DOCSLIB.ORG

The Champlain College Library Annual Report 2007-2008

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Champlain College Library Annual Report 2007-2008 THE CHAMPLAIN COLLEGE LIBRARY ANNUAL REPORT 2007-2008 OCTOBER, 2008 THE STAFF OF THE CHAMPLAIN COLLEGE LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION: Director of Academic Resources and the Library: Janet R. Cottrell Associate Director & Collection Development/Acquisitions Librarian: Marie A. Kascus LIBRARIANS: Andrew Burkhardt, Emerging Technologies Librarian Sarah Cohen, Information Literacy Librarian Michele Melia, Cataloging and Systems Librarian Paula Olsen, Reference and Instruction Librarian Brenda Racht, Reference and Interlibrary Loan Librarian CIRCULATION STAFF: Tammy Miller, Circulation Coordinator Freddy Angel, Evening/Weekend Circulation Assistant Jo Berger, Evening/Weekend Circulation Assistant Chris Campion, Evening/Weekend Circulation Assistant Gloria De Souza, Evening/Weekend Circulation Assistant Matt Jarvis, Evening/Weekend Circulation Assistant ARCHIVES: Christina Dunphy, Archives Coordinator LIBRARY VISION STATEMENT Champlain College Library endeavors to be a national leader in helping educate students to become skilled, effective, responsible information users: that is, people who recognize when they need information, and know how to find, retrieve, evaluate, and use it effectively, efficiently, and ethically. The Library practices agility in being able to respond quickly and effectively to fast-paced change in our profession of librarianship and information science, our College, and our higher education arena. We take an entrepreneurial approach: we undertake the challenge of providing exemplary library and information resources and services in creative, sometimes unconventional ways within the innovative Champlain environment; organizing, operating, and assuming the risk for securing and deploying the needed resources. As "intrepreneurs,*" we create and grow an effective library unit within the larger organizational context of the College. In support of the College's approach to higher education (a unique blend of technology leadership, market savvy, innovation and fiscal responsibility with a commitment to "the human touch"), we secure and deploy the best available technology to support students and faculty in their information needs, we capitalize on the innovative design and purpose of the Information Commons, and we create, maintain, and make known the Information Commons as an intellectual center on campus -- a welcoming and supportive environment staffed by effective and caring professionals. This distinctive approach permeates both the physical and virtual Library, its resources, its staff, and its services, as we provide relevant, patron-centered support to students, faculty, and staff. -- Modeled on the Champlain College Vision Statement, August, 2006 * The term "intrapreneur" is derived from intracorporate entrepreneurs, those who implement innovative ventures within an existing organization. For a discussion of intrenpreurship, see works by Gifford Pinchot, including Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999. MILLER INFORMATION COMMON: THE FACILITY AND ITS USE Now in its tenth year, Miller Information Commons is a popular campus center. This year’s gate count exceeded 150,000, the highest ever recorded: Figure 1: Gate Count Over Years "Gate count" is simply a measure of the number of people who walk into a facility. It does not identify type of use, but it does serve as a good overall indicator of the level of use. The fact that Miller Information Commons' gate count continues to increase is one of the best indications that it remains a vibrant campus resource. With seating for about 13% of the Burlington campus student body, the facility often feels full and may be approaching capacity. Circulation Manager Tammy Miller and Evening/weekend Circulation Assistants Freddy Angel, Jo Berger, Chris Campion, Gloria DeSousa, and Matt Jarvis kept the facility open for 106.5 hours each week during the academic year, including early morning, late night, and weekend hours. 2007-2008 Annual Report 2 In addition to library services and resources, Miller Information Commons houses additional services for students and faculty: • The Writing Lab, directed in 2007-2008 by Francine Page and staffed by students. • The Math/Accounting Lab, directed by David Mona and staffed by students. • The Center for Instructional Practice, directed by Cinse Bonino, offering workshops, orientations, personal consultation, and other resources and services, for all Champlain faculty members EXHIBITS AND DISPLAYS Book displays and special exhibits remain a popular and effective way to showcase selections from the library collection. Each month, a broad selection of New Books is prepared and displayed by Cataloging and Systems Librarian Michele Melia. In addition, thematic displays highlight campus events, current events, holidays, and special collections. This year's thematic displays, developed by librarians Sarah Cohen, Janet Cottrell, Marie Kascus, Paula Olsen, and Brenda