Week+5+Notes

**Week of June 8****th**


 * **Topic via podcast**
 * Access
 * Technology and the Internet
 * Digital divide || **Assignments: Due June 14****th**
 * Blog posting #4
 * Response to blog posting #4
 * Group discussions (leaders: see separate due dates above) ||

Dr. Moeller's Lecture - My Google Doc Link

LISA'S NOTES: **Readings (all electronic documents may be accessed directly through Oncourse resources):**

ALA Library Fact Sheet Number 26 - Internet Use in Libraries. http://www.ala.org/ala/professionalresources/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet26.cfm "How extensive is Internet Access? Almost 100% of academic, public, and school libraries in the U.S. are connected to the Internet, both for staff use and for public access. Here is where the most recent national statistics for each type of library can be found: "

RE Academic, Public and School stats

RE Extent of filtering in public libraries before "the CIPA decision"/ 6/23/2003 RE Filtering in schools and libraries after "the CIPA decision"/ 6/23/2003

ALA. (2011). Network Neutrality. http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/telecom/netneutrality/index.cfm

What is Net Neutrality? Why is Net Neutrality an issue? Why does Net Neutrality matter to libraries? The issue of Regulation vs. Competition Conclusion Where can I found out more?

^^^ "Network Neutrality (or "net" neutrality) is the concept of online non-discrimination. It is the principle that consumers/citizens should be free to get access to - or to provide - the Internet content and services they wish, and that consumer access should not be regulated based on the nature or source of that content or service. Information providers - which may be websites, online services, etc., and who may be affiliated with traditional commercial enterprises but who also may be individual citizens, libraries, schools, or nonprofit entities - should have essentially the same quality of access to distribute their offerings. "Pipe" owners (carriers) should not be allowed to charge some information providers more money for the same pipes, or establish exclusive deals that relegate everyone else (including small noncommercial or startup entities) to an Internet "slow lane." This principle should hold true even when a broadband provider is providing Internet carriage to a competitor. "

Berners-Lee, T. (2010, November 22). Long live the web: A call for continued open standards and neutrality. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

"In Brief

The principle of universality allows the Web to work no matter what hardware, software, network connection or language you use and to handle information of all types and qualities. This principle guides Web technology design.

Technical standards that are open and royalty-free allow people to create applications without anyone’s permission or having to pay. Patents, and Web services that do not use the common URIs for addresses, limit innovation.

Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights.

Web applications, linked data and other future Web technologies will flourish only if we protect the medium’s basic principles."

Clarke, R. (1999). Freedom of Information? The Internet as Harbinger of the New Dark Ages. First Monday: 4(11). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/699/609

"There's a common presumption that the Internet has brought with it the promise of openness, democracy, the end of inequities in the distribution of information, and human self-fulfillment. Any such conclusion would be premature.

The digital era has abused and beguiled us all. Its first-order impacts are being assimilated, but its second-order implications are not. Powerful institutions perceive their interests to be severely threatened by the last decade of technological change and by the shape of the emergent 'information economy'. Elements of their fight back are identified, particularly extensions to legal protectionism, and the active development and application of technologies that protect data from prying eyes.

Many of the features that have ensured a progressive balance between data protection and freedom of access to data have already been seriously eroded. The new balance that emerges from the current period of turmoil may be far less friendly to public access and more like a New Dark Ages.

Contents

Scene-Setter: Information Wants To Be Free Introduction Information in the Information Age The Economics and Politics of FOI The Dark Side of the Information Revolution Conclusions"

"To invoke a simple example, within the space of a mere five years, students have come to expect that the answer to any question will be 'on the Internet', and are now surprised and even dismayed to find themselves directed to sources other than the World Wide Web. And many of the impacts and implications cut much more deeply than that into the social and economic conventions of the late twentieth century." "There are various justifications for access to information, including social, psychological, democratic, law and order and economic motivations. There is also a wide range of justifications for the denial of access to information. These include many narrow, sectional interests, but also some of broader concern, such as privacy, and the assurance of some degree of order in the processes of economic development, and of government." "There are many different circumstances in which people access information. For example, some people do so as consumers, whereas the intention of other accesses is to use the data as a 'factor of production', in order to produce more information. Some accessors are disadvantaged, due to such factors as physical impairment, or the locality in which they live. Others enjoy privileges of various kinds.

The exercise of power that the copyright-owner gains from technological innovations and legislative amendments represents a very substantial negative effect on equitable public access to information..." "F. Threats to Anonymous and Pseudonymous Access

Historically, a great deal of access to published works has been anonymous, in the form of purchase of books, access to books in libraries and viewing of films in theatres; or pseudonymous, e.g. the borrowing of books from libraries, or the hiring of a video. A relatively small proportion of access has been associated with an authenticated identity. It has generally been where the material was being adapted or incorporated into another work.

