My earlier post about using a feed from an OCLC web service to supply data to our web site exemplifies a principle that I’ve adopted for the Theology Libraries efforts. There are a number of companies and organizations with massive computing power, and even a few smaller ones, that are able to provide data to us if we can utilize it. We need to develop the ability to mashup the data that are available to us with our own data to better serve our users.

John Wilkin’s post about the Next Generation Library Systems nicely states the principle and its corollary. We need to develop ways to make our data available to others…

We must not try to do what the network can do for us. We must find ways to facilitate integration with network services and ensure that our investment is where our role is most important (e.g., not trying to compete with the network services unless we think we can and should displace them in a key area). For example, we have recognized that Google will be a point of discovery, and so rather than trying to duplicate what they do well for the broad masses of people, we should (1) put all things online in a way that Google can discover; and (2) because we recognize that Google won’t build services in ways that serve all scholarly needs, work to strategically complement what they do.