theorywatch

Another interesting post on the “Do Libraries Innovate” session, from new blogger “The Robot Librarian” (not to be confused with other new blogger “Robot Librarian”), started me thinking again on the possible implications. If libraries are indeed what hold librarians back from innovating, would they be better off as library-free librarians?

In fact, as potential millionaire entrepreneurial types, such as 26-year-old Rami Nasser? His new project ScienceHack sounds like something that any clever young librarian could have thought of (it’s still in alpha stage, but it’s apparently going to be a search engine for retrieving “authoritative” science videos), so why don’t they? (As an aside, there’s the wonderful COMPADRE digital library for physics and astronomy resources here, but that’s not affiliated with the OU library, I believe.)

Or maybe as “street librarians” such as Chris Dodge out in Montana, monitoring levels of Thoreau activity in “Thoreau Today”, promoting non-barcoded literary works, and critiquing the library establishment?

This warrants some further exploration, even though that ALA session is now over….