Basics

4 posts

Blockchain and Motivation

Just because something needs to get done doesn’t mean that it will.  I have learned this in many contexts, most recently in writing about the pharmaceutical industry.  They come up as a good candidate to use Blockchain as a way of stopping counterfeiting.  By all accounts, they continue to sit on their hands.  While there are profound losses coupled with compromised safety, it’s not a priority, […]

Cautionary tales: When new technology doesn’t change anything.

While thinking of how to draw timelines from earlier posts, I thought of technology that did not lead to progress. In the library world, the most recent leap to nowhere was Bibframe.  The Library of Congress and Zepheira were about to retire MARC. Everyone agreed and still agrees that it is outdated.  Bibframe would integrate library holdings into search results.  The hard copies on the stacks, […]

Register for Free MOOC: Blockchain & Decentralization for the Information Industries Mar 11 – Apr 21, 2019

ENROLL IN THIS FREE MOOC TODAY DESCRIPTION Blockchain technology is a trend on the brink of revolutionizing the public and private sectors, and it is on the radar of many who are curious about its global disruptive potential for accessing and sharing information among individuals, organizations, and governments. This MOOC will provide a background for individuals involved with libraries, urban planning, government agencies, publishing & other […]

Lightbulb on a chalkboard with idea bubbles drawn branching off from it

What is blockchain?

Blockchain is exactly what it is named, a chain of blocks. Each block contains a record of information, such as a deed for a house, the metadata for an image, or potentially, a bibliographic record. The chain that links these blocks together means that if someone wants to change the information in one block of the blockchain without that change being obvious, they would also need […]