A National Digital Platform: Tools for Innovation. Martin R. Kalfatovic. IMLS Focus. New York Public Library. 29 April 2014.

2. At the Paris Exposition of 1900, Smithsonian
Secretary S.P. Langley led historian Henry Adams
through the halls of the exposition ... Langley
introduced Adams to the Dynamo, the electrical
generator that would define our current era in its
reliance on electricity:

3. “To him [Langley], the
dynamo itself was but
an ingenious channel
for conveying
somewhere the heat
latent in a few tons of
poor coal hidden in a
dirty engine-house
carefully kept out of
sight ...”
Smithsonian Secretary, Samuel Pierpont Langley
Henry Adams. The Education of
Henry Adams (1918)

4. “...but to Adams the
dynamo became a
symbol of infinity."
Henry Adams
Henry Adams. The Education of
Henry Adams (1918)

5. But back to the
dynamo. Today, the
lowly, dynamo, is one
of the key tools that
powers our innovation
and I want to use that
as an example of the
principles we need for
tools in our current
information-based
environment.

6. Tools for the National Digital Platform must be...

7. In our current world, so many of our tools are
ubuquitous, powered by unseen electricty and
networked connectivity, we are shocked with they
fail or we're in a spot where some ubiquity is non-
existent.
The tool needs to be everywhere, readily
accessible, and available widely.
The tools need to be ubiquitous.

8. The dynamo, or other means of generating
electricity for our modern devices are invisible
except when things go wrong.
The tools must be transparent.
The tool needs to be part of the user experience,
not something that calls attention to itself; the tool
is a means, not an end.

9. Tools for
innovation
must be tools
that work in a
larger
ecosystem;

10. Tools for
innovation
must be tools
that work in a
larger
ecosystem;
the greatest
tool is
useless
unless it has
something to
work with;

11. Tools for
innovation
must be tools
that work in a
larger
ecosystem;
the greatest
tool is
useless
unless it has
something to
work with;
A hammer is
useless, and
sometimes
dangerous if
you don't
have a nail.

12. The tools must be integrated.

13. 
The best tool will work across
borders, but more importantly,
work across modes of activity.
Tools should be part of the
cycle that captures data,
processes it, converts it to
new information and sends it
back into the cycle again.

14. “What changed the ebook scene was not the actual
device but the emergence of a networked
ecosystem of which the device was just one
component. The significant thing about Amazon's
Kindle was not that it was an e-reader but that it
was a networked device to which texts could be
quickly and effortlessly downloaded from Amazon's
online store.”
John Naughton in The Guardian (8 Feb 2014)

15. And I should add
one more element,
which is more a
process, to this
requirements set,
iteration.

16. We need to revisit our tools and their
purposes. One of the greatest tools of the
20th century was the printed phonebook.

17. Tim Welch / https://flic.kr/p/wAs3S
Today, the phonebook is an unwanted
visitor, scorned and tossed in the trash
as soon as it arrives.

18. “The result of a
year’s work
depends more on
what is struck out
than on what is
left in; on the
sequence of the
main lines of
thought, than on
their play or
variety.”
Henry Adams
Henry Adams. The Education of
Henry Adams (1918)

19. Adams' exploration
of the Virgin and
the Dynamo took
him a lifetime ...
our tools for today
will take many
hands to build and
we need to open
our digital library
content to those
tool makers.

20. As our National Digital Platform grows, what
tools will be built, not only by us, but by our
users …

21. … tools that will energize, synthisize, and more
importantly, equalize our world.

22. And unlike for Adams' dynamo, we don't
have grand showcases like the great
word expositions of the past ...

23. ... but we do have what I think is a close facsimile -
at least in terms of technology - and that's the
Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

24. Let's make certain the tools are as good as the
content in our national digital collections.

25. “The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex
devices of great reliability; and something is bound
to come of it” Vannevar Bush (1945)

26. Let's make the most of it!

27. Thank You!