XML.com: Geeks and the Dijalog Lifestyle [Feb. 18, 2004]
I like the word this chap created for the interface between digitality and reality - dijalog. There is a certain appropriateness of the word to describe the interface that I, too, experience between the digital life I lead and the books and other realia that I collect and handle with joy most days of my existance.
I'm also intrigued by the the different ways in which the need to organise and access one's collections of 'stuff' (be it physical or otherwise) manifests in so many different ways, and how many times the solution turns out to be similar to what has gone before, but explains some aspect of library science in a new light. I think that the increasing amount of material on the internet in particular is making more poeple aware of the work that librarians have been involved with, but it is intriguing that 'librarianship' is so often reinvented with the flavour of whatever background of the person who is trying to do the work.

Mind you, this particular set of articles on "Hacking the library" has overtones of a meeting I went to recently hosted by the Australian Publisher's Association talking about ONIX, which is effectively an XML schema for organising exactly the sort of information that this chap is talking about.

Interesting - I wonder if this is one of those ideas whose time is arriving?