I do think that if web people are going to use the term at all, we should attend to its roots and try to learn from the people who do serious curation. And thus my attempt at bridge-making. We should probably call it “high-speed bricolage” or something, but that’s French, so it’ll never catch on in the US.

More and more content curators simply means adding to that very same superabundance.

That’s the root of my trouble with most of the marketing world’s approach to content. It’s antisocial and, incidentally, a very short-sighted business strategy.

Anyhow, my next couple of posts will deal with a different kind of content work that is, I think, much more closely allied to curation.

@Taariq: I don’t think any marketing or “content curation” work will ever come close to matching the kind of work performed by curators in museums and galleries. Which is fine — they’re quite different things. But I also think it’s irresponsible not to try to learn from those disciplines.

To put it a little differently, I think it’s our professional responsibility to be both civil to and curious about the people whose terminology we’ve co-opted.

(I should now admit that I still think Economics is essentially witchcraft, despite my humanities background. Though I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

@Elizabeth: Thank you so much for stopping by, and for commenting. (I owe you an email, too! The last few days have been a bit of a blur.)

Even as I try to avoid the terminology debate, I find myself unable to avoid drawing my own lines — you must be this tall to ride the Curation Express, that sort of thing. (As a semi-closeted academic, I do feel protective of extra-commercial intellectual activity.)

@Taariq: Are you asking if librarianship plays a role in content strategy? I think library science is quite thoroughly intertwingled with information architecture, and with the ‘techier’ aspects of content strategy, certainly — taxonomic processes, finding aids, all that sort of thing is directly derived from library work.

As far as the relationship between librarianship as a whole and content, I’m afraid that’s another whole article. (One I’d be interested in reading, as I’ve always been an amateur library nerd.)

My issue that gained a lot of attention is that curatorship is a job with actual skills. Too many “content-curators”, as you put it, are lacking the notions of preservation/conservation for the sake of future generations, requiring great detail to providence and “object biography” (If one is a fan of Igor Kopytoff). Few content-curators have the hardline policy that museum curators have to direct their work on the collection. I suppose that’s why you’re making more sense to me than Scoble by taking about strategy.

The superabundance of information is overwhelming, so the truly great stuff has to be treasured. More and more content curators simply means adding to that very same superabundance.