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On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 11:12 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I think this just goes to show, with the advent of the Internet,
> centralized authorities are not as necessary/useful as they once used to
> be. —ELM
>

I haven't been in libraries long enough to know what LITA was like
pre-Internet, but this conclusion runs counter to my experience of LITA and
the Internet.

In practice, LITA and code4lib seem to be about equally centralized and
authoritative.* And the Internet wouldn't exist without centralized
authorities, and centralized authorities remain necessary and useful for
almost everyone who uses the Internet. Even people who don't rely on huge
ISPs or Google or Facebook or Twitter or GitHub or Mozilla or FSF tend to
rely on centralized authorities for standards and protocols.

I love code4lib and I love that a lot of other people find it useful, too.
I also get more value from LITA than it costs me in membership dues. I'm
glad both exist, and I wish both had more participants.

Brett