In a CNI podcast David Seaman, Executive Director of the Digital Library Federation, talks about the concept of malleable content and that in the next generation of library services: “the content itself needs to behave in slightly more flexible ways…simply visiting content online is not the way to drive innovative uses.”

(I’ve written before about Seaman and his thoughts on the malleability of content).

Seaman points out that the next generation of library services also is not all about technology. A lot of it depends upon changes in library policies and the behavior of users.

I do strongly agree that what Seaman calls malleable content is one of the most important issues facing academic and research libraries. Indeed, rather than continuing to massively digitize collections, as much effort needs to be put into making that digitized content more useful. As Seaman says, “while mass is good and necessary, making that content malleable when it hits our teachers and scholar is necessary.”

In the podcast Seaman also talks about DLF initiatives such as Aquifer, OAI, DOI, and electronic resource management.