A post from Advertising Age by marketing guru, Steve Rubel, says that digital curation will be an important or “key” service going forward.

We agree. And it might also be the perfect role for many information professionals.

From the Article:

…Google and Facebook can’t consume 100% of our attention. What’s more, they’re often a mile wide and half-an-inch deep. This means that whatever time remains up for grabs will likely to flow to human-powered or automated sites that curate content in high-interest niches. Smart companies are already seeing this and staking their claim to categories.

After listing several examples (none from library organizations) he writes:

It’s clear to me, a least, that digital curation — both automated and human-powered — will be the next big thing to shake the web. There’s an evergreen need for those who can separate art from junk online. However, in this era, journalists won’t be the only ones to fulfill it. Brands, as the examples above illustrate, can play here too.

I’m sad to report that librarians/info professionals are not mentioned in the conclusion of the article. However, Rubel does mentions journalist. What about the people who often help journalists and writers research a story, the info pro’s?

He Writes:

There’s an evergreen need for those who can separate art from junk online. However, in this era, journalists won’t be the only ones to fulfill it.

This would have been the ideal spot to mention information professionals. But, as is often the case (very sad) we’re forgotten. Oh well, that’s the way it goes and tomorrow is a new day and let’s work to make sure people don’t forget us or believe we are unnecessary. In fact, after reading Rubel’s article it would seem like we should be entering into the golden age of librarianship (or whatever you might want to call it).

We’re going to invite Steve to a virtual tour of some of the resources librarians have been “curating” for years. Can you say LII? How about IPL? And don’t forget Intute, to name just three. Since cataloging (the act of) has become tagging and cataloging (the data) has become metadata I wouldn’t bet against collection development becoming “digital curation” at some point in the future.

Whatever the job title is, let’s hope (we need to work towards this goal) that info pros are ready to do the job. It seems to me that many of the things we already do are a part of what Rubel calls digital curation.

Source: Ad Age

Update: We’ve emailed Steve Rubel and we will report back if he has any public comments.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Libraries and Librarianship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.