Libraries Redefining

Peter BrantleyDigital Library Federation

Jan 2009

DLF is a ...

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Prelude

“In 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. ‘That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,’ says a person who was there.”

- “From Major to Minor,” The Economist, Jan 10 08

Google ... the world’s library

GBS is a dreamlong anticipated.

(with some nightmares.)

All the books online.

a) commercialization of accessb) loss of our individual privacy c) increasing content hegemonyd) ... y mas

Stress and Erode

Old Institutions

• Bank tellers• Typewriters• Typesetting• Carburetors• Vacuum tubes• Slide rules• Disc jockeys• Stockbrokers• Telephone operators• Yellow pages• Repair guys• Bookbinders• Pimps • Cassette and reel-to-reel

recorders• VCRs• Turntables• Video stores• Record stores• Bookstores• Recording industry

• Courier/messenger services• Travel agencies• Print and cinematic porn• Porn actors• Stenographers• Wired telcos• Drummers• Toll collectors • Book publishing (especially reference works)• Conventional-watch makers• "Browse" shopping• U.S. Postal Service• Printing-press makers• Film cameras• Kodak …• Xerox machines

“The digital slay ride”, Jack Shafer, Slate (2008 Dec 16)

The digital uplift continues,unceasing.

The death of the library --as we have known it, for thelast several hundred years.

ARL, Median Ratio, 1995-2003Reference Queries to Full Time Students

ARL, Median Ratio, 1995-2003Total Circulation to Full Time Students

Libraries are (in danger of becoming):

merely1. Warm fuzzy places to study and chill2. Licensing agents for commercial

content

3. Warehouses for the print artifact

Library as warehouse of books“deserted” by Eisenvater, Flickr

So, like, dude.

Where shall we go next?

We must re-enter our old foundries.“Around & Through”, Kevinhooa, Flickr

(New and Redacted) Proverbs 4 Libraries

Libraries should be accessible

Libraries must make their Special Collections digitally

accessible through search.

Libraries are portable

People (have a fundamental right to)

constant and ubiquitous information access.

Libraries know where they are

Information must be provided in the dual contexts of time and place.

Libraries tell stories

The world is visual. | Immersive stories

The world is virtual; | engage the viewer.

Libraries help people learn

We must facilitate learning ( acquiring) vs

Focusing only on teaching ( providing)

Libraries are recombinant

Re-mixing content re-envisions the world;re-invents the user.

Libraries help forge memories

Preservation is an archival strategy

for increasing access and use.

Flickr (Commons) is transient … CDC, Unisys, DEC, …

Libraries speak for people

Issues owned by libraries:

– Fair use of copyrighted material

– Right of information access– Control of information privacy– Network rights of way

The library of the future -______________________

enables information flowacross the network.

The new library is all about :

PEOPLE working with

DATA.

«Acquiring

«Managing

«Describing

«Preserving

making «Accessible

making «Actionable

Sky surveys“Pinwheel Galaxy”, jimkster, Flickr

JHU Sheridan Libraries ++ Astrophysical Research Consortium

(ARC), for Sloan Digital Sky Survey.  

Digital archiving and preservation services for the entire SDSS data which have been produced over about 15 years during the second phase of SDSS.  

~100 TB and growing

Genomes

“Décodage du génome humain”, Christophe ALARY, Flickr

Images

“Ise_shrine_46”, ajari, Flickr

Repositories

Hathi Trust stats:

12/2008: ~ 2.5 million books ingested~ 350,000 books ingested per month ~ 375,000 public domain

by 12/2009 ... ~ 5 million books ingested~ 1 million public domain

books are data“Torah”, Tmuna Fish, Flickr

Smelting books down for information:

integrated into wikipediaqueryable in world languagesand digitally living as documents

Our world is a sensored world -

increasingly constant video record,surveillance of street, earth, + space

increasing transparency of lives and living

And we can explode the old libraryas a physical interface to the virtual ...

In the midst of the world around us.

• Omnipresence

Network POPs will be really, frickin’ anywherewe might want them to

be.

At our beck and call.

“Old folks with new technology”, Wanderingsolesphotography, Flickr

petiteinvention

Forwhat we have gone through -Is

the Transition -

Not:

Us, and separately_____________our machines + our computers.

But, Us,

and the data with us.

“ Small objects travel further and travel faster - their meaning adapting to the ever-changing context.

Every step an opportunity. ”

-- Jan Chipchase, “Future Perfect”

- “She’s on the phone” by Nice Logo, Flickr, Nov 20 07

“ This is Dewey for the digital age: a profoundly social construction of understanding enabled by the Internet.”

- John Seely Brown, “Exploring the Edge”

new generation

services

arePEOPLEnotCONTENT

FOCUSED

ramifying

-- placing people first:{putting content in the hands of each of usworking, learning, playing}

-- with others ...

and thiswill not come without a struggle

“Implicit in the markup for computer

recognition, extraction and

manipulation is a license to

actually do those things.”

Georgia Harper

(CC) “No known copyright restrictions”

In Sum

We together

must build

The People’s Library ...

to be available everywhere around us.

“Generation Gap” by Joi Ito, Flickr

kthxbai!

peter at diglib.orgnaypinya {twitter, skype}