Proceedings talk:JKB2

This is the discussion page for j Baumgart's BOF at Wikimania 2006, Librarianesque birds of a feather session. Please join the discussion below!

Some big ideas from the discussion (what I remember; please expand this list):

• Library science and software engineering / programming
  • Librarians are becoming more like software engineers (and vice versa)
  • A lot of software engineering problems are problems already addressed by library science ("metadata is cataloging!"; documentation and code also need to be cataloged and organized; programmers end up "reinventing the wheel")
  • There needs to be more training across disciplines and more communication between disciplines
• Are libraries necessary?
  • The book as a technology (a good one, but one that may eventually be obsolete)
  • The library as a cultural and functional space (not dependent on physical books)
  • Librarians are needed to provide support for those seeking information (and they're really good at it; "they don't treat you like scum"), help people ask the right questions
• Librarians and Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia is used as a first source (unsurprisingly, like an encyclopedia!)
  • Adding found answers to Wikipedia is a great idea (the facts a librarian finds are relevant, interesting, and sourced; adding answers to Wikipedia makes that knowledge easier to access again)