edna.edu.au

A note to Lorcan

Dear Lorcan, 

I've been catching up on your writings, thanks so much.

So many of them parrallel my own thinking. Although, from my perspective, I'm sitting between Cheesemakers = media producers and Mousetrap builders = network managers; particularly the trappers who man the National Research and Education Networks (NREN) in each Nation.

 The one big difference that separates the furniture of our minds is what arrangement we must be thinking with when we talk about networks. Everything else, from our ideas about what  universities do, all the way through to the discovery of its new institutions, seems perfectly aligned. It's only our ideas about "networks" which differ.

I think we would probably agree on the fact that they are evolving, to revolve around disciplinary/subject global groups rather than ancient National institutions. The trouble is, it seems, we still think of a National client's Server's architecture as supporting our remote worlds, even when we know that a Single Sign on to groups of federated widgets, in global clouds, is the new universal network architecture. In a webbed world, 'scale' can only be achieved though sharing networked resources.

The fundamental factor where i believe we could help this new universal institution be recognized in by firming up on our ideas about "the discovery layer(s). Let us start at this front end so we can at least firm up on what we are attempting, individually, to discover. You seem to be after a community's library of information. I'm after their node of communication. O.K. That's a bit simple. But we do agree that Community is the content, regardless of whether "they" are just talking, somewhere, in some particular context or aggregating a subject's information, somewhere, in the cloudy skies.

That said, there are a few inquisitive network researchers who are trying to translate the curator's language, just as much as your community takes an interest in theirs.And as long as we can agree on the above basics, then I'm almost certain we could get to the heart of one of these new global institutions quite quickly. All it requires is applying the Dewey system to classify a global group's communication rather than a National institution's information. The leap in faith for both of us is believing that adults will change their behaviour as quickly as their children.

So can i direct you to two developments on opposing sides of the Atlantic. I'd like to see if we can contribute a librarian's perspective to their network manager's professional perspective. The first is a project called COmanage, where Internet2 people search for a "directory for external groups".The second is growing legs over at terena, where the Refed group members are beginning to get a bit sociable with their federating and inter-federating.

There's also another 2 social "task forces" (CPR& MSP) there who are starting to talk about NRENs on social networks, which you know always begins in a group; these ones are talking about federating common services; what a librarian will probably call "tools". It might be a useful thing, if we are ever able to get a global group's front end to align with its rear, and discover what might be common to others, to have a poster from a librarian's perspective at their network pow wow in April.

 All the best.

Tags: cheesemakers and mousetrap builders
Posted at 02:41PM Feb 27, 2011 by simon fenton - jones  |  Comments[0]