Librarians Should Study The Wisdom of Crowds. All Crowds
December 4th, 2005It’s no secret that my favorite books over the past year was The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. Stephen Abram is hopefully going to read it, and blogs:
“Are librarians experts? Do we fail to see the right path or know the correct information too often? I doubt that’s the right interpretation. We can be a crowd too! Between social networks, collaboration spaces and blogs and discussion lists (remember them?), we should be able to think through anything and adapt and invent new modalities as the world shifts. It might also help if we asked questions outside our own comfortable circles more often.”
The bolding is on my end, as it struck one of my pet peeve chords in this push towards collaborative work that many librarian bloggers are discussing these days. We are talking to each other and not anyone else beyond our “comfort” zone. Why aren’t we bringing our ideas and tools to non-librarians? Where are the librarians at the big tech, social network, and social software conferences? In order to show that we belong in the “new world”, we need to be part of the “new world”. I’m trying to make an effort to network with not only those who went to library school, but those in other professions as well: engineers, social scientists, technologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and many more. I think it’s vital. Get out there!
As a related aside, I will be attending the Syndicate conference in San Francisco next week and would love to touch base with as many people as possible. Shoot me a note or make a comment on this post and I’ll make arrangements to meet up.