Is There a Future for Bibliographic Databases?

A week or so ago, Michael Cairns of the wonderful new-to-me blog PersonaNonData asked me if I would like to write a guest post on his blog. Inspired by my My Job in 10 Years series he wondered what I thought about the future of bibliographic databases such as Books in Print and WorldCat.

Of course, I was more than happy to rev up my crystal ball and take it for a spin around the block.

Here's a little excerpt from my guest post:

Here's how he put it in his email:

I have read your posts on the future of information databases and bibliographies etc. over the past several months and I was wondering whether you had a specific opinion of the future of bibliographic databases such as worldcat and booksinprint? ... [O]n my blog I have skirted around the idea that the basic logic of these types of databases is beginning to erode as base level metadata is more readily available and of sufficient quality to reduce the need for these types of bibliographic databases. Assuming that is increasingly the case then these providers need to determine new value propositions for their customers. So what are they?

How could I resist...

Enjoy the full post here.

I would like to thank Michael for this wonderful opportunity and I hope to be able to return the favour one of these days. I'll leave the post on PersonaNonData exclusively for a week or two and then I'll repost it here for the sake of completeness. I do consider the post to be related to the 10 Years series and I'll be including it in the collected version pdf as an appendix of some sort the next time I recreate it.