RENCI People Interview with Paul Jones

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Watch entire video or click on any question below:

Q: You are a poet, author and editor and widely known as the founder of the ibiblio online digital library. Do you feel you are, as the Raleigh News & Observer once described you, a ‘renaissance geek?’

Q: How did ibiblio get started? What are the challenges facing ibiblio and data archives in general in 2010?

Q: Your work has coincided with the birth and growth of the Internet. What do you think will be the next great sea change?

Q: What is next for ibiblio? How will it change?

Q: Any advice for young people just beginning their careers?

Biography

Although often mistaken for other unreconstructed relics of the failed social policies of the Sixties, Paul Jones is the Director of ibiblio.org, a project that includes the “Site Formerly Known as MetaLab” and SunSITE, The Public’s Library — a large contributor-run digital library. Besides speaking at several conferences worldwide, Jones teaches on the faculties of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Information and Library Science. He can be found many places on the Internet. He was the original manager of SunSITE.unc.edu, one of the first websites in North America, and is co-author of The Web Server Book (Ventana, 1995, rereleased as The Unix Web Server Book, Second Edition Ventana, 1997). Jones is also authored articles on digital libraries for Communications of the ACM in May 2001 and February 2002. Jones has an additional on-going research interest in open source and sharing communities and information policy issues as well as being an actively publishing poet. He is the editor of the Internet Poetry Archives, published with UNC Press. Jones is a founding board member of the American Open Technology Consortium, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Chapel Hill Public Library, and a board member of the Linux Documentation Project. But he is most pleased to have been admitted into the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists and to have been selected in April 2003 as Best Geek in the Research Triangle by the Independent Weekly.