Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Of at least equal importance with his entertainer’s cap was the jester’s function as adviser and critic. This is what distinguishes him from a pure entertainer who would juggle batons, swallow swords, or strum on a lute or a clown who would play the fool simply to amuse people. The jester everywhere employed the same techniques to carry out this delicate role, and it would take an obtuse king or emperor not to realize what he was driving at, since “other court functionaries cooked up the king’s facts for him before delivery; the jester delivered them raw.” An informal survey of the man in the street has shown that most people will pinpoint the jester’s right to speak his mind as one of his salient characteristics.
Beatrice K. Otto
Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World
ISBN: 0-226-64091-4, ©2001,  Find in your library

Does one need to mention anymore that the world is changing? At least in libraries and in higher education, the question is moot — if you haven’t felt the change, then you should get out of the office more often. Perhaps a better question to ask is whether these changes are small, incremental and ultimately taken in stride, or are the changes large, radical, and ultimately disruptive (or destructive) to the institutions we recognize today.

The Disruptive Library Technology Jester (DLTJ) blog is all about exploring the expanse between those two points, with a tendency towards the disruptive (but not destructive) side of the spectrum. At times, ideas and concepts are offered as straw-men — to be ripped apart and dismissed as fantasy or a hoax. Other times, the ideas and concepts are fundamental to the author’s perception of the order of the universe — and to dispute them is tantamount to questioning the author’s grasp on reality! But, as you might expect from someone playing the role of the court jester, it is up to you to figure out the meaning behind the author’s words. You might ask, “Is he just provoking me into a response, or is he speaking a prophetic vision of the world now emerging?”

First and foremost, though, DLTJ serves as a scratch pad for the author’s ideas, concepts, and references to knowledge passing by that may need to be reference again. The views expressed here are those of the author, not the author’s employer, and reuse of materials from DLTJ must follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-ShareAlike license. Contact the author to seek permissions outside those granted by this Creative Commons license.