> I'm struck by the thought that the change in the "larger landscape" has been essentially
> viral, while the change in the library landscape (such as it is) is more
> engineered, and that engineered things progress in a more ordered and
> controlled manner, constricted by rules, laws, the limitations of a specific
> context, requiring review, validation, etc. before moving forward. While
> viruses just go their own way, spreading, mutating, dying out here, taking
> over there, etc.
Well, I think this is a core argument in favor of open systems and
open data. The "virality" of the web is based on openness—open
software, open standards, open data. Think of all the open tools that
make the top web companies run—Linux, Apache, Python, Ruby,
Subversion, MySQL, Memcached. Sometimes the top-most layer is
proprietary, but its built on openness. And the lower layers keep
getting better. LibraryThing runs faster because we use Memcached,
begun by LiveJournal and improved by Facebook and others. This sort of
story is common outside of the library world today.
Based on different models, library innovations can't spread easily,
and libraries can't take advantage of non-library innovations easily.
The social, technical and organizational barriers are already high.
But progress is being made, I think. Maybe in ten years libraries will
be in tune with other information and technology industries. That
would be something.
In the near future, however, if OCLC gets its way, we'll have legal
barriers as well. Serious commercial work on library data will require
the assent of OCLC; much non-commercial work is simply prohibited. And
libraries will be paranoid about mixing open-data data into their data
insofar as much of it is incompatible with the OCLC license.
The great irony is that the OCLC license steals one critical element
from all the open licenses that make the web work—virality. The OCLC
license goes wherever the data goes, in whole or in part, like
open-data licenses. The difference is what it requires—restrictions
rather than sharing—and intent—from universal ownership to a perpetual
OCLC monopoly.
In the end, this may be the library world's great contribution to open
source—turning it on its head.
Received on Mon Mar 09 2009 - 19:12:52 EDT