I really enjoyed this video, which introduces the idea of curation as a part of collection development and management. We are living in a data driven world, and librarians are in the unique position of gathering and arranging information for consumers. As the narrator says, "It is the curator's job to bridge the gap between the material they're presenting and the people they are presenting it to" (location 2:18). The narrator works largely in the art world, in which she reviews, gathers, selects, and presents works of art and the information pertaining to it--and these are the same words we use in collection development and acquisitions. She mentions the various steps and facets of curatorship and describes it as a timelined process, which repeats and often takes a circuitous route from the initial search and review to the final presentation to the public. While the terms curator and curation are in wider use these days (as anyone can "curate," and this is no more evident than in places like Pandora and GoodReads), the narrator provides us with a solid grasp of the traditional use of the terms and how they apply to today's digital world.
Although this video speaks in terms of the art world, libraries often deal in physical items as well as written works, and this is especially true as the world of librarianship opens up to diverse collections and industries. For example, there was recently a job announcement for a librarian at Pixar Studios, in which the librarian would be in charge of managing the collection of animation cells, prototypes, and digital animation resources. A movie lover's dream job! And like so many librarian jobs that come up, it is not a traditional book collection, yet still needs the professional knowledge of a librarian. This is what we are looking at in terms of the future of our career field--and watching this video is a great way to get these ideas defined and understand just how we'll likely be working now and in the future.
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