A colleague of mine is attending a conference in Calgary this weekend devoted to libraries and librarians. Some of you may think this is a sure-fire cure for insomnia, but wait! There is some interestingly subversive rumblings in the industry of libraries. The digital age is having a fascinating effect. Information doesn't not require a physical repository anymore. Here are some questions librarians are wrestling with.
1) What effect will Google have on libraries? Google is more than just a clever search engine. Google is redefining how information is created, stored and retrieved. In fact, discussions are centering around the idea that Google may become a publisher of content. (http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2007/10/16/googleright.html)
2) What effect is the video game culture having on libraries? The keynote apparently talked about the role of libraries in relation to gaming and gamers. There have been a growing interest in supporting gamers by creating events at the library that are game-play related. What does this have to do with books? Let's remember that libraries aren't supposed to be just books. They are information centres. Gaming is actually a form of personal narrative that allows fictional and non-fictional stories to be created by the players. The keynote mentioned a book I have been intending to read "Got Game." You can find it on Amazon. It is a book that examines how gamers are changing today's workplace.
As with everything, I tend to view stuff like this as interconnected somehow and I observe this thinking as the effect of a ripple in existing knowledge. This new thinking causes its own ripples.
I can't help but return, yet again, to an idea in Nicholas Negroponte's "Being Digital." I constantly return to it because there is so much that he touches on that keeps popping up. It's an old book, but what resonate for me is the "how" and the "why" of technological impact, moreso than the "what." In one chapter he refers to an idea about stratified access to all content. This stratification won't limit what content is available, but rather what else is included in the content. Radio and Television (prior to cable) were "free" in the sense that anyone with the tools to receive the information could do so. To monetize this free service, producers of the content would insert advertising in between the content bits. This is similar to Google's strategy. Google has successfully monetized search results and email by making these services free to everyone, and inserting ads along the way. Negroponte's point in the chapter suggested that there would be a "free" ad-inserted layer, a less free but less ad-inserted layer, and finally a premium not-free no ads layer. Others will come up with other models of this idea (for example, online stock trading using time delay as the means of stratification).
So, next time you go past your local library, imagine it in 10, 0 years from now. I suspect we will see some significant changes in this ancient institution. Perhaps the redefinition of libraries will start another ripple (preferably a tsunami) in the direction of another ancient institution in desparate need of redefinition... the school.
-O
