Technological change, today and yesterday

The inaugural installment of the column data deluge and open knowledge comes at the close of a year which saw changes, developments and new beginnings for libraries in the areas of linked data, open data, metadata, open access publishing and other related movements.

The methodology adopted is a literature review.

Sometimes, changes in the information environment present themselves like towering waves crashing into rugged cliffs and librarians stand at the edge in awe of the spectacle. At other times, despite the crashing waves, librarians lead massive projects to build the standards and infrastructure to capture the water and direct its flow.

The overall trend for the latter librarians is toward developing and adopting new ideas, methods, approaches and services to support finding and sharing data in an increasingly large and complex online context. As many of author’s colleagues have commented in recent years, “now is an exciting time to be a librarian”.

The author heartily agree and look forward to sharing, through this column, the highlights of these exciting times.