Today I came across the phrase the
'Internet of things' (or the 'Internet of everything') , A Tim Berners Lee concept which describes the way different objects relate to each other. In the world wide web context, things can communicate with each other through the internet using embedded chips and modems. My heating, for instance, is a case in point, and when I changed the internet password two weeks ago I had to learn how to reprogram my NEST thermostat, which was a very complicated business and an unpleasant surprise. Fortunately eventually I located the UK support phone number for a very helpful lady in Dublin, although I had not been given the service number and it did not appear on the internet. Now my downstairs thermostat can communicate again with the upstairs one and with the owner at her workplace.
Apparently experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020. It is possible for librarians to catalogue 'things', which we call realia (if they are real things naturally occurring) or artefacts (if they are hand made.) However in RDA there is a tendency nowadays to call them all realia. For instance recently I have catalogued book rests and locker keys, using existing RDA rules and MARC21 code.
OCLC have something to say about how the Internet of Things affects libraries, which can provide resources on the subject including:
General knowledge, training, demonstrations
Education regarding privacy and security issues
Providing accessibility, compatible devices and resources
https://www.oclc.org/publications/nextspace/articles/issue24/librariesandtheinternetofthings.en.html
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