
Hiring: The First Librarian of Congress for the Internet Age - Petiver
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/hiring-the-first-librarian-of-congress-for-the-internet-age/396038/?single_page=true
======
rustyconover
I can only think Jason Scott[1] would be the obvious HN sponsored candidate
for this position. Imagine the good he would do with the resources.

[1] -
[http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=User:Jscott](http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=User:Jscott)

~~~
toomuchtodo
I cannot think of someone better suited for the job, except perhaps Brewster
Kahle [+]. Him and Jason Scott working together, with US government backing,
would be (please forgive me for this) _killing it_.

"Brewster Kahle is an American computer engineer, Internet entrepreneur,
internet activist, advocate of universal access to all knowledge, and digital
librarian. He is the founder of the Internet Archive, the Internet Credit
Union, Alexa and Thinking Machines and a member of the Internet Hall of Fame."

[+]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle)

~~~
m3talridl3y
You want someone who really "gets" that information needs to be carefully
preserved - not just "available" (in the manner of:
[http://hitchhikersguidequotes.tumblr.com/post/14333727462/mr...](http://hitchhikersguidequotes.tumblr.com/post/14333727462/mr-
prosser-but-mr-dent-the-plans-have-been) ). I think Brewster is that kind of
person.

------
thuuuomas
Change the Federal E-Rate guidelines to allow non-library-science master's
degree holders to "be librarians", & for the districts that employ
"nontraditional" librarians to receive full funding. Through regulatory
capture, the American Library Association subsidizes a program of study that
has an astonishingly narrow scope, to the exclusion of anything more technical
than MS Word & General Reference Center Gold.

------
contingencies
Some ideas: train volunteers to do the digitization work; aggressively invest
then rent out the digitization infrastructure to industry once backlog is
cleared; sponsor competitions inviting open source solutions for LoC IT
problems.

------
quink
Let's see what'll happen to the LOC-supported BIBFRAME.

And whether it or something IFLA-supported FRBR/FRAD/FRSAD/FRBRoo/PRESSoo will
win out.

We might even have the answer to that by the time the next Librarian of
Congress comes around.

------
danso
The OP mentions this midway, but this leadershift change is largely happening
after a year-long GAO investigation found that the Library of Congress was
poorly managed by its leader of 61 years:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/americas...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/americas-
national-library-is-behind-the-digital-curve-a-new-report-
finds/2015/03/31/fad54c3a-d3fd-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html)

The report was damaging, but at the time (earlier this spring), Billington had
refused to retire. Some of the findings from the report:

> _The GAO report is the most damning. Investigators noted that the library
> could not confidently estimate how much its spends annually on IT costs,
> although the GAO offered a guess of $120 million, about one-fifth of the
> library’s total budget._

 _“They don’t know what they spend, they don’t know what they have,” said Joel
C. Willemssen, the report’s author. “The fact they have had five acting CIOs
in less than three years, that’s a big concern.”_

 _GAO investigators found the library’s master list of personal computers
numbered 18,000 when it actually had fewer than 6,500. The number of systems
used by the various units was listed at 30 but another was tallied at 46.
“After we raised the discrepancy . . . [the library] provided us with a
revised list of 70 systems,” the GAO said._

Part of this will be spun as an "old-people-don't-get-technology" thing...that
Billington being 86+ years old meant that he was unable to manage the
library's transition to the digital age. To put that in perspective, he was
nearly 50-years-old by the time the Apple ][ came out. But I don't think
that's the right lesson to take...Older people _can_ learn computers just fine
as an intellectual pursuit, it's just that many of them don't have much reason
to, especially if they are near retirement or have a job that's not computer-
related. It's a matter of incentive; if their job required computers, and they
value having a salary, anyone can become adequately acquainted with the
computer.

But it just sounds like Billington, among other things, was just a bad/aloof
manager, something that can get exacerbated over time if you're at the same
job for 10/20/30+ years. If he was also willfully ignorant/uncurious about the
digital age, e.g. "Books, radios, computers; they're all the same
thing"...then it would seem that the LoC's technological progress would happen
in spite of, rather than because of its leader's vision.

But if an 85-year old leader who is still interested in the work even 20 years
after he could've retired to a nice pension, and engaged enough to humble
himself to learn new technology. Sure, I'll take that any day over a
30-something startup-millionaire. I think institutional memory is very
important, and being liked and respected by everyone who controls your budget
is not an insignificant asset, especially when it comes to libraries.

