How has technology transformed access and dissemination?

Wolfram Horstmann

Cultural Heritage Forum – Oxford – 7 February 2013

Bodleian Libraries

“Libraries don’t have to change – do they?”

Pre-Gutenberg Library Technology

Writing tools, manuscripts and letters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/merrymerrycozy/14195692

Gutenberg Library Technology

Gutenberg, Books, Catalogues, Shelves

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aplumb/121285772

20th Century Library Technology

Word processors, Articles and Images, Directories, Metadata, Search Engines and Screens

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawbod/4166705318

21st Century Library Technology

Atomization of knowledge resources, Ubiquity of Access, Multimodal Interfaces

http://www.scottbot.net/HIAL/?p=9584

What stayed the same?

Libraries provide a memory for cultural heritage & extend access from the few to the many

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spoinknet/8226203822

What has changed?

Analogue & digital -- knowledge resources atomized -- access and dissemination one

http://blogs.sas.com/content/text-mining/files/2011/08/computer-head.jpg

Implications

– Libraries to become digital memory institutions • The Bodleian is preparing for digital preservation

– Libraries to understand better the connection between knowledge resource and the human• The Bodleian put the ‘reader’ in the centre of its

strategic plan

– Libraries to transform catalogues into context• The Bodleian is preparing for a semantic Oxford

Conclusion

– Technology massively accelerated access and dissemination of knowledge resources and this somehow changed the nature of knowledge

– Thus, libraries still are as facilitators of access and dissemination, and did not change their function – but they change their content

Thank you

wolfram.horstmann@bodleian.ox.ac.uk