Building Open Knowledge – Micah Vandegrift – Medium

"There is a sense of a thing that is building. It has a pillar in the OpenCon community, a foundation in the digital humanities, a keystone in higher education policy, and a truss in librarianship. In the various roles I’ve played between all those worlds, I’ve tried to name some essential characteristics that provide a foothold for my work, interests, and future-orientation. How should we define digital scholarship? In what ways is any of this different than the work we’ve always done in the academy, save for the ease and efficacy of doing more with technology? Thankfully, I’m a puzzler so I puzzle over these kinds of things, hoping to make sense of the state of things, and what is important about it. Joining the library at NCSU recently, I have a lot to be excited about. Too much to list. But there is one thing I feel particularly responsible to deliver on; the job title of Open Knowledge Librarian feels like a mandate and a mantle. I know titles are a dime a dozen, but I do take seriously the opportunity to use this elbow room to advance a broad idea of what we mean when we say “open knowledge.” I believe that we are at or reaching a saturation point where the open agenda encompasses more than it doesn’t, and there are many folks working in the aforementioned areas that will be the vanguard of redefining that agenda, and producing some influence and impact that the world will notice...."