The Net a Decade From Now - What Does It Mean for Libraries?
Esther Dyson foresees a future when far less content is free anonymously. Only by trading information about yourself will you gain access to free content. But this new barter system has more than one social downside. Dyson warns:
"This makes sense from advertisers' point of view, but it has a social downside: People who buy Porsches can earn more from marketers than people who buy used cars. People without money will find it harder and harder to get free content -- which means a role for nonprofits in funding access to content for all."
If Dyson is right, libraries have a critical role to play in ensuring content is available to members of the public regardless of means.
Dyson also points out that the Net of the future will have to address major challenges with security, privacy and confidentially. Not only will the Net of the future be an environment where many people may have traded personal information for content but this information will be combined where you are as more mobile devices and physical objects become part of the Net. Dyson notes that:
The big challenges in the future will be limiting distribution of that information (security, privacy, confidentiality, etc.) on the one hand and filtering it out on the other (not search, but data-mining, exception-reporting, spam filtering, friend recommendations, behavioral targeting and the like). The big questions are who controls the filtering: individuals, organizations or governments? Will it be done transparently?
What role will libraries play in recommending content and mining information and filtering? Will the library be a "trusted friend"?
Tags: library | library 2.0 | privacy | trends
