Digital Libraries & Labs -from portals to platforms

@cneudecker

"Portals are for visiting,platforms are for building on"

Tim Sherratt

http://www.nla.gov.au/our-publications/staff-papers/from-portal-to-platform

Portal =

web gateway or

starting point for

search

but there are innumerable ways

of interacting with data

the prison

of portals?

in a portal,the experience is

always constrained

pre-determined by a set of

design decisionsabout what

is necessary, relevant and useful

Platform =

not just a database

or a website

…moving beyond discovery

as the primary mode of online interaction

with cultural collections

provide a set of tools and APIs that

anyone canuse to build their own

application or interface

"infrastructure that is as ubiquitous and persistent as the streets and sidewalks

of a town"

david weinberger

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/09/future-of-libraries/by-david-weinberger/

what makes

innovation work?

put the design decisions

back into the hands of the users

work with the grain of the web

- not against it

open up online access to

everything, everywhere,

anytime

give up the ability to control,

or even predict, what will be

constructed using this infrastructure

"exhaustibles"

vs.

"possibility engines"

repeat:

By exploring these two characteristics – ubiquity and unpredictability –

we can move beyond the platform as a set of methods, or a technical framework, to conceive of it more broadly as an open,

creative space full of possibilities.

David Weinberger

Thinking like a platform, not a portal, or a website, means enabling a set of

opportunities, experiences and emotions,

that are yet to be known, or even imagined.

Tim Sherratt