Whither the institution?

Mary Madden with the Pew Internet and American Life project posted some interesting thoughts about the role of the library in the new digital era.  As her very last words, she declares the new library should be "Made of People".  What a profound statement this is!  As much time as I spend online, I find the opportunity to be in a public space, be it a restaurant, store, or library absolutely thrilling -- why because it is "made of people".  One of the points of the presentation is that the Internet can help fill libraries with people.  I couldn't agree more, but where I probably diverge is on the approach.  More and more, I find physical institutions trying to innovate services on their own as a way of drawing people in.  This just creates little islands that may go unnoticed.  I think a better way is to open up the institution -- in this case -- library catalogues, electronic resources, etc. for others to create services around-- as I have said before regarding online academic databases.  The whole promise of the Internet is to tap into the creativity of the masses -- not to have to rely on your own.  When you open yourself up like this, interesting things will happen.  As a point of correlation, Peter Suber recently quoted the results of a study  Assessment of the impact of an open-URL link resolver that shows opening up proprietary databases to Internet based localization drives increased usage. Openess doesn't weaken institutions -- it reinvigorates them.