NANCY KRANICH
Past President of the American Library Association
on
Libraries, Civil Society, and the Information Commons:
A Perspective on Intellectual Property
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
2:30 - 4:00 pm
Room #033 Main Library (Auditorium)
Reception follows
Sponsored by
Indiana University School of Library and Information Science
ABSTRACT
How can we reframe the debate about access to information and the need for democratic discourse in the digital age? In a time of information abundance, librarians and other public interest groups must advocate daily to ensure the free flow of ideas. Nevertheless, citizens' rights such as 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. Copyright and civil society scholars have adopted the metaphor of the commons in discussing an architecture of democratic culture as an approach to reclaiming the public's information assets. Librarians have joined forces with these opinion leaders to reassert the public interest into the discourse about information access. 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 in order to ensure the survival of our digital-age democracy.
BIO
Nancy Kranich served as President of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies and undertaking advocacy, civic engagement, digital divide, and information literacy projects. Nancy has spoken out against censorship, filtering, and other attempts to limit public access to vital information. During her ALA presidency, Nancy launched ALA's Campaign for America's Libraries and initiated projects to frame issues underlying Equity of Access and Reclaiming the Information Commons. Today, she serves as the Chair of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee and its Office of Information Technology Policy's newly formed Information Commons Subcommittee. Previously, she was Associate Dean of Libraries at New York University where she managed NYU's libraries, press, media services, cable television network NYU-TV teleconferencing and distance learning. She has also worked in public libraries in Bridgeport and Windsor, CT, and Madison, WI.
Nancy speaks and writes frequently and has appeared on the Today Show, C-Span Washington Journal, and National Public Radio. She recently published Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstones of Liberty (Chicago, ALA, 2001), and has written over 60 articles that have appeared in The Nation, FAIR's Extra, Library Journal, American Libraries , The Media Studies Journal, and a number of other journals. Among the topics she addresses are scholarly communication, censorship, copyright, digital libraries, media conglomeration, and information policy. Articles about libraries and the information commons are forthcoming in a book on the network society from MIT Press and the school library journal Knowledge Quest.
Nancy currently serves as a judge for the Project Censored Awards, as the Treasurer for the National Security Archives, on the Advisory Board for The Nation magazine's digital archive, as an expert witness in a copyright case, and as a member of the Freedom to Read Foundation Board. She earned a master's degree and studied for her doctorate in Public Administration from NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. She holds an M.A. in Library Science and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Posted November 25, 2002