Somewhat tangential, but HathiTrust was born from what I would consider the "golden age" of technical work coming out of libraries (2002-2010). One of the unintended consequences of the dotcom crash was that compensation falling meant that there were a lot of talented software people working on what interested them rather than what simply paid the most (since the gap was much smaller).
As a result research libraries were well staffed with very technical people all genuinely interested in making software that made the world a better place. MIT's DSpace, LibraryThing, Open ILSs like Evergreen/Koha, and a huge range of quirky/innovative smaller projects that no longer exist all came out of this period.
It ended around 2010 since the GFC fallout started to hit library budgets while tech suddenly started getting really hot. Even if you loved libraries, most library devs where facing pay cuts to stay in libraries versus massive raises and other quality of life improvements for going into tech. Plus startups and tech companies in general at the time felt more inspired.
As a result research libraries were well staffed with very technical people all genuinely interested in making software that made the world a better place. MIT's DSpace, LibraryThing, Open ILSs like Evergreen/Koha, and a huge range of quirky/innovative smaller projects that no longer exist all came out of this period.
It ended around 2010 since the GFC fallout started to hit library budgets while tech suddenly started getting really hot. Even if you loved libraries, most library devs where facing pay cuts to stay in libraries versus massive raises and other quality of life improvements for going into tech. Plus startups and tech companies in general at the time felt more inspired.