One of my most important mentors died unexpectedly a year ago. It should not have been unexpected — he was 82. He died in the exact place he would have chosen, apparently almost instantly. His passing left some surprises.
He died intestate — no will — and his widow was suddenly left to deal with a part of his life that she knew little about. She co-hosted hundreds of evenings with his colleagues and students over the decades and knew as much about his work as she cared to know. Now there was all this stuff — rooms full of notes, books, reprints, specimens and equipment. She wanted to sell the house. She wanted it all out.
Although technocrats obsess over intellectual property, academics don't worry about it so much. The body of knowledge, and all that surrounds it, seems clearly to belong to us. But in reality, part of it belongs to our employers. But what part? And what do you do with it if your employer doesn’t want it? My mentor was always a dogmatic, forceful man and when he retired, he never accepted that he had lost much of his influence and power. He was forced out of his office and took everything home. Who does it belong to now? What has value? What is irreplaceable? The task of deciding what is worth saving and who should have what has fallen on three former students, each of us living in a different country. Unless his employer unexpectedly intervenes and makes demands.
I've been trying to reduce my own similar, but much smaller, scientific footprint for years. It is a combination of ensuring that all this scientific detritus is not a burden for someone else to sort through, and that the unique facts, notes and observations are captured in some way. As I work through my own pre-digital legacy, other colleagues have passed their notes and photographs on to me, hoping I will know what to do with them. We can never pass on all of our unique knowledge. The connections between all these unpublished data points exist only in our brains, have never been written down, and will have to be resynthesised by the next person who needs them.
My mentor was the grand old man of my micro-field and we took it for granted that he would be with us forever. He's not here to give advice or instruction anymore, so I will only be able to discuss things with him in my imagination. I was a little boy for a long time with him around to guide me. Here is the real shock: I am the grand old man now.
