abstracters, three indexers and two information systems specialists.

We exist to train persons to appreciate Buddhist studies and apply the essence of such study of the Buddhist Canon to everyday life.

Times have changed.

In the past, a typical Abbot Monk would have completed eight years of study at a Buddhist University, and would follow this with a Masters degree or Doctorate at a foreign university such as Oxford in the U.K. or Nalanda in India.

In retrospect, it might be argued that the motives for funding such studies were a foreign policy aspect of imperialism in the days of the British Empire.

The net result was that scholar Monks helped lead the U.K. in translation of Buddhist texts into the English language.

From time to time in world history, much higher education Buddhist infrastructure including library material and artefacts has been wiped out.

Australia is fortunate to have visits from a few Monks and Nuns who were international scholars but, as we understand it, they are not as active in traditional scholarship output as their ancestors.

The new scholarship appears to be functioning to give output in several countries simultaneously.

Also, some scholars appear to use their merit with their institutions to provide globally available reprints of classic texts and dictionaries, at affordable prices.

Energies consumed in administration of newer weekly Dhamma journals and providing newer information and printing infrastructures are not available for scholarship in the classic tradition.

The new output appears as affordable machine readable CD's keeping the Tipitika (the Buddha Dhamma Canon).

There is a growing tendency in Western countries for Buddhist organisations to dissipate scholar's research energies by inviting them to present papers at multifaith Conferences of one or five days duration, which appear to be public events for the entertainment of non-Buddhist audiences.

We do not intend to reflect on the sincerity of the motives of such persons when we say we hold that our paradigm is not to allot more than 1 per cent of our resources to such events.
We have explored how to run our Temple operation so that our library's operation prospects to address and service Members and Buddhist practitioners as end-users.

Our management style is that we are prudent, we are not speculators in trying to be all things to all beings.

Although we receive details of file servers, both actual and conceptual, gained by the experimentation of early adopters we remember early adopters, like all gamblers, have gains and losses.

By the power of kusala (wholesome) kamma; we are more inclined to admire the tactics of the merchants of early Byzantium who had learned to grow mulberry-trees and to breed silk worms; instead of paying the price and buying expensive silk from China.

Because we read voraciously and listen considerably, we gain from other person's experience and use it to plan for low risk as we hunt our next upgrade for hardware or software at affordable prices.

As mentioned earlier, we have been waiting to be able to afford to connect with our students worldwide by newsgroups and have our systems generate answers to their questions.
May those whose struggles helped our leading edge library systems become debugged and operational be well and happy.

From the comprehensive range of 52 possible human types (defined by one characteristic) which have been listed using the system of the fourth work of the Abhidhamma Pitaka; many types have helped in our library over 20 years.

Our Buddhist library paradigm includes experiential practice that has proved useful to help many beings, seen and unseen, because our action steps are framed to have a devamanussanam (Pali - for devas and humans) agenda.

Reciprocity, like a dhamma mirror mind, is an element of our schedules.

This discussion paper is part of our strategic plan to help our Members know the big picture of the World's processes for the preservation of Buddha's Teachings.

For over 20 years, we have been changing the mindsets of our helpers' organisation of our library.

May whatever insights to the practice of comparative librarianship is awakened in persons and devas from the mandala described in this paper help them generate the intention and make the practical effort to practice Buddha Dhamma internationally.

Such accumulated knowledge and skill will assist the cause of Buddha Dhamma for our Centre and the World Fellowship of Buddhists.

1.0 How did our first librarian and first library affect our minds?

The first mark of a strategic plan appears when we come to recognise a general need to make tactics that work to get the plan into operation.

As Glenn Ralston put it in 1998:

"Technology has already swept over us. It is no longer a technological argument, but rather a cultural change".

When discussing using technology to provide new responses to old problems, Dr. James Garner Ptaszynski considered one of the biggest problems he saw in for the appropriate adoption of technology in Higher Education is our limited vision of its use.

Many persons, quite understandably, tend to think of using technology within the present teaching paradigms and thereby limit its full potential contributions.

It seems we are entrapped in a double bind.

In earlier times, we stood in a double bind (and probably still are) in regard to the power of steam engines, petrol engines, jet engines, rocket engines.

Because of this double bind, one second we stand in a superstitious childish awe fearing the technology, then the next second we desire to master it, have it as our property, and use it more and more, regardless of price.

If we stopped our minds for a few moments, and turned ourselves toward critical thinking, we might be able to get insight into what we know or do not know about such matters.