Racht, focused on current events, campus events, and topics of interest, including: • The Coleman Foundation Supporting Entrepreneurship Collection (May-June, 2008) • Perk Up Your Summer: Coffee! (June, 2008) • Celebrating Tasha Tudor (June, 2008) • Memoirs (June, 2008) • Latino Authors (May, 2008) • Earth Day (April 2008) • In Celebration of Spring (April 2008) • Jazz (April, 2008) • National Poetry Month (April, 2008) • International Photo exhibit and Photography book display (March-April, 2008) • Meaningful Books: Francine Page (April, 2008) • Popular Reading: Mystery (March/April 2008) • Jane Austin (March-April, 2008) • Jay McKee: Photos of Ireland (March, 2008) • Spatial Color: Student projects from MMG 100 (March, 2008) • Highlighting Our Collection: Penguins Lives—Biographies (March 2008) • National Women’s History Month (March, 2008) • Rock the Vote! (February-March, 2008) • Highlighting Our Collection: Contemporary African-American Literature (February 2008) • Presidential Scandals (February 2008) • From the Classics to the Contemporary: Listening to Music Through the Ages (February 2008) • Valentine’s Day—A Celebration of Love (February 2008) • Popular Reading: Adventure (February 2008) • Meaningful Books: Gary Scudder (February, 2008) • Buffalo Soldiers (February, 2008) • Black History Month (February, 2008) • Highlighting Our Collection: Cookbooks (January, 2008) • Sir Edmund Hillary (January 2008) • Highlighting Our Collection: What’s Outside Your Door (Globalism)(January 2008) • Honoring Martin Luther King (January, 2008) • Writings of Martin Luther King (January, 2008) • Curl Up With a Good Book? (December, 2007) 2007-2008 Annual Report 3 • Holidays Around the World (December, 2007) • World AIDS Day (December, 2007) • Popular Reading: Great Books into Great Movies (Nov/Dec 2007) • Remembering Norman Mailer (November, 2007) • Veterans Day (November, 2007) • Native American History Month (November, 2007) • Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore (November, 2007) • Meaningful Books: Angela Batista (October, 2007) • Supporting the Core: The Brain (October, 2007) • Henry V (October, 2007) • Honoring Doris Lessing (October, 2007) • Supporting the Core: Portraiture (October, 2007) • National Book Month (October, 2007) • Meaningful Books: Betsy Beaulieu (September, 2007) • New Books in Science (September, 2007) • What is the What (September, 2007) • Vermont Archeology Month (September, 2007) Figure 2: Reception celebrating international photo competition, April 2008 SPECIAL EVENTS Each year, the Library hosts special events such as book talks, reading groups, and student art exhibit receptions. "Meaningful Books," in which readers from the Champlain community share titles that have had particular meaning in their lives, remained a popular series in 2007-2008. The Library also sponsored reading groups for anyone wishing to discuss the texts for the first Core curriculum course. Events sponsored in 2007-2008 include: • Reception for The Coleman Foundation Supporting Entrepreneurship Collection (May, 2008) • International Photo Display awards reception (April, 2008) • Meaningful Books: Francine Page (April, 2008) • Reception for Spatial Color: Student projects from MMG 100 (March, 2008) • Jay McKee: Photos of Ireland reception (March, 2008) 2007-2008 Annual Report 4 • Meaningful Books: Gary Scudder (February, 2008) • Brown Bag Lunch: Naxos online music library (February, 2008) • Meaningful Books: Angela Batista (October, 2007) • Meaningful Books: Betsy Beaulieu (September, 2007) • Core reading groups (July-August, 2007) 2007-2008 Annual Report 5 THE COLLECTIONS AND THEIR USE THE PRINT COLLECTION The print book collection provides academic support for faculty classroom instructional needs. The library works collaboratively with faculty in each academic division and actively solicits and encourages faculty input into the selection of books and media to meet specific program needs as well as core general education needs. Faculty-identified book requests are encouraged and always welcome, and faculty continue to telephone or stop by the library to discuss specific resource needs as well as send requests for books and media via e-mail. Using Choice Current Reviews for Academic Libraries (reviews written and signed by academic experts) and other selection tools such as Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist as well as reviews in professional journals, Marie Kascus sends relevant reviews online to interested faculty members for their consideration. Faculty members receive an e-mail notification when requested or recommended
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Saving the Information Commons a New Public Intere S T Agenda in Digital Media
