Old silos, new silos, no silos

Traditionally library systems/catalogues have been isolated local systems, thereby creating an enormous redundancy in both data and metadata backends and search frontends. Even in shared cataloguing environments the local subsystems are the real production environments. In recent years we have seen two separate developments that claim to solve the redundancy problem: aggregated (meta)data stores and distributed Linked Open Data networks. Examples of aggregation: content aggregators and publishers’ proprietary databases, discovery layer global indexes, Europeana, Worldcat, etc. An earlier form of distribution, federated search/metasearch, is now gradually abandoned. A number of its inherent problems (performance, relevance ranking, network) are solved by aggregation, but others are not. Do the new silos of aggregation with their limited content solve all our problems, or is a completely open global linked networked model better? The pros and cons of both general models and of hybrid, blended options will be considered. We will also discuss the practical conditions, implications and feasibility of the models, looking at licensing, commercial interests, trust, authority, etc. Last but not least: Can and will libraries have a role in the new data universe that is outside their direct control, and what can these roles look like?

Presentation given at SWIB 2012, Cologne