From there, we could learn to know how what we use as support systems in these knowledge matters.

Then, we could untangle the imagined truths we held about our relationships between technics and other persons.

Our task is to develop a religious investigation paradigm suitable for use for a technology driven Buddha Dhamma library.

The management of the books and artefacts in our collection was started by the author in Australia from a mixture of notions 40 years ago in 1955.

To prevent us from being "too old-fashioned", it has been necessary to propel our Centre's library forward, step wise by action research techniques.

Earlier, although clear on the viewfinder needed for paradigm building, because funds did not exist, the library was fashioned from what is procurable.
As a preamble leading to an introduction to the effects of comparative librarianship, we have Members recall if they came from a home with books available. The prime librarians of these books were their mother, their father, their relatives or their guardians.

These authority figures chose from some catalogue or other and determined the first books we were to read.

Not only did they specify we read, but they also specified our library opening hours.

They had great control in giving us our vocabulary and grammar - affecting what we understood.

As our first teachers, rightly or wrongly, they had the power to constantly make judgements about how much reading they thought we could cope with.

May they be well and happy.

Vygotsky (1978) has called this phase of dependency the "zone of proximal development" which refers to the period during which the child cannot complete the task concerned without help.

The interaction means the very basis of thought is social; the interaction between the parent and child leads to the child tending to think like his or her first teachers.

For some children in Western Countries, reading under the blankets with a torch, after lights out, may have been one of their secondary library sites.

By the time we arrive at formal libraries or work stations having written text, like it or not like it, they are likely to be compared with echoes of our prime libraries.

One piece of research by Lindsay et al. (1985) compared a "paired reading" program with a "relaxed reading" program in which parents were taught simply to hear their children read with strong emphasis on the benefits of being positive and supportive.

This appeared to work well.

For superior exploitation for searching of a database the end-user ought have a vocabulary at least equal to that used in the database.

One of our present machine searchable databases uses about 35,000 words, including some Pali words.

Although "paired reading" is labour intensive, our staff library training accepts this process.
Since 1994, we followed a system of phasing down "paired reading" because we decided we wanted an ANDRAGOGY CULTURE.

Andragogy, as a professional perspective of adult educators, must be defined as an organised and sustained effort to assist adults to learn IN A WAY THAT ENHANCES THEIR CAPABILITY TO FUNCTION AS SELF-DIRECTED LEARNERS HAVING A PATH TO SCHOLARSHIP.

It is almost universally recognised, at least in theory, that central to the adult educator's function is a GOAL AND METHOD OF SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING. (J. Mezirow 1981)
We are retaining some "paired reading" because like joint proof reading, it does generate some acts of friendship. We think camaraderie in its motivational aspect is conducive to the notion of lifetimes of learning.

We intend to sample the hours per week persons engage in "paired reading" or its equivalent.

We doubt if "paired reading" is a legitimate approach for persons who are fluent in the English language; but for those who use English as a second language (ESL) we find it useful to align their English words with our sanctioned usage of Dhamma terminology.

Although we intend to phase down "paired reading" for some persons, we intend to leave a window of opportunity for our Members who either use English as a second language (ESL) or Languages Other Than English (LOTE) who could benefit from "paired reading".

The linguistic features of the spoken language include phonology/ orthography, morphology and syntax.

LOTE discourse features include prosodic features, turn taking, completion of each other's utterances, gestures and non-verbal language.

Our library resources include excellent Dhamma dictionaries mapping Pali and Sanskrit into Chinese and English.

Ed Neal in his June 1998 article in The Technology Source seems to question the virtuality of learning technology compared to the reality of the classroom.

Glenn Raiston in a response to Ed Neal, believes we did learn from the mistakes made with instructional television. His simple disagreement with Neal is that this depiction of that straw man -and now a mindset - has not existed for ten years.

It is worthwhile to remember this may be overstated and he was writing in the U.S.A.

To overcome such cultural debates becoming our only manner of thought, we add a new dimension to our paradigm for those interested in matching our literature with our end-users.

This is done by teaching our preferred terms.

As an example of our preferred terms in Pali, we use Pali terms to acknowledge three distinct stages of learning subject matter.

These stages are:

1. Learning (pariyatta).
2. Putting into practice (patipatti).
3. Realisation of the many truths of the problem in all respects (pativedha).

In Buddha Dhamma, there a distinction made between four types of knowledges.

The Pali term "sammuti-nana" is a designation for what we call the logical category of "general knowledge".