    Saving the Information Commons A New Public Intere s t Agenda in Digital Media By David Bollier and Tim Watts NEW AMERICA FOUNDA T I O N PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE Saving the Information Commons A Public Intere s t Agenda in Digital Media By David Bollier and Tim Watts Washington, DC Ack n owl e d g m e n t s This report required the support and collaboration of many people. It is our pleasure to acknowledge their generous advice, encouragement, financial support and friendship. Recognizing the value of the “information commons” as a new paradigm in public policy, the Ford Foundation generously supported New America Foundation’s Public Assets Program, which was the incubator for this report. We are grateful to Gigi Sohn for helping us develop this new line of analysis and advocacy. We also wish to thank The Open Society Institute for its important support of this work at the New America Foundation, and the Center for the Public Domain for its valuable role in helping Public Knowledge in this area. Within the New America Foundation, Michael Calabrese was an attentive, helpful colleague, pointing us to useful literature and knowledgeable experts. A special thanks to him for improv- ing the rigor of this report. We are also grateful to Steve Clemons and Ted Halstead of the New America Foundation for their role in launching the Information Commons Project. Our research and writing of this report owes a great deal to a network of friends and allies in diverse realms. For their expert advice, we would like to thank Yochai Benkler, Jeff Chester, Rob Courtney, Henry Geller, Lawrence Grossman, Reed Hundt, Benn Kobb, David Lange, Jessica Litman, Eben Moglen, John Morris, Laurie Racine and Carrie Russell.
    [Show full text]
  • Info Commons Development Task Force
    Information Commons Development Task Force 2008 Recommendations For the Development of the Information Commons Services and Facilities At the University at Albany 2008 – 2010 By the Information Commons Development Task Force Greg Bobish, Jane Kessler, Chris Moore, Lorre Smith, Laura Ryan, and Robert Wachs March 10, 2008 1 Information Commons Development Task Force 2008 Introduction The Task Force charge is to provide ideas for development of the current Information Commons (IC) to allow evolution to the next generation. The Task Force was asked not to be overly constrained by resource limitations, but to provide ideas that may be used by the University Libraries and Information Technology Services to develop facilities, staff and services. The Task Force was encouraged to develop an expanded concept for the IC. The Task Force decided to look at IC‐related web pages at our peer institutions as well as look at additional Information and Learning Commons that featured services and facilities that were innovative. We used the InfoCommons‐L electronic discussion list to find IC sites and discover ideas through those discussions at the international level. We used survey data gathered from users in the University Libraries by the Reference Assessment Librarian during the fall of 2007. We also met with IC staff and asked them to tell us from their experiences what were successful services, what the users indicated that they liked, what problems users were having, and what they requested often that we are not currently offering. We searched the growing body of literature about Information Commons and Learning Commons and drew philosophical and pragmatic ideas from our results.
    [Show full text]
  • Information Commons: Models for Eliteracy and the Integration of Learning
    Information Commons: Models for eLiteracy and the Integration of Learning Susan Beatty and Peggy White, University of Calgary Abstract Information Commons are often described as integrated learning facilities, where the user can receive assistance in acquiring information literacy skills and/or technical literacy skills or “e-lit skills”. User acquisition of e-lit skills that support further learning is a desirable goal. Information Commons in academic libraries are designed to facilitate this learning goal, often through an integrated and collaborative service model. What are the models of integrated service delivery for Information Commons in academic libraries? Are there models which have been more effective in fostering the learning of e-lit skills and if so, how? This paper will describe the results of an environmental scan of some of the most successful Information Commons in North America and elsewhere, focusing on the elements of their service and program model that in the authors’ opinion foster e-lit integration. Keywords: Information Commons, e-literacy, learning, university, library Journal of eLiteracy, Vol 2 (2005) 2-14 2 1. Introduction Information Commons are a new type of library facility offering innovative services that facilitate student learning. This paper presents an environmental scan of Information Commons in universities and identifies service and program models that support e- literacy. It examines to what extent instruction and services, supporting formal and informal learning, are offered for technology and information searching, that is e-literacy. It seeks to identify which models of Information Commons best meet this objective and suggest areas for further research. 2. Background During the 1990’s and continuing through the present day, a new type of service facility has begun to appear in academic libraries across North America, Europe, and elsewhere.
