Free speech in digital age topic of lecture
By David Horn
Herald-Times Staff Writer
December 12, 2002
Permission to repost this article was granted by the Herald-Times. Online version of the herald Times web site located at HoosierTimes.com .
More than 50 students, faculty and friends crowded into the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science auditorium Wednesday to hear Nancy Kranich discuss "Libraries, Civil Society, and the Information Commons: A Perspective on Intellectual Property."
Past president of the American Library Association, Kranich admitted her topic is "specialized and dry," but held everyone's attention during an hour long lecture about the need for free and open exchange of ideas in a digital-age democracy.
"How can we reframe the debate about access to information and the need for democratic discourse in the digital age?" she asked.
Before answering this question, she explained several "tendencies and tensions" of the information age, including freedom vs. control, centralization vs. decentralization, special interest vs. public interest, equality vs. equity, and civic republicanism vs. commercial republicanism.
She described the "bewildering amount of information" currently available via the Internet, but also reported "lots more capability to control it."
"In a time of information abundance, librarians and other public interest groups must advocate daily to ensure the free flow of ideas," she said.
Why?
Because, according to Kranich, citizens' rights suffer when fair use, equitable access, and freedom of information "totter on the verge of extinction" as the free flow of ideas is curtailed by the demands of the marketplace.
Noting that copyright and civil society scholars have adopted the metaphor of the "commons" when discussing an architecture of democratic culture, she said it's also an apt metaphor in efforts to reclaim the public's information assets.
"In a commons, everyone gets to play," she said, urging listeners to "showcase and fortify" the information commons.
"Equitable access to information, public information rights, and intellectual freedom are at stake," she said, if the information gap widens and the digital divide is not closed.
"As stewards of the public's information assets, librarians can use the metaphor of the commons to stake a new claim for the free and open exchange of ideas," she said.
Kranich has been featured on the "Today Show," "C-Span Washington Journal" and National Public Radio.
In her lecture Wednesday, she also discussed censorship, copyright and scholarly communication.
Reporter David Horn can be reached at 812-331-4307 or by e-mail at dhorn@heraldt.com.
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