This genus is distinguished from the genus of "precise knowledge", based on exact definitions (pariccheda), and from various other kinds of knowledge which are classified according to their objects.

Switching from one genus to another for knowledge work is encouraged. When this skill is attained, it is a more potent satisfier for library helpers and end-users than using parental approval scripts.

Communal stability is helped by the team understanding of the importance of the Buddha Dhamma texts.

For stability, we want to do our library business in harmony.

Providing remote access to information, it is important we define "remote". This is very relative.

It may mean taking the opportunity of getting one or more of our Members to visit interstate or overseas to discuss themes of mutual interest.

For some person, it is talking to them on the telephone, loaning them a book or journal, or putting them on the mailing list of our Review.

To our Members, it may mean gaining access to a file on a personal computer situated one or two rooms from his or her workstation at our Centre.

To another person, it may mean filling a request to post, fax or email an article written at our Center to another country.

For others, it may be indirect, by giving them details of our website address at www.bdcu.org.au.

For other Members, it may mean providing them with a floppy disc holding some of our data.

New opportunities for remote access are being developed by establishing a software library for books on our website.

In 1998, we have placed one book, The Way You Are Looking For, on our website. Permission was given by the copyright owner who is a Buddhist Monk. We have permission to place other books by this Monk on our site.

As mentioned earlier, another non-traditional method of providing service to remote users comes from software that is available for the operating system LINEX.

Because it could be arranged to operate 24 hours a day, it could provide various services.
This means that the equipment is used very efficiently. In our conventional paper library, it has its main use during opening hours (which were three days a week and three nights a week in 1998) and then stands idle for most of the time because we have not the volunteers to staff it.

The newsgroup is a method that will become more important to us for several reasons.
Firstly, it provides a form of electronic conference that taps into information that often cannot be had through traditional means like books and journals.

Secondly, persons make contacts with other persons through such conferences and share knowledge in an informal environment.

The questions asked by users are answered by other users on many Bulletin Boards in places like America and England.

Many of the persons who read and contribute to the conferences are well qualified either academically or through personal experience to answer questions or to comment on topics of discussion.

Andrew Osborne (1993) mentioned in his preprint paper for the 7th Biennial Conference of the Victorian Association for Library Automation that "not every question is answered, but it is possible to attract more than twenty answers to one question or start a debate that may last for weeks or in some cases months".

However, before we setup a newsgroup, we would need to establish an effective firewall to protect the system from attacks that may be introduced from outside hackers.

A further advantage is it gives increased access into the community for persons with disabilities.

When writing a message in an electronic conference, persons only see the written word. They do not necessarily know you may be strapped into a wheelchair and maybe typing by means of an artificial hand.

It has a great levelling affect in that people are not automatically labelled as having a disability so persons with disabilities can gain access to persons who they would not normally be able to communicate with.

The author knows of several disabled people who can practise Buddha Dhamma.

However, disabled persons have greater difficulties in some areas of body recognition (kayanupassana) practice than persons who are not disabled.

It is a Vinaya rule that a disabled person cannot become a Monk or a Nun. Therefore, because our resources are limited, if we set up a facility that would neither encourage nor discourage disabled persons to use the facility.

We incline to the view that some approaches for funding Internet facilities for disabled persons of which we are aware are just too costly for our organisation to consider at the present.

Security of our site might require a quarantine to let the software age until we had received the next version of our virus-checking ability.

We do not want to put ourselves in the position of passing on viruses to external end-users because, at least in theory, we would be liable for damages to their computer files.
We have had to explain to many foreign Monks that high penalties exist in Australia for software infringement, including fines and imprisonment of directors.

For significantly long quotations from a copyright text it is necessary to pay a royalty to the copyright owner unless written permission is given to allow use free of charge.

With Buddhist texts, copyright exists at common law. There is no need for the owner to prove they own the copyright because prima facie there is no case to argue to the contrary.
Sometimes an author may write in the preface of a text that it may be copied for free distribution.

However, if the author was to die and the text went into his or her estate, it may be that the beneficiaries decide that they will not give free copyright.

It does not necessarily follow that the permission given in the first instance extends for the copyright life of the work.

For these reasons, we would be very careful in setting up an open site so we do not generate "digital theft" or "digital defamation" or "digital harassment of another person".

There is a need to monitor a site and we intend to have a strong code of behaviour using Buddha precepts that uses and volunteer helpers must adhere to.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes and Leanne Eames.

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