On May 10, 2011, at 6:24 AM, James Weinheimer wrote:
> In my opinion, if we try to "compete" with such projects, we will be
> fated to lose because they are businesses, but cooperation may prove
> very difficult because we have different concerns. I remain fully
> convinced that people will continue to want and appreciate what
> libraries can give them but this is a new environment for everyone.
The way libraries cooperate (or not) has always baffled me. As a group, I think us librarians outnumber the largest of companies. If we were to pool our resources together to a greater degree I think the profession would be able to do so much more. Different concerns? I'm not so sure about that. I think we -- librarians -- have more things in common than differences as long as we focus on the forest and not the trees.
Where could cooperation be used to its fullest? Well, I have a hammer, and everything often looks like a nail, but I think the development of interactive metadata sharing technologies is one of the best things we as a group could work on. Another is mass digitization.
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Eric Lease Morgan, Digital Projects Librarian
University of Notre Dame
Received on Tue May 10 2011 - 08:11:27 EDT