Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems
Palfrey, John; Gasser,Urs
New York : Basic Books, 2012
companion website and underlying research

I’ll start off with this: there’s not much in this book that I didn’t already know. Much of it is expository rather than analytical, and taken up with the history of interoperability in information technology over the past fifty years, its pitfalls and scandals,  and intentional and accidental successes. Anyone who’s been around a while, who’s been paying attention to tech news, knows the history here. It is great background and I would strongly, strongly recommend this book to library managers in any specialty who DON’T know the history of the broader IT industry over the past decade, at least.

For those of us who are up to speed, I would recommend just the first and last chapters – they’re where the meat is, and I can’t recommend them enough. Conveniently, they’re two of the four chapters available for free from the first link above.

The authors talk about four layers of interop, on two axes. In the introduction, and to a lesser extent throughout the book, they talk about the technology/data/human/institutional layering of interop. These are heirarchical layers; data needs a mechanism for interflow before two datasets to cointerpret; it is necessary for humans to exchange data in order to communicate; it is necessary to human representatives of institutions to communicate in order for institutions to collaborate. These layers describe the ways in which systems function interoperably, and articulate the design fundamentals that need to be addressed for successful interop.

In the conclusion, they talk about the theoretical/descriptive/predictive/normative layering of interop. This is a more conceptual layering, an approach to thinking about what systems should (and should not be) designed to fuction interoperably, to achieve peak interop for genuine human benefit – efficiency, cooperation amongst diversity, opportunity, enrichment. The use of interop as a lens through which to theorize, describe, predict the behavior of, and assess the effectiveness of complex systems is, itself, a process and language of consensus that is gaining prevalence across a huge range of professional spheres that touch on libraries: tech, government, law, social service, education, publishing, marketing, DIY/makerculture, pop culture and entertainment. This is a language we need to speak.