[WEB4LIB] next big thing?

[Tony Barry]

At 11:39 AM -0800 20/2/2001, Drew, Bill wrote:
>What will be the next "big thing" in information delivery that librarians
>should watch out for?  I am thinking in terms of things of such import as
>the World Wide Web and gopher.  Both changed how we deliver information.

Increasing use of collaborative tools which let groups organize 
access to information through the network with help from librarians 
and perhaps libraries.

Cooperative distributed information systems such as Bibliofind 
http://www.bibliofind.com/ and PictureAustralia 
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/about.html

New and creative indexing services based on RDF

Blurring of the distinction between service traditionally provided by 
libraries, access to publications, and access to data collections 
such as genome and enzyme databases.

Increasing numbers of specialized gateways to narrow areas replacing libraries.

Increasing numbers of Ask A ..  services competing with library 
reference services.

More services like google which make intelligent use of the semantic 
and peer comment implicit in hypertext links between pages. I expect 
this being deployed at the end user level.

The there is peer to peer networking which will feed into the sorts 
of developments above.

I think the changes will not be so much in the area of new 
technologies but in new ways of social organisation. I think we might 
see a shift away from single organisations providing central services 
to cooperative groups creating distributed services which provide a 
virtual central focus. At the moment libraries are largely in the 
former mode.

Tony
-- 
phone  +61 2 6241 7659
mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/Tony.Barry