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Blockchain & Libraries from Carnegie Mellon – Qatar

Post author By griffey
Post date March 22, 2018
1 Comment on Blockchain & Libraries from Carnegie Mellon – Qatar

This past month I traveled to a place I wasn’t sure I’d ever visit…Doha, Qatar. I was brought to Doha for an awesome reason, to deliver the Gloriana St. Clair Distinguished Lecture in 21st Century Librarianship. The topic that I was asked to prepare remarks on was Blockchain (which I chose to broadly construe as decentralized technologies) and how it (they) might matter to the information professions in the near future. The actual title of my talk was Decentralization & Blockchain: Possibilities & Problematizations for Libraries, and the goal was to explain the technology, but also to bring to light potentials and risks that surround blockchain and decentralization technologies as they relate to libraries and information systems. There is a huge amount of potential in this technology, beyond the fintech hype and insanity of the moment. There is also risk, especially for organizations that are centered around the very notion of centralization of resources.

Here’s my lecture, along with the accompanying slides below it. If your consortium or company is interested in possibilities for blockchain in the information space and are looking for a consultant to help you understand it, I’m available.

Video

Slides

Tags blockchain, CMU-Qatar, decentralization, qatar

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

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