Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

This idea is so scalding hot I had to write about it, even though the subject matter is really beyond the normal CopyCense scope.

There are whole generations out there that we want to get //iNTO THE LIBRARIES. Perhaps we should be thinking about what ideas we can get OUT OF THE CLUBS. Seriously, though, we need to get more music //iNTO THE LIBRARIES. More gaming //iNTO THE LIBRARIES. Social space //iNTO THE LIBRARIES. Text messaging. Moblogging. //iNTO THE LIBRARIES. How about equipment and software so more people can start doing their own remixing, their own mashups, their own podcasting? //iNTO THE LIBRARIES (really, not as expensive as you think). Karaoke nights. Poetry slams. //iNTO THE LIBRARIES.

This brilliant stream of consciousness comes from the lbr (Librarians By Request) blog, and it resonates with me because I think of libraries and multimedia information centers (MICs, for all of those who have an eye for marketing), not just places where people can get books.

This post reminds me of a conversation I had with Jessamyn West and Andrea Mercado in October during Internet Librarian 2005. All of us, to some degree, expressed some level of frustration that the things we think will save libraries (perhaps even catapult them into previously unforeseen stratospheres of fully funded community support and success) seem to be beyond the imaginary scope of most information professionals. In contrast, the lbr post really gets it, and gets it all: having libraries do their own mashups so they transform themselves into MICs, the need to get a younger generation into the library, the fact that much of what libraries already have and do makes this mashup relatively easy (just add the water of imagination), and that the library is, in fact, the proper place for this level of creative activity.

Let me give you one example on this mashup theme so you can see where this can go.

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“Four years ago, flush with cash from the sale of Broadcast.com to Yahoo Inc., Internet entrepreneurs Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner decided to try their hand at the movie business. The pair, who sold their company to Yahoo for $5.7 billion at the peak of the technology boom, purchased a medium-size chain of movie theaters and began financing independent films.

“Their goal was to create a showcase for so-called specialty films — typically movies produced on relatively low budgets outside the Hollywood studio system — while profiting from the sales of tickets, DVDs and subscriptions to their high-definition cable-television network, HDNet. Now, as those endeavors finally take shape, the billionaire duo is sending ripples through the fast-growing world of independent film.”

Anthony Kaufman. Will ‘Bubble’ Burst the Movie Business? The Wall Street Journal Online. Nov. 19, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.