p2p in Libraries

[Frederico Cutty]

Hi everybody

I am a student of librarianship in Brazil, I am developing a study on the use of P2P networks in libraries. My idea about it is that P2P networks are an emerging model little used in libraries worldwide.

The architecture of p2p network users become producers of content and potential employees active in sharing files and documents. And the library? It would be just a repository of what is produced?

I would like suggestions, criticisms or comments from members of the group on the use of P2P in libraries.

best regards
Fred

[Sepp Hasslberger]

Could users in a library be improving the indexing of whatever the library is sharing?

Would you see that as a use of P2P?

And what about a place (on the library's network) where people looking for something they can't find can ask others whether they have successfully located something and where to look?

I'm not really familiar with libraries - haven't been to one in the longest time - so I don't know whether such things are already in use.

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi, this is something I wrote in 2006:

(please note that the project I'm mentioning is no longer available since my laptop was stolen)



Towards a global, localized, physical-virtual distributed peer-based library for all

Most of our readers probably ignore that I used to be a librarian, for the first 12 years of my professional life, a job that I really loved. Back in 1990-1993, I was involved in creating one of the first functioning virtual libraries (for BP Nutrition), for which I got 2 awards and some people in the library profession used to credit me with the invention of the concept, and practice of cybrarian-ship. The irony is that I wanted to do away with books, at least in corporate settings, while I'm now a big fan of them. Rather than do away with books, I'm motivated by solutions that seamlessly integrate the physical world and enabling technologies. So, since knowledge management issues are still somewhat in my mind, I have lately been thinking about what the ideal library should look like.

Here's my take on: The Catalog IS the library.

1. Combining tags, facets, and flexible hierarchies

New technologies do not do away with the old ones, but recombine the old and the new in different recombinations. That's what we have to do with hierarchies, facets, and tags.

Hierarchies (trees of knowledge, such as the Dewey Decimal System) are a centralized solution to knowledge organization: there's one truth, and this is how the world is organized. Facets recognize that there are more than just one way to arrive at the truth: it's a decentralized solution, that allows you to search for an object (say: a car), from different, BUT, pre-established angles (say: price range, type, year of built, brand name). Finally, tags are the distributed peer to peer solution where any user can freely tag his objects and share them with others. Tags are great, and I love delicious, but also have weaknesses. I find that 80% of the tags used are pretty useful and only mean something particular for that one person using them.

So, in the catalog of the future I imagine: 1) we need free tagging and their sharing, as delicious is doing. BUT: 2) we also need facets. For example, the system could ask for temporal and geographic descriptions of the subject matter. 3) Hierarchies are very useful, to show the inter-relationship of the subject matter. But today: there is no reason there should be only one hierarchy of knowledge. What we need is a system that combines free-tagging, with facets, and with the ability to create flexible outliners, so that each person can create his/her own hierarchy. So for any book, if we're interested, we can see which place it takes in the ontology of another person, how that person's mind works and organizes information. Such a hierarchy would also allow for ontological advocacy. For example, in my own pet project, I've been compiling a 300-page annotated bibliography of non-fiction books on the past, history, and future of human civilization, trying to distill the key books that one should read for having such an overall viewpoint.

I've organized them according to a non-reductionist integral approach which combine the perspective of self (subjective aspect), of technology (objective), of systems (political, economic, etc..: inter-objective), and finally culture, philosophy, religion (inter-subjective). I also use facets since each of these quadrants are organized in a chronological fashion (temporal facet), and geographical fashion.

How, how would this work: you can consult, add, and rate any nonfiction book in the system, adding your own tags, adding the geo-temporal facets, create your own hierarchy. But you can also ask for the integral view, which will automatically call up the meta-hierarchy. This would allow you to compare, say the books about the tribal ˜economy", with books on the tribal self, or on animistic and shamanic religious forms; or alternative, it would allow you to compare the tribal economy with the later forms of economic life. Once you find a book, you can also see from which other perspective other people have entered it into their own personal hierarchies. In my opinion, such a system would be vastly more valuable than just a traditional hierarchical catalog, but also of a tagging-only system.

Part 2: combining book buying, new and used, with library lending and peer-based exchanges

There is another way that The Catalog is the Library.

As I said, I do not see why the physical and the virtual should be separate. So, any book in this system would automatically be linked to online booksellers such as Amazon; but it would also be linked up to the library lending systems. Finally, this system could serve as a personal library manager for your own books, and allow you to use the pooled resources of the whole user base. In addition, it would be linked to the open source books which are available online on the internet, or the e-books sold by private publishers. So, if you need a book which you do not want to buy, or which is not available through library lending, you would look up: ˜who else has it in my vicinity", and borrow that book from your peers. In such a way, this online catalog would effectively be merged with the universal library of books, independent of the fact whether they are for sale, in a library, or in the possession of another individual.