LIS901-6 background Thomas Krichel

background We are moving form physical to digital storage of information. Why? What are fundamental differences between physical and digital storage? What will happen to libraries? What will happen to librarians?

nanny / scatological vision Some think that librarianship must be limited to information purchasing / leasing for sharing. Since the information is no more stored, the librarian just acts like an information nanny. "libraries outsource themselves to death" "out there it's all digital or social work"

geeks make good digital librarians Computer scientist have a long tradition of open code. They have long tradition of open standards. Compare IETF with OCLC.

geeks as bad digital librarians Computer people watch over machines. The least use they get, the less work they have. "the answer is no, what is the question?" Lack of technical skill means that librarians can not answer back.

repository development One way in which libraries can stay relevant is by the development of repositories. Instead of storing physical items, they store digital item. But in many libraries, technical infrastructure and expertise is very limited.

cloud computing This course would have been hard to run even a couple of years ago. The development of cloud computing will, over the longer run, remove technical infrastructure problem. But the knowledge issue is still there.

this course We build a small testing repository. It must be available for real on the web. We use no textbook. We use (almost) no proprietary software. It is hard for somebody who has never done it before. But computing as such is only hard at the start.

Thank you for your attention! Please switch off machines b4 leaving!