When Information Is Networked

abstract: Clifford Lynch is well-known for the depth of his knowledge in the domains of technology, libraries, and research. But perhaps his greatest contribution to the organization of knowledge and the pursuit of new methodologies has been his recognition of the transformative possibilities that emerge when these domains are connected through digital media. Once a collection or dataset becomes digital, it not only can, but likely will, be used in utterly new and unexpected ways through the power of networks. Corpora and data from loosely affiliated, decentralized institutions can be brought together in innovative combinations for diverse purposes. Digitized books may serve as surrogates for print books, but they may also be used as training materials for artificial intelligence. Computing cycles and remote instrumentation can be aggregated to create robust analytical tools that did not exist before. Imagining new combinations of networked information can help us forecast the future—and create it.