This lack of identification is very important, because it sustains an environment in which information is generally accessible without fear of recrimination from authority figures such as employers, competitors, teachers, parents and powerful vested interests..."

"Conclusions

The implications of these developments is that governments and corporations are in a position to enhance the restrictions on access to information. The golden era of information accessibility is under threat, because governments have successfully resisted FOI and now have additional weapons available to them. Major corporations are wielding their power to protect their own interests.

In the present information era, skirmishes around the edges of existing FOI laws are irrelevant. If freedom of information is to be sustained, let alone increased, then measures are needed now. Arguments against legal protectionism need to be advanced much more energetically, countervailing power needs to be mobilised against corporate and governmental interests. Information and networking technologies need to be carefully designed to avoid protectionism becoming entrenched within information infrastructure.

A serious battle is in train, with corporations manipulating governments, netheads wailing, the public non-aware, and FOI specialists largely failing to notice the changes going on around them. FOI activists can either remain asleep (and become even less relevant), or can inform themselves and become involved in this vital issue."

The Diane Rehm Show. (2010, April 8). “Who controls the Internet?”(audio) http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-04-08/who-controls-internet

SEE ALSO: http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/10/04/06/courts-can%E2%80%99t-take-away-our-internet: "The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic. The decision puts the FCC’s Net Neutrality proceeding and the National Broadband Plan in jeopardy."

Howard, J. (2011, March 23). Research Libraries See Google Decision as Just a Bump on the Road to Widespread Digital Access. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Google-Decision-Spurs-Research/126878/ "California's statement reminded users that much of what's been digitized by Google and its research-library partners has become part of the HathiTrust Digital Library, a large-scale repository that draws on the collections of 52 partner institutions. That digitized material "was obtained in large measure through the Google partnership," the California libraries said.

"Libraries are not leaving the future of digital books to Google," the HathiTrust Digital Library said in its own statement, posted on its Web site on Wednesday. "HathiTrust will maintain our commitment to long-term digital preservation of library collections curated by generations of librarians at great research libraries around the world."" "What does change, from the trust's perspective, is the chance to give more people access to the abundance of material scanned by Google and its partners. Mr. Wilkin talked about "what might have been possible" if the judge had approved the settlement. Low-rate library subscriptions to the Google corpus, for instance, could have put it within reach of people who can't easily find or read that material now."

Parry, M. (2011, March 23). A Copyright Expert Who Spoke Up for Academic Authors Offers Insights on the Google Books Ruling. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/A-Copyright-Expert-Who-Spoke/126877/ "The way the settlement was drafted, it called for Google to engage in extremely extensive monitoring of access to books. Now you could say that one of the reasons they needed to do that was because, if they're going to pay specific authors for specific books that might be read, let's say, in the institutional-subscription corpus, then they've got to know whose books are being read.

But as we all know, Google basically also wants to know everything that we look at and everything that we read, and they would be engaged in profiling and serving up ads. There were virtually no privacy guarantees for users in the settlement agreement. Efforts to persuade Google to adopt a set of principles were only partially successful, and then they were only willing to say, 'Well, OK, we'll sort of agree to do this.' But they weren't willing to do anything that would bind them.

One of the things the judge noted is these are things they could adopt for a while and then abandon. Libraries have been very, very careful over time about protecting the privacy interests of their user base. And Google was not willing to make commitments to essentially accomplish an equivalent level of protection. When we're talking about a corpus of books that millions of people in the U.S. would be using, not to have any serious privacy commitments here really was distressing."

McCullagh, D. (2010, July 21). GOP senators move to block FCC on Net neutrality.CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20011269-38.html#ixzz1LJJ14DiB "Supporters of Net neutrality say new Internet regulations or laws are necessary to prevent broadband providers from restricting content or prioritizing one type of traffic over another. Broadband providers and many conservative and free-market groups, on the other hand, say some of the proposed regulations would choke off new innovations and could even require awarding e-mail spam and telemedicine identical priorities." "New regulation would only be permitted if the FCC can demonstrate that "marketplace competition is not sufficient to adequately protect consumer welfare" and the lack of competition "causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers." (If the FCC decides to impose regulations without sufficient proof, look for broadband providers to file a lawsuit.)" "In theory, many Democrats favor Net neutrality. President Obama recently reiterated through a spokesman that he remains "committed" to the idea, as have some Democratic committee chairmen.

But theory doesn't always mesh with political practice. More than 70 House Democrats sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski instructing him to abandon his Net neutrality plans. A majority of Congress now opposes Genachowski's proposals.

