Wired has an interesting article on crowdsourcing.
Jeff Howe describes the term on his new crowdsourcing blog as:
Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers.
It seems to me that a lot of what a librarian does has already been crowdsourced, to some extent. Information is out there, and people everywhere are trying to organize it and index it and make it searchable. Will we go the way of the stock photographer? I’d wager that librarians do still and always will serve an important role in information management. The more information provided, the more is needed someone to help determine what is credible, what is biased, and most importantly what is relevant to a specific person’s goals.