Karen Coyle on Library in Digital Universe

Diane Hillman recommends Karen Coyle 3/12/07 interview with Scott Mace of Open Source Conversations. See Coyle's blog posting on this.

Me listening to podcast on April 1 .... Libraries as early implementers of standards and semantic markup. LC, for example, started distributing standardized catalog cards in 1901.

Major advantages ... libraries accustomed to working as collective. Also (and this comes up later in conversation), because expertise always has context, and libraries have defined constituencies, easier for libraries to set boundaries on authoritative information. Wikipedia, trying to be all things to all people, lacks such context.

Disadvantage, not used to working with entities outside the library world.

Google Book project a mixed blessing. Open Content Alliance in part designed to remedy lack of transparency (i.e., difficulty sharing Google's digital files among different libraries).

Importance of OpenURL technology, dynamic linking of global Web content with local library holdings.

NISO migrating from heavy to less-formal light-weight standards development. In current environment, things move to quickly to build elaborate standards.