Computers in Libraries -- Wednesday Keynote

So here I am sitting in the concourse at the Computers in Libraries conference, where there are eight million people and a very nice bottle of Nantucket Nectar -- half lemonade and half iced tea.

Actually I exaggerate a bit. There are actually 2100+ people here from all 50 states and DC, and ten countries. The ballroom was full for the keynote speaker, Clifford Lynch, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.

After some announcements and much riffing on the fact that George Bush spoke here yesterday (you'll have to get comments about that from other bloggers), Clifford Lynch got started, talking about some history in networking and what's possible for the future.

I don't want to get too much into it because I have a lot to think about, but a couple of things jumped out at me. He talked about scarcity vs. abundance, and how the mindset of librarians and libraries has for decades been about scarcity, but that now there was a trend towards abundance. People are going to have to change their thoughts and their mindset.

So the thing for me to think about tonight is this: "Are we moving from scarcity of content into scarcity of attention?" (The quote, it is mine, not Mr. Lynch's.) As a writer this idea bothers me a lot!

Mr. Lynch also mentioned the fact that capabilities are moving from the hands of institutions to the hands of individuals. I remember having a conversation about this with a friend of mine who was a librarian -- this was about six or seven years ago -- where the idea was that librarians were turning from gatekeepers into tutors, or coaches -- going from fishing to teaching to fish, I guess you might say. I guess that's still evolving, though as Gary Price says libraries still have a tremendous amount to offer and will continue to have a tremendous amount to offer.

Steven Cohen just came by and ragged on me for writing blog entries like 6th grade essays. I'll do something really surreal and free-association at some point.

Nifty quote: "Everything seems to have a home, a constituency, a marketplace in the Network."

Another nifty quote: "Are we moving at least into an age of broad authorship?" He went on to talk about 'blogs (of course) but also about the idea of having public responses to the content of special collections. It's bad enough having to maintain some kind of idea about the credibility of institutions and sites. Can you imagine having to evaluate the content credibility of 5000 people who want to comment about your photographs of Brooklyn in the 1850s? Do you just let it all go or do you turn into a really, really aggressive editor? Or do you turn all the comments off and go get an aspirin?

Off to drink my tea and be sociable.

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