    [Show full text]
  • Information Commons
    Please do not remove this page Information Commons Kranich, Nancy; Schement, Jorge Reina https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/discovery/delivery/01RUT_INST:ResearchRepository/12643403850004646?l#13643526980004646 Kranich, N., & Schement, J. R. (2008). Information Commons. In Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol. 42, Issue 1, pp. 547–591). Rutgers University. https://doi.org/10.7282/T3KW5JBB This work is protected by copyright. You are free to use this resource, with proper attribution, for research and educational purposes. Other uses, such as reproduction or publication, may require the permission of the copyright holder. Downloaded On 2021/09/25 21:16:40 -0400 Information Commons 1 Information Commons Nancy Kranich Consultant Jorge Schement Pennsylvania State University Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) Chapter 12: 547-591. ABSTRACT This chapter reviews the history and theory of information commons along with the various conceptual approaches used to describe and understand them. It also discusses governance, financing, and participation in these commons. Today’s digital technologies offer unprecedented possibilities for human creativity, global communication, innovation, and access to information. Yet these same technologies also provide new opportunities to control—or enclose—intellectual products, thereby threatening to erode political Information Commons 2 discourse, scientific inquiry, free speech, and the creativity needed for a healthy democracy. Advocates for an open information society face an uphill battle to influence outcomes in the policy arena; yet they are developing information commons that advance innovation, stimulate creativity, and promote the sharing of information resources. Designers of these new information resources can learn from those who have studied other commons like forests and fisheries.
    [Show full text]
  • Peer Production: a Form of Collective Intelligence.” in Hand- Book of Collective Intelligence, Edited by Thomas Malone and Michael Bernstein
    THIS IS A PRE-PRINT VERSION OF PUBLISHED BOOK CHAPTER.THE FINAL VERSION AND THE REFERENCE TO USE WHEN CITING THIS WORK IS: Benkler, Yochai, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. (2015) “Peer Production: A Form of Collective Intelligence.” In Hand- book of Collective Intelligence, edited by Thomas Malone and Michael Bernstein. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peer Production: A Form of Collective Intelligence Yochai Benkler ([email protected]) HARVARD UNIVERSITY Aaron Shaw ([email protected]) NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Benjamin Mako Hill ([email protected]) UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON INTRODUCTION Wikipedia has mobilized a collective of millions to produce an enormous, high quality, encyclopedia without traditional forms of hierarchical organiza- tion or financial incentives. More than any other twenty-first century collab- orative endeavor, Wikipedia has attracted the attention of scholars in the so- cial sciences and law both as an example of what collective intelligence makes possible and as an empirical puzzle. Conventional thinking suggests that ef- fective and successful organizations succeed through hierarchical control and management, but Wikipedia seems to organize collectively without either. Legal and economic common sense dictates that compensation and contracts are necessary for individuals to share the valuable products of their work, yet Wikipedia elicits millions of contributions without payment or owner- ship. Intuition suggests that hobbyists, volunteers, and rag-tag groups will not Parts of this chapter build upon work published in: Y. Benkler, Peer. “Production and Cooperation” forthcoming in J. M. Bauer & M. Latzer (eds.), Handbook on the Economics of the Internet, Cheltenham and Northampton, Edward Elgar. 1 2 be able to create information goods of sufficient quality to undermine pro- fessional production, but contributors to Wikipedia have done exactly this.
