Cataloging, Classification and Social Computing

"Will Google’s Keyword Searching Eliminate the Need for LC Cataloging and Classification?" Well, Thomas Mann has some ideas.  Read more at http://www.guild2910.org/searching.htm

IMHO, I think it is too early to tell what the web has in store for us ...  especially while social computing is at a such an infantile stage.  As I ponder the future of interesting activities like Odeo's distributed folksonomy support, where anyone can tag an item, as well as more established, but still young players like wikipedia, metabrainz and others, I can't help but think that there is much that we can't predict about the potential for disruptive technologies ... especially if someone were to bind traditional metadata stores from sources like libraries (content that is more or less widely available),  with a more contemporary twist.  That would certainly be a fun project to work on!

On a somewhat related note, you might find the following
series of essays about "the new gatekeepers" of interest...

http://civilities.net/TheNewGatekeepers