As probably many of you have, I’ve been curious from afar about this effort dubbed “The Digital Public Library of America”. I even subscribed to the electronic discussion for a while until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Between bickering over goals and meddling by folks who seemed rather distant from libraries of any type, I thought perhaps it was too much of a distraction from getting my work done. Thus I’ve been lightly monitoring events and seeing what unfolds.
Part of what unfolded recently was an oddly named call for engagement dubbed a “beta sprint”. WTF is a beta sprint? Call me cynical, but it strikes me as an attempt to take a couple of words from the software community and use them to get some instant technical credibility for this effort. “Hey, we can use the word ‘sprint’!” Despite the fact, of course, that this has nothing whatsoever to do with the typical use of the term in agile programming.
My petulant sidebar now concluded, I can call your attention to an opportunity we all now have to get as up close and personal to this largely invitation-only effort as we care to. Anyone is invited to the DPLA Plenary to occur on October 21 at the National Archives in Washington, DC. There you will hear about the best “beta sprint” ideas as judged by a panel of experts. Perhaps then what the DPLA seeks to become will be clearer.
About Roy Tennant
“WTF is a beta sprint?” For me it was working really hard on something I believe in with absolutely no promise that it’ll come to fruition. Still, I have high hopes. This is all OK, and sort of par for the course in my public library experience.