I attended a two day conference in Cambridge last week at Crassh on Evidence of Value: ICT in the Arts and Humanities. There was a lot of emphasis on archives, but thankfully some very good speakers too:

Cambridge Anthropologist James Leach was speaking in the session: Knowledge on the Move: What is transferable about 'knowledge' and what does this imply?. His thoughts on the value of relationships, stemming from his long-term field research on the Rai Coast in Papua New Guinea had particular resonance for iShed:

In relationships/networks, the source of value is not the objects produced - the generation of value is somewhere else (the relationships).

Knowledge transfer is not a straightforward appropriation, but the value is in the specificity of the skills each partners brings. Are we transferring knowledge or information - both are subject to the disciplinary contexts of where you are coming from.

The value of ICT is in what sense it serves to make relationships possible.

We should not perhaps think of value but values. The role of a translator is bridging between what is of value to X and what is of value to Y. This is a long process and often has uninrended outcomes.