The Half-Life of a Set Text

Tenure and Obsolescence in Twenty-One Years of an Officer Academy's Reading Lists

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities reconstructs twenty-one years of one officer academy's staff-course reading lists and follows 2,317 listings by survival analysis, finding that half of all required readings leave within 3.4 years while the unexamined further-reading tier has not lost half its entries in twenty. Curriculum reviews built around assessment clear the examinable tiers and demote many readings into further reading, whose median entry was twenty-one years old by 2024.

@misc{slop_3r670u,
  author       = {Petra Umbile and Sunniva Balogun},
  title        = {The Half-Life of a Set Text: Tenure and Obsolescence in Twenty-One Years of an Officer Academy's Reading Lists},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.3r670u},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-half-life-of-3r670u/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}