A new perspective

Blog

This is the last blog assignment of the course, so take a look back and summarize where you were when the course started and how far you have come. Aside from factual knowledge and technical skills, have you changed your perspective on any aspect of digital information as a result of your studies? (Remember that the essay question on the Final Exam will ask where you think you will be going, so save that part for the exam and make this blog entry more of a course retrospective.)

The entire course has been an amazing journey. Each week, during IRLS 672, I find myself learning something new and those formerly hidden incantations (code and procedures) of digital collections administration are now for me much more transparent.

My perspective has changed to the extent that I am much more aware of the community driven aspects of digital collections. The entire stack of software that makes possible the retrieval and dissemination of digital collections on the web is to a large extent the result of the open source movement. Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP components of the LAMP server stack are all open source products and together have made large scale digital collections a standard feature of the web. I see more clearly now that the pace of technological innovation is one best managed by leveraging an ecosystem that facilitates distributed innovation.

Apart from the enormous amount of new factual and technical knowledge that I been exposed to in this course, for me the “Cathedral and the Bazaar” reading, summarizes what is driving technological innovation today. While we did discuss and read about the open source movement throughout 671 and to a lesser extent in 673, the “Cathedral” essay provides a unique foundational analysis for the success of open source software. The perspective that no one organization regardless of its resources and no one person or group however well informed can innovate, create and adapt to the changing landscape of digital technology as well as the marketplace is a guiding principle for the successful deployment and maintenance of digital collections. In fact Raymond's early choice for the title of his essay “The Cathedral and the Agora”, the latter term being the Greek for an open market, strongly hints at his appreciation for the importance of community as a core value of digital collection best practices.

Relatedly, Raymond writes, in the context of the Linux OS that: “Linus was keeping his hacker/users constantly stimulated and rewarded - stimulated by the prospect of having an ego-satisfying piece of the action, rewarded by the sight of constant (even daily) improvement in their work.”
This seems to me strongly aligned with Adam Smith's centuries old insight that individuals while pursuing their own self interest may promote the general welfare more effectively than if their actions were more centrally directed or coordinated. For me then , the philosophy of agile software development including launch and learn, rapid releases and the leverage of the internet , like a later day “invisible hand”, helps to explain a lot of the how, what and why of digital collections applied technology.