    [Show full text]
  • Information Commons - a Public Policy Report - by Nancy Kranich
    - the - Information Commons - a public policy report - by Nancy Kranich THE FREE EXPRESSION POLICY PROJECT BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE at NYU SCHOOL OF LAW e Information Commons: A Public Policy Report © 2004. is report is covered by the Creative Commons “Attribution-No Derivs-NonCommercial” license; see http://creativecommons.org. It may be reproduced in its entirety as long as the Brennan Center for Justice, Free Expression Policy Project is credited, a link to the Project’s Web page is provided, and no charge is imposed. e report may not be reproduced in part or in altered form, or if a fee is charged, without our permission. Please let us know if you reprint. BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE at NYU SCHOOL OF LAW Democracy Program, Free Expression Policy Project 161 Avenue of the Americas, 12th floor New York NY 10013 Phone: (212) 998-6730 Web site: www.brennancenter.org Free Expression Policy Project: www.fepproject.org Author of the report: Nancy Kranich, Senior Research Fellow, Free Expression Policy Project, 2003-04 Editing: Marjorie Heins, Director, Free Expression Policy Project, 2000-04 Design: Jon Hecht table of contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................ INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... I. OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE INFORMATION AGE.. Evolution of the Information Society................................................................... e Promise of the Internet and
    [Show full text]
  • Polycentric Information Commons: a Theory Development and Empirical Investigation
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University CEPRIN Dissertations Center for Process Innovation Fall 12-10-2018 Polycentric Information Commons: A Theory Development and Empirical Investigation Vitali Mindel Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/ceprin_diss Recommended Citation Mindel, Vitali, "Polycentric Information Commons: A Theory Development and Empirical Investigation." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2018. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/ceprin_diss/5 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Process Innovation at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in CEPRIN Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Polycentric Information Commons: A Theory Development and Empirical Investigation By VITALI MINDEL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE ROBINSON COLLEGE OF BUSINESS OF GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY ROBINSON COLLEGE OF BUSINESS 2018 Polycentric Information Commons V. Mindel 2018 Copyright by Vitali Mindel 2018 2 Polycentric Information Commons V. Mindel 2018 ACCEPTANCE This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the Vitali Mindel Dissertation Committee. It has been approved and accepted by all members of that committee, and it has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business of Georgia State University. Richard Phillips, Dean DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Chair: Dr. Lars Mathiassen (Center for Process Innovation & Computer Information Systems Department, Georgia State University) Chair: Dr. Arun Rai (Center for Process Innovation & Computer Information Systems Department, Georgia State University) Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Knowledge As a Commons
    4626_Hess 11/3/06 7:18 AM Page 1 U a communications/scholarly publishing s n Understanding Knowledge as a Commons d a e From Theory to Practice C r s o t m edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom a n m d Charlotte Hess is Director of the Digital Library of the Commons at o i n n Indiana University. Elinor Ostrom is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of g s Understanding Knowledge Political Science, Codirector of the Workshop in Political Theory and K n Policy Analysis at Indiana University, and Codirector of the Center for H e o the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC) s as a Commons Knowledge in digital form offers unprecedented access to information w s at Indiana University. a l through the Internet but at the same time is subject to ever-greater n e d d restrictions through intellectual property legislation, overpatenting, From Theory to Practice O g s licensing, overpricing, and lack of preservation. Looking at knowledge e t r o as a commons—as a shared resource—allows us to understand both m its limitless possibilities and what threatens it. In , Understanding Contributors e David Bollier, James Boyle, James C. Cox, Shubha Ghosh, Charlotte Hess, Nancy d Knowledge as a Commons, experts from a range of disciplines discuss i t Kranich, Peter Levine, Wendy Pradt Lougee, Elinor Ostrom, Charles M. Schweik, Peter o the knowledge commons in the digital era—how to conceptualize it, r Suber, J. Todd Swarthout, Donald J. Waters s edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom protect it, and build it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Commons As a Neglected Factor of Information Policy
    THE COMMONS AS A NEGLECTED FACTOR OF INFORMATION POLICY Yochai Benkler* ABSTRACT Direct government intervention and privatization have long been the dominant institutional approaches to implementing information policy. Policies pursued using these approaches have tended to result in a centralized information production and exchange system. The paper suggests that adding a third cluster of institutional devices, commons, may be a more effective approach to decentralizing information production. The paper uses two examples, from spectrum regulation and intellectual property, to show that regulating certain resources as commons is feasible, and that such commons can cause organizations and individuals who use these resources to organize the way they produce information in a decentralized pattern. The paper suggests that identifying additional resources capable of being used as commons, and investing in the institutional design necessary to maintain stable commons in these resources, serves two constitutional commitments. First, commons are the preferred approach to serving the commitment that government not unnecessarily prevent individuals from using or communicating information. Second, commons facilitate “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.” INTRODUCTION Information policy in the United States has been framed by the two institutional approaches generally considered available for its implementation—direct government intervention and privatization. “Direct government intervention” refers
    [Show full text]
  • The Information Or the Learning Commons: Which Will We Have?1
    Editorial: The Information or the Learning Commons: Which Will We Have?1 by Scott Bennett ho would today build or renovate an academic library librarians and academic computing staff cannot alone create a Wwithout including an information commons? As learning commons, as they serve but do not define institutional Charles Forrest tells us, “in the last decade infor- mission. Other academic units do that and must join librarians mation commons have made a sudden, dramatic, and wide- and technologists in creating a learning commons. The funda- spread appearance in academic and research libraries across the mental difference between the information and the learning country and around the world.”2 Indeed, the information commons is that the former supports institutional mission while commons has in many ways come to substitute for the card the latter enacts it. catalog as a principal means of defining space as library space. How does one move from supporting to enacting institu- At the same time, we have exhibited considerable uncer- tional mission, from the support of learning to learning itself? tainty about what to call these spaces. The information Good counsel is available from Jeanne Narum, Director of commons and learning commons are by far the most common Project Kaleidoscope, who observes that “too often, planning names, but the words academic, collaboration, teaching, tech- for new spaces … begins with the wrong questions”—questions nology, and media often appear in names, along with or in the about what and how much will go in the space. Such questions place of information and learning.3 Curiously, the word service usually yield answers relating to things (books and computers, is not used even though librarians think of themselves as service for instance) and services (help with reference questions and the professionals and the convenience of “one-stop” shopping for use of technology in the case of the information commons).
