Lorcan Demsey has a post on metadata that does a great job of illustrating two types of data collections by describing them as lakes and rivers. The idea did not originate with him; rather he encountered it via OCLC’s Eric Hellman.
- Lakes are repositories of information that change little over time, and are fed from a few well-defined sources, supplemented by occasional “springs”. A good analog for this is the library catalog.
- Rivers are cascading flows of information, changing rapidly and fed by many sources. The quote that describes this most effectively is often attributed to Heraclitus : “you cannot step into the same river twice.”*
This is a fantastic way to frame the ongoing transition that libraries face. We are transforming ourselves (being forced to transform? some combination of the two?) from a lake-based information service to a river-based information service. We are having to learn as we go to navigage ever-changing waterways, dodging sandbars and debris in a boat that was designed over a century ago for lake use.
Keep this analogy in mind… it lends itself well.
* Wikipedia offers the following quote listed within their page on Heraclitus: “We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.” This quote is simultaneously much more illustrative of the complexity of our situation, and much more confusing.
