Blockchain and the ETH Library: take part, watch and learn

Abstract

ETH Library as one of the leading scientific libraries in the world is up to date not only concerning methodology and the library’s business processes but also with regards to technology. To be and to stay state of the art, ETH Library takes part early in new technological developments that may affect information science, such as Blockchain. Actually, nobody really knows, if Blockchain is useful for libraries or just a hyped, very power-consuming technology for one special purpose. To maybe answer this, to deal constructively with the influence Blockchain has on information science, and to shape this development, ETH Library started several activities: — Under the leadership of its ETH Library Lab, workshops were performed to identify and analyse possible use cases for Blockchain. — Early this year on the initiative of the Max Planck Digital Library (MDPL), leading institutions from ten different countries, including ETH Library, have founded the global Blockchain Consortium for Science. — This summer, ETH Library started an experiment to build a tool to validate data and to see, if this tool can usefully run on a Blockchain. The talk will give an overview of data storage and Blockchain, as well as ETH Library’s activities.