On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 22:38, Jay Luker <lbjay_at_reallywow.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Alexander Johannesen
>> ... Where are the geeks who enjoy semantic data modelling
>> across silos? Or the ones who knows all there is to know about digital
>> identity management? Things that's actually damn, seriouslly
>> you'll-all-go-down-in-flames-without-it technologies? Where is it?
>> Where's the direction you need to make to get to it? Where's your
>> passionate people who understands all this and wants to see it
>> through?
>
> See http://code4lib.org.
Ok, not a bad answer, but having been part of Code4Lib for 5 years I
can tell with a certain degree of confidence that library geeks in
general do not know too much about semantic data modeling, dynamic
data models, ontologies, SemWeb / Topic Maps, persistent
identification (ugh, don't get me started on this one ... :) and
similar technologies. I'm though not saying they don't know this
stuff, but my focus here was on expertise in these areas. There are
two problems ;
1. Library coding geeks don't do ontologies (either not given the
time, or perhaps have no interest in it), or the Semantic Web much,
and they certainly don't do much Topic Maps. These are technologies
that some have identified as perhaps the saving grace of the library
world, and yet, because it's a big, hard and cumbersome field, not
much explored. Perhaps the odd prototype of something. They don't do
persistent identification, either as programs or as repositories nor
as an exercise in knowledge management. There seem to be a lot of
interest in all things run-of-the-mill technologies doing slightly
on-the-edge stuff, but this is not the same as pushing the technology
envelope into what libraries generally are doing (and want to do);
dynamic data models and ontology thinking. (Maybe I'm wrong in this,
and the library world will be better without it, and I'll just pack up
my stuff, sell the car, and sail away to an island somewhere. Hmm,
sounds good, actually. :)
2. Library coding geeks most of the time work in tiny spaces, within
strongly defined rooms and with technology direction given by someone
else. There's a lot of cool stuff popping up from time to time, but
they're all prototypes and hacks. While that is fun and fine, it ain't
going to push any library envelopes. And library geeks never have a
real say in library direction as geeks are considered a sub-class of
Librarian.
Alex
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Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Mon Sep 29 2008 - 15:13:32 EDT