'Knowledge and Creativity
in a Digital Context'
Library Lecture Series Addresses the Future of Knowledge
"The Internet has changed everything." This oft-repeated mantra certainly applies to library services. Librarians, particularly those in research institutions, are discussing the influence of the Internet all the time, but too often without input from the scholars whom we serve. What can they tell us about the changes we are now experiencing and are likely to experience in the future?
The Library of Congress decided to find out. To stimulate discussions between scholars and librarians, Derrick deKerchove, holder of the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education in the John W. Kluge Center, and this writer teamed up to develop a lecture series on "Managing Knowledge and Creativity in a Digital Context."
David Weinberger, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, was invited to give the first address in the series, and on Monday evening, Nov. 15, he delivered an informative, highly engaging lecture on what he called the "messy Web" of blogs and bloggers, explaining how individuals who contribute to the Web are creating knowledge in new ways.
C-SPAN aired Weinberger‘s lecture live, helping the Library to reach a much wider audience, which responded rather amazingly. More than 80 C-SPAN viewers e-mailed questions during the program. Indeed, some questioners were so eager that they sent queries even before the lecture had begun. Many of the questions raised during that first session were impressive. Here is a sample:
- How would you characterize the influence of blogs and other forms of Internet communication on the manner with which people value different ways of knowing?
- How do we deal with information overload, if not to categorize, classify, and shape it?
- When do you think we'll see a library of blogs?
- How will one determine whether digital information documents are authentic?
Questions asked after the lecture by members of the live audience were equally provocative. For example:
- Are there cultural traditions and practices that affect blogs and blogging? Are there differences between American blogs and Japanese blogs, for instance?
- How did blogs affect the recent presidential race?
- How might the Library use technology to learn more about how users react to Library of Congress Subject Headings and classification systems?
The day after the public event, Weinberger spent time at the Library with a small number of staff members to consider how the new directions in technology might affect services to users. He expressed great interest in the multiple roles of the Library, including the tasks of building a universal collection in all fields of knowledge and of preserving the collection.
The discussion stimulated the staff group to consider ways of creating "knowledge packets" that could be tailored to different audiences. Staff members also explored how the Internet world might alter the work of the information professional and concluded that, among other things, the librarian would always have an important educational role to play.
While the staff clearly found stimulation in Weinberger's ideas, he, in turn, declared himself "fascinated" by what he learned from the Library of Congress. After his visit, he recorded the following observations about his visit with the Library of Congress on his own blog:
"Jeez, what an interesting day. I spent the morning at the Jupiter Inside ID conference. Then I had lunch with six folks from the Library of Congress who have a variety of interests and deep, passionate expertise. We talked about if, when and how the Library's 150M objects will be digitized and how that will change the institution, research, knowledge, authority... It was completely fascinating. Then I got a tour of the Library's 100-person conservation/preservation division. May I use the ‘fascinating' word twice in one paragraph? I've been mightily impressed by the people I've met there."
The digital lecture series is slated to continue through March 2005, with talks by Brewster Kahle, director and cofounder of the Internet Archive (Dec. 13); Juan Pablo Paz, a quantum physicist who is interested in how quantum computing will change the way that information is collected, stored and distributed (Jan. 24); Brian Cantwell Smith, dean of the faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, whose talk is titled "And Is All This Stuff Really Digital After All?" (Jan. 31); David M. Levy, University of Washington, who will discuss the impact of the shift of the experience of reading from the fixed page to movable electrons (Feb. 14); Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and an expert on copyright issues in cyberspace (March 3); Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia, who will discuss some of the implications for the creation and distribution of knowledge in today's digital environment (March 14); and Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose topic is "From the Library of Information to the Library of Things" (March 28).
All of the digital lectures are aired live by C-SPAN beginning at 6:30 p.m. and are archived on the Kluge Center's Web site at www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/
