> I don't understand why the phrase Social Networking was
> mentioned. Repositories are not social networks and have no
> need to be. ArXiv is a very successful repository if we go by
> size and use yet it has no SN facilities.
I wasn't going to respond because I appear to be in a small minority
here (and I should probably go off and form my own list - oh yes, it's
called my blog! :-) ), but it struck me as vaguely amusing how
differently we see the world!
I would argue that ArXiv *is* a social network, albeit one that doesn't
display too many of the explicit UI features one associates with the
current generation of such things. Indeed, in a couple of my recent
presentations on the subject I've suggested that ArXiv was/is one of the
earliest Web 2.0 applications, predating even the Web itself (!), at
least in the sense that it is all about user-generated content, it
offers a simple API, and it supports a social network of academics.
I would argue that it is because ArXiv and the other subject-based
repositories have a significant 'social networking' aspect to them that
they tend to be quite successful in attracting deposits (though, of
course, there may be other significant factors, such as
discipline-specific attitudes and practice). Conversely, because
institutional repositories have little or no meaningful 'social
networking' aspect to them they struggle to attract anything.
Of course, I have no hard evidence to support those assertions, so you
are free to ignore them. But frankly, the only hard evidence that does
seem to be available indicates that almost everyone struggles to get any
significant content into their institutional repositories - on the basis
of which I'm supposed to conclude that IRs are the only viable way
forward - and that it'll all be alright anyway because someone is going
to come along and build a really good service for us based on harvesting
metadata over OAI-PMH. How long are we supposed to wait around for that
to happen - another 5 years?
Oh well... I remain somewhat confused I'm afraid.
Andy
--
Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
http://efoundations.typepad.com/
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