This morning was Plenary I- a session definitely worth getting up early for. Collections Manager in Chief- David Ferriero shared with us several pieces of news that have been developing.
1. Directive from the White House will be released in the next few days that compels government agencies to reform e-records management and to comply with emerging standards. As Ferriero says: “Proper Records Management is the backbone of good government”.
2. In December 2012, Ferriero will be hosting a Libraries, Archives and Museums conference to brainstorm ways these institutions can share resources and collaborate to better serve our users- as our missions and visions often overlap.
3. Finally, and most exciting is the development of the Digital Public Library of America. This project currently has funding from private and public sources. Beginning later this year, we as information professionals, can begin to contribute our thoughts on how to develop this archive to best serve us, our collections and our users.
Jon Voss spoke next about the possible future of libraries, archives and museums. This a present and a future that we can participate by sharing our data with the public. He focused on three pieces: Culture (that now demands mush-ups and data that can be manipulated); Technology (we know have the tools to link our data); and Law (different licenses to encourage sharing and collaboration through data). Voss introduced a number of wonderful projects taking advantage of linked open data:
Civil War Data 150– this site helps users to study the Civil War from a micro or macro approach using linked data.
Conflict History– uses data from Wikipedia to trace war and conflict in American history. Users can follow battles and learn more information about their historical context from the pulled in Wikipedia articles.
While public institutions seem to be early participants in the realm of linked open data, I’d be interested to know what private institutions are doing or want to be doing to participate. Do we, as private institutions have different goals and responsibilities than that of the Library of Congress or other government or public organization to contribute and share data? Do distinctions like public and private matter less and less- as users expect content to be readily available?