Issues of the Information Age
With the ever increasing amount of information and the growing use of the Internet, many
questions come to mind. Who owns information that is 'published' on the Internet? Will our
privacy be invaded merely by accessing Web sites? Will information retrieval become a
commercial proposition, creating a 'digital divide' between those who can afford it and
those who can't? There are no easy answers...
Intellectual Property
Issues surrounding ownership of information and copyright were explored in Week 9 lecture notes. The recent US Supreme Court decision upholding the digital rights of freelance writers and the court actions against the music trading site Napster may indicate the direction that intellectual property rights will take in the near future.
Further reading:
Connolly, Frank W. “Intellectual Honesty in the Era of Computing.” THE Journal 22, no. 9 (April 1995): 86-88.
Marsa, Linda. “Whose Ideas Are They Anyway.” Omni 17, no. 9 (Winter 1995): 36-.
Access vs. ownership
“Access vs. ownership”: In an environment of “access”, who is responsible for archiving electronic information? The vendors, or libraries? If libraries try to archive this information, they would most likely be violating the ownership rights of the database creator. What happens when the access to and preservation of information becomes wholly subject to the profit motive?
If a library accesses an online journal, book, or other online content through a vendor / aggregator, then cancels their subscription (or the vendor drops the journal, goes out of business, etc.), the library simply loses access. This also happens when changing databases, like from ABI/INFORM to Business Source Premier.
What about content that only exists online? Like e-journals, web sites, etc. Who archives that? Does it just disappear?
How can access to this information be guaranteed in the future? J-STOR one possibility.
We’re moving toward a more profit-based paradigm for accessing information: instead of a library purchasing the information source and then allowing it to be shared by a community, we’re seeing a shift toward paying for each use of the information, for each time it is looked at.
Will it come down to the question, “Is the preservation of electronic information profitable?”
Privacy
The online environment and new technologies make it easier for companies and governments to gather information about Web surfers without their knowledge and permission. Our right to privacy may be eroding in the information age. Visit the following sites for a full exploration of the issue:
Electronic Privacy Information Center http://www.epic.org/
Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/
This course was developed by Joanna Burkhardt, Mary MacDonald and Andrée Rathemacher and was adapted for online use by Jim Kinnie as part of the URI Libraries Plan for Information Literacy - http://www.uri.edu/library/instruction_services/infolitplan.html
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