Unpeeling the Onion with Marcus Banks

Marcus Banks is the Head of the Blaisdell Medical Library at the University of California, Davis. He has written and spoken extensively about the evolution of scholarly communication. He jogs halfheartedly but with determination all the same.

Website: mbanks.typepad.com  Twitter: @mab992

As an inveterate podcast listener, I enjoy shows about sports, politics, the US Supreme Court and popular culture. (You may have figured out already that my podcast needs are mostly filled by Slate.) These radio programs in your ears are a perfect companion while jogging, commuting or even, especially, while doing the dishes.

After a few years of podcast consumption I realized one niche was missing, from my podcast table in any case. This is : why people do people do what they do? What are the motivations and drivers behind their best work and deepest passions? Sure, a political strategist can guide listeners through the intricacies of getting a piece of legislation passed and into law. But why do they do such work in the first place? What ideals shape their actions? After all, a life lolling about on the beach would be easier. But this is not the path chosen.

And thus, my podcast ‘Unpeeling the Onion‘ was born. Composed of five interviews in the first season, the driving thread is to unpack, to unpeel, those deeper motivations and values. I ask playwright Mickle Maher what it’s like to work to work for a theater company that has no director. I chat with professional coach Marnie Rosenberg about what drew her to this career after a successful run in advertising.

And, in what may be of particular interest to the Digital Science community, I recorded three separate interviews about the future of scholarly publishing. One is with Amy Brand, a former employee and current board member of Digital Science, about her current efforts as Director of the MIT Press. Amy’s work in developing contributorship roles for all aspects of scholarly knowledge creation (not just the formal writing of a paper) is pioneering.

Another is with T. Scott Plutchak, a librarian who calls for a more collegial approach to achieving open access than advocates often offer. Scott has now taken that collaborative ethos into a new role as the Director of Digital Data Curation efforts at his university.  This is admittedly an amorphous conversation at this stage, but we do know that multiple parties will need to cooperate to preserve digital data for the very long term.

The final conversation is with Jason Schmitt, a communication professor who believes that the nature of scholarship and learning is on the cusp of great change. Jason is a prolific contributor to the Huffington Post and Medium who perceived great potential in learning analytics to help us pinpoint the best way to teach every learner. This would be a positive and hopeful use of big data.

As the interviewer, I had my own opinions on all of these topics and did not always agree with my guests. But the purpose of ‘Unpeeling the Onion’ is not to put people on the hot seat, rather it is to draw out the underlying assumptions and drivers behind their efforts. Hopefully I nudged without being a nuisance, cajoled gently rather than waving a flag. To see if I succeeded, please listen to all the interviews via the show page or by searching for ‘Unpeeling the Onion’ on iTunes.