Other sponsors of the FCC Act, all Republicans, are Orrin Hatch of Utah; John Ensign of Nevada; John Thune of South Dakota; Tom Coburn of Oklahoma); John Cornyn of Texas; and Jeff Sessions of Alabama."

Pew Internet & American Life Project. (2002). The Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2002/The-Digital-Disconnect-The-widening-gap-between-Internetsavvy-students-and-their-schools.aspx

"The public policy debate surrounding the use of the Internet for education is full of hyperbolic claims for its future impact. Some promote the Internet as a silver bullet for education, asserting that its use in schools will transform teaching and learning, raise scores on standardized achievement tests, and improve teacher quality to the degree that ill-prepared middle and high school students will turn—as if by magic—into Ivy League-caliber honors students. Others argue that the introduction of the Internet into schooling is a symptom of a society that values technology and efficiency over moral values and personal connections, and that it represents the further encroachment of big business into private spaces and personal lives. Our conversations with students lead us to see each of these claims as being partly true and also partly false. What strikes us most about those who predict the future, however, is that they only very faintly take account of the voices and experiences of students themselves. " "Students usually have strong views about how their school experiences could be made better. Their analysis of how the Internet can be exploited in educational settings illustrates this point perfectly. Here is what they say they would like to see happen:

"* Students urge schools to increase significantly the quality of access to the Internet in schools." "Students believe that professional development and technical assistance for teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula." "Students maintain that schools should place priority on developing programs to teach keyboarding, computer, and Internet literacy skills. " "Students urge that there be continued effort to ensure that high-quality online information to complete school assignments be freely available, easily accessible, and age-appropriate–without undue limitation on students’ freedoms." "Students insist that policy makers take the “digital divide” seriously and that they begin to understand the more subtle inequities among teenagers that manifest themselves in differences in the quality of student Internet access and use. " "Indeed, while good schools of today are expected to have significant computer and Internet facilities, they face significant barriers to integrating it into their operations. Even when cost, technical, training and use, and equity matters have not been at issue, schools have faced legal, policy, and ethical tensions around whether and what type of access minors should have to the Internet. In such a chilled, or potentially chilled, environment, school leaders, teachers, and resource personnel have had good reason to be cautious about the kind of access they provide to students and about the extent to which they integrate the Internet into their curricula and instructional practices. The resultant Internet-use policies, filtering technologies, and human misgivings have all made adoption of the Internet challenging for educational institutions, teachers and students."
 * Students want better coordination of their out-of-school educational use of the Internet with classroom activities. They argue that this could be the key to leveraging the power of the Internet for learning."

Pew Internet & American Life Project. (2005). Teens and Technology: Youth are Leading the Transition to a Fully Wired and Mobile Nation. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2005/PIP_Teens_Tech_July2005web.pdf.pdf "Still, despite this momentum, 13% of American teenagers — or about 3 million people — still do not use the internet. About half (47%) of teens who say they do not go online have been online before but have since dropped off. Those teens who remain offline are clearly defined by lower levels of income and limited access totechnology. They are also disproportionately likely to be African-American. On the opposite end of the spectrum, nearly all teens in households earning more than $75,000 per year are online, most of them with high-speed connections." "45% of teens have cell phones and 33% are texting." "The size of the wired teen population surges at the seventh grade mark. " "Summary of Findings Acknowledgments Part 1. Basic Demographics of Online Teens and Their Families Part 2. Conditions of Internet Use Part 3. Technological and Social Contexts Part 4. Communications Tools and Teens Part 5. Communications Choices Part 6. Information-Seeking and Leisure Activities Methodology"

Pew Internet & American Life Project. (2006). Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0." http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2006/PIP_Web_2.0.pdf.pdf "Let’s get a few things clear right off the bat: 1) Web 2.0 does not have anything to do with Internet2: 2) Web 2.0 is not a new and improved internet network operating on a separate backbone: and 3) It is OK if you’ve heard the term andnodded in recognition, without having the faintest idea of what it really means.

When the term emerged in 2004 (coined by Dale Dougherty and popularized by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International), it provided a useful, if imperfect, conceptual umbrella under which analysts, marketers and other stakeholders in the tech field could huddle the new generation of internet applications and businesses that were emerging to form the “participatory Web” as we know it today: Think blogs, wikis, social networking, etc.. "

IFM. Access to Digital Information, Services, and Networks, pp. 73-76.

IFM. Economic Barriers to Information Access, pp. 116-118.

IFM. Guidelines for the Development and Implementation of Policies, Regulations, and Procedures Affecting Access to Library Materials, Services, and Facilities, pp. 229-231.

IFM. Guidelines for the Development of Policies and Procedures regarding User Behavior and Library Usage, pp. 236-238.