Librarians and the CIA

David Weinberger (Small Pieces Losely Joined) has an interesting blog post on a recent stint as consultant to the CIA on social software. It turns out David and six other experts* were called in to engage some 50-odd CIA analysts about wikis, blogs, tags and "linking linking linking."

"This was a totally fascinating set of sessions. The CIA folks there included visionaries (e.g., Calvin Andrus), internal bloggers, the people behind Intellipedia (an in-house wikipedia), folks from the daily in-house newspaper, and some managers not yet sold on the idea of blogs and wikis and tags. ... The people we met with are serious about understanding the opportunities, experimenting, piloting, and evangelizing."

First thought: The CIA has an in-house Wikipedia!?

Second thought: When CIA analysts—a process-oriented, authority- and expertise-driven profession if ever there was one—get serious about social software, isn't it time for mainstream librarians to get interested?

And the water-boarding? Okay, maybe librarians should avoid following everything the CIA does.

*My invitation lost in the mail, I'm sure.