Initially published on the Internet By Internous
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Librarians have been fighting the onslaught of information from the beginning of measured time.
Only in the last decade have Librarians been fighting an intense perception war;
in which there is a common belief outside the field that Librarians are unnecessary and unimportant in the Information Age.
Now, it is time for Librarians to win this war.
Misperceptions such as Librarians not being the earliest of adopters to librarians burying their heads in sand; are true.
Librarians have indeed been some of the first to dive headfirst into the silica of the deepest recesses of the Internet ocean.
Others will deny that Librarians create anything at all.
No contribution to the Age.
Too often the fears of losing traditions have become obstacles in dealing with the immediate fear of the encroaching future.
If any profession would be as stretched and stressed about the sad state of affairs on the Internet it would be the Librarians.
However, Librarians realize that many of the truths of the Internet are false.
Orders of magnitude of greater funding have gone to building a telecommunications infrastructure
and computing platform to handle seemingly infinite amounts of content.
This remains important.
However, The majority of funding to libraries has been toward this infrastructure,
but not toward a comprehensive search infrastructure to harness the power.
Antiquated as they may seem, original Catalog Librarians are threatened extinction.
The talent of these underemployed and undervalued individuals is a reduction in force, lost.
But, this is not lost on us.
No.
Librarians are poised to take on a new challenge that is more professionally and financially rewarding than any other venture, ever.
Librarians are systematically being threatened obsolescence on their own territory and the vastness of the wealth of their resources, absconded.
Let’s use this misperception to our advantage.
Library Judo.
Judo is a defensive art.
It is a martial art designed by one who realized where defense was necessary to regularly throw off a much larger opponent.
Their own momentum, a fine sense of balance, refinement and poise is used against them.
Balance – The Democratic institution of the library by rule of law.
Refinement – Resources are authenticated and contain rich, meaningful answers and solutions.
Poise – Librarian as warfighter.
This is Library Judo
The Weight:
Access + Control
A scientific and systematic audit of all the world’s search environments is necessary.
Librarians must stand firm in their rightful place as authorities to authenticated information.
Librarians must be paid beyond competitive wages.
How many databases exist across your institution?
Attempt to organize information with a never-ending procession of silver bullet not only miss the mark,
but fail to target will not satisfice the question.
This is simply wizardry.
The Depth:
The deep web is our greatest opportunity if it is missed, all is lost.
Catalog your databases,
They belong to you and your institutions.
People need to find them inside and beyond your walls.
Librarians, you’ve done more for literacy than the world will ever recognize.
Librarians you’ve diligently protected information rights.
Librarians, I ask for your charge. —
TEAR DOWN THE WALLS TO ACCESS!
Privacy + Rights:
Besides the owners of information, who knows intellectual property better than Librarians
Between us.
Entre-nous.
The metadata record stands between the user and the owner and is a mirrored reflection.
The Librarian is the steward of the authenticity of the resource.
The metadata is created by the owner.
The metadata is owned by the owner.
The Librarian provides value added services by cataloging and classifying search environments.
In the NEW MODEL users own their behavior and may share or sell their expression of interest to friends or interested parties.
Librarians may act as brokers of these collected expressions of interest to interested parties or markets,
but not without the expressed permission or direct instruction of the users to share or sell the profile.
The New Librarian
Doctors are still called doctors.
Lawyers are lawyers.
Librarians have changed markedly in the last several centuries, as have doctors and lawyers.
This is true.
However, Librarians are being marginalized professionally by accepting Orwellian titles such as Community Information Resource Media Specialists.
Forget this!
Free information must be free and easily accessible to all Internet users.
Fee information must be fully protected within the terms of rights to property.
Privacy of user beahvior is tantamount to an open democratic research platform.
A search environment is a structured set of information with a native search algorithm.
The Search Environment is a ecosystem full of diverse organized organisms.
The Promised Land:
I know the New World is just over the horizon.
I have ships and many who believe in this cause enough to sail off the edge of the World(WW).
Verily I say that there are gold nuggets strewn across the landscape ready to be collected from the surface like low hanging fruit.
And I some suspect that the New World may contain the foundation of youth and lead to everlasting life.
Your excellency, may you collect the resources we need in order to go forth into this Terrabytes Incognita, this great e-discovery.
This expedition will be a revolution largely propelled by women.
Though Univac and Eniac were designed by men, the wires and connectors were stiched together by hand by women.
Women built the first supercomputers.
women had the digital dexterity to weave the web between tranisistors
.
Now, it is time to rally, mobilize a charge into the deep; headfirst, clear eyed and ready for an epic battle.
Do not think that the conventional wisdom will not dismiss this as folly.
For only they have accumulated beyond billions to manipulate the appetites and attentions of the masses.
Tear down the walls to access.
This is the time for Librarians to reign.
They may saw just give us the copies or we will defeat you.
We must, oftentimes, wave them off. —
“There are not the search environments you are looking for…”
Fortunately, all the content in the world that is worthwhile is largely contained in structured environments.
Librarians bring it to order.
Let’s face the music and its corresponding International Sheet Music Number.
The WWW is tangled mess and we are the only ones capable of leading the sensible organization of it.
If we come together to create the New Library of the Future:
A database of databases,
library of libraries,
archive of archives,
search engine of search engines,
knowledge base of knowledge bases,
institutional repository of institutional repositories,
peer interface of peer interfaces, and
social network of social networks;
all headed toward semantic enrichment through technologies librarians have always created and understood.
Librarians have yet to find a fair technological and economic platform on which to operate with greatest efficacy, efficiency, aesthetics and ethics.
We are the monster under the bed.
It is time to wake ourselves up, standing on the shoulders of also sleeping giants.
If we seek anything, We seek information freedom and wholeness.
Let us protect and defend the deepest recesses of our domain.
Let us build fortresses for the future.
Between Us.
Librarians.
No wall can be designed to spoil this revolution.
The revolution – will be archived.
The Hyperlibrary Manifested: Common Sense with a Wave of the Invisible Hand.
Initially published on the Internet By Internous
