D-Lib Magazine

September/October 2014
Volume 20, Number 9/10

Editorial

Traditional Roles

Laurence Lannom
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
llannom@cnri.reston.va.us

doi:10.1045/september2014-editorial

We have an almost overwhelming number of articles in the current issue. They just kept coming in over the transom and each one was too well-written, interesting, and useful to turn down. The eight articles as a whole primarily speak to the increased activity and importance of repositories in library evolution. There are articles on building and managing repositories, encouraging their use by faculty, making them available as linked open data, tracking copyright status, and recommended format specifications for preservation. Somewhat outside of this theme we also have a report on a fascinating project that applies big data principles to open academic literature in the pursuit of cultural knowledge.

The fear that libraries, especially academic libraries, would simply evaporate in the digital age seems to be diminishing. Their traditional role as aggregator of physical materials for the convenience of a local audience is, of course, greatly diminished, but the role that was always there at a deeper level, i.e., managing information for a defined audience, continues and I think is nicely illustrated in the current issue.

About the Editor

Laurence Lannom is Director of Information Services and Vice President at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), where he works with organizations in both the public and private sectors to develop experimental and pilot applications of advanced networking and information management technologies.