    [Show full text]
  • Alternatives for the Internet: a Journey Into Decentralised Network Architectures and Information Commons
    tripleC 18 (2): 622-629, 2020 http://www.triple-c.at Alternatives for the Internet: A Journey into Decentralised Network Architectures and Information Commons Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay* and Francesca Musiani** *Centre for Internet and Society, CNRS, Paris, France, [email protected], https://cis.cnrs.fr/melanie-dulong/ **Centre for Internet and Society, CNRS, Paris, France, [email protected], https://cis.cnrs.fr/francesca-musiani/ Abstract: For over twenty years, alternative forms of organising and networking – fuelled by the Internet but sometimes pre-dating it – have been discussed as possible responses to the dynamics of concentration, centralisation and capture exemplified in the current pervasively digital world by Internet giants such as Google and Facebook. This article takes stock of the lessons learned by the authors in over a decade of research on decentralised/P2P network architectures and on information commons, to suggest some ‘ways forward’ for these alterna- tives for the Internet. Keywords: Internet, alternatives, peer-to-peer, P2P, decentralisation, information commons, digital commons, data commons, urban commons, intellectual property, capitalism, peer pro- duction 1. Introduction In a world dominated by Internet giants – such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, the infamous GAFAM – whose business models feed on the massive collection, retention and elaboration of our data and content, are there any alternatives to capitalism? For at least twenty years, from the beginnings of Napster1 in 1999 (Ku 2002), decentralised network architectures, or peer-to-peer (P2P), have been dis- cussed as a possible response to these dynamics of concentration, centralisation and capture (e.g. Schoder and Fischbach 2003).
    [Show full text]
  • Open Access Commons
    Open Access and Information Commons1 Yochai Benkler Open access commons are family of institutional arrangements that are far more pervasive in modern complex economies than is usually recognized in the economic literature. Core resources necessary for communications, innovation, trade, transportation, and energy are managed on the basis of symmetric use privileges open to all, deploying nondiscriminatory allocation based on queuing where congestion occurs, rather than on exclusive proprietary control used to achieve price clearance. Highways, roads and sidewalks, navigable waterways, and open squares are central to intercity and urban commerce. The public domain in knowledge, data, information, and culture forms the foundation of innovation, markets, and creativity. Open standards, the core Internet protocols, unlicensed wireless spectrum, and the privately-created open access commons in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) runs most Internet infrastructure. More ambiguously, common carriage and public utilities that characterize basic infrastructures for energy and wired communications exhibit full or partial characteristics of open access commons. The defining characteristic of open access commons, by comparison to property, whether individual or collective, is their utilization of (a) symmetric use privileges for (b) an open, undefined set of users in the general public, rather than (a’) asymmetric exclusive control rights located in the hands of (b’) an individual legal entity or defined group (club) use, and (c) their primary reliance on queuing and some form of governance-based allocation, rather than (c)’ price-cleared models, for congestion-clearance and management. Far from being necessarily less efficient or unsustainable, for substantial classes of resources we have observed many critical resources migrating from provisioning based on a reasonably well-developed market in private exclusive rights to open access commons.
    [Show full text]