Being Irrelevant: How Library Data Interchange Standards Have Kept Us Off the Internet

Abstract

Conversations about the future of libraries invariably raise questions about “relevance.” One way to define relevance is to evaluate how well library “products” integrate into the popular information ecosystem, i.e. the Internet. It is in this ecosystem that libraries have struggled. To use library products our customers must deliberately move into another information ecosystem built by libraries and library vendors, when they should be able to discover and have seamless access in the ecosystem where they already conduct their business. Libraries force customers to use technological tools to which they are not accustomed, which in turn spawns an instruction mini industry.