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On Bubbles, Facebook, and Playing for Keeps: Ten Questions With Clay Shirky | Wired Business | Wired.com
By Jon Dron 18 June 2012 @ 10:38am Comments (1)
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/on-bubbles-facebook-and-playing-for-keeps-ten-questions-with-clay-shirky/
I've loved Clay Shirky's writings for well over a decade. In this interview he presents some characteristically fine insights. I particularly like what he has to say about universities:
"Plainly universities are the kind of institutions that are ripe for pretty radical reconsideration. Probably because the founding story of many institutions and particularly the ones that we think of as the kind of original avatars of American higher education was “notable gentlemen X donated their library.” Right? So literally just access to written material became an important enough gesture that you would organize a university around it. And whatever [laughs] — whatever it is people need more of today, it ain’t access to written material."
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Jon Dron
Jon Dron
still learning, never learning enough
Comments
Excellent stuff, but are universities really about the library or the social environment for learning. Looking at a local campus the number of buildings dedicated to libraries versus the number of buildings dedicated to other things suggests to me that while libaries are a draw they are not the purpose. The purpose is actually social (in the context of a learning environment) and making those social structures online will contribute to the success of the institution. I think Clay Shirky has a made an excellent point on groups, we see them in our physical presence, it only makes sense that a similar need would occur in our online presence.
Yesterday gentlemen X donated a library, tomorrow will he be sponsoring an open journal hosted by a university, an open project, a research project?
I would argue that gentlemen X donate the library for social standing