Libraries in Denmark compared to here

I was looking into the Budapest Open Access initiative in Europe and came across this interesting find at the public library in the Aarhus public library.

video (scroll down towards bottom of the page to view)

What is incredible about this is that the common law society in Denmark expects that libraries can be all encompassing. The ability to download any type of media whether it be journal texts, mp3s, or movies all in a legal manner through the library Internet infrastructure is incredible. In most American libraries media access is limited to physical multimedia and some online texts. In fact, attempting to engage in legal downloading of mp3s or films would most likely result in being asked to leave the library. Again it is necessary to ask, why would this be the case? In both countries libraries exist for anyone to gain access to information without barriers. This library has transformed itself into a public place and it is clear from the informational video that it is intended to be used by anyone in the city, whether a student, an immigrant, or a local resident.

There could be some possibility of studying how the Aarhus public library became as open towards information as it has. Certainly this appears to be a very different kind of library than the Leon County Public Library, which has mainly physical media for checkout. They do have a website, but it is limited to a relatively small number of databases. No services for legally obtaining most journal articles or multimedia based information exists. Strozier Library does have extensive databases, but even FSU is not able to subscribe to every article database.

Kristian Bredemeyer

Perspectives on the Operation of Open Source

This last week's readings focused on the economic incentives towards using open source. The article called Economic Perspectives on Open Source written by Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole discusses some of economic motivations behind using Open Source. The article suggests that developers work on open source for both current benefits (pay) and delayed benefits (such as future job prospects) as well as an ego gratification that open source is cool!

I wouldn't be surprised if the latter is the reason why people start working on these projects in the first place. An example of this is Blake Ross, who was dissatisfied with the state of web browsers. He returned after a summer with the prototype of Mozilla Firefox. His effort gave him both "coolness" in the online community, but was able to be employed in any information technology position of his choosing. This is more dramatic than most contributors to open source, but it does prove that there can be indirect economic incentives to working on open source.

Kristian Bredemeyer

Open Source share in Europe

XiTi Monitor has statistics for Firefox usage in Europe. Firefox is one of the most popular open source software packages. In Europe, the usage was 24.1%. In the US, the usage was 15.1%. Within Europe, the highest levels of usage are in Slovenia (44.5%), Finland (41.3%), Croatia (36.5%), and Germany (36.2%). Low levels of usage of Firefox were found in Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Opera, which is another free web browser, may have taken some potential Firefox users especially in Norway and Denmark as it is a locally made product.

Europe vs US viewpoint of freedom (net neutrality)

As was discussed in my last post, the Budapest declaration of open information promotes open access to read and distribute information. This is consistent with a viewpoint of societal freedom. The open source software movement has a synergy of American and European components. As an example, the public minded GNU foundation has created many of the building blocks of open source operating systems. However, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, wanted to have a completely free system to run on his computer. These entities exist in a form of anarchy, as there is no formal hierarchy or economic activities dictating that these individuals provide these services. They were doing it presumably for the good of an open society.

In the last year net neutrality has become a major issue. In the near future, US internet access is likely to favor websites that pay the internet provider for access. Sites with free information about scientific research, literature, or open source software may not have the resources to pay these fees. Under such a system, Americans may be able to view videos on You Tube or search on Google easily. This is because these sites are operated by large multinational companies that could pay for high speed access to US internet users. Other websites may be very slow to access, or completely blocked off.

In Europe, there is more freedom online due to the European Union strictly monitoring the business competition environment. Access must be impartial, which is similar to the concept of net neutrality. Thus, Europeans will be able to access the latest free online journal or Linux software as easily as using Google.

Kristian Bredemeyer

What is open access to information

The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access
Journals

This work brings up several important background concepts towards gaining an understanding of what is free and open access to scholarly information. The Budapest definition of open access would include both peer reviewed journal articles and other unprinted information faculty would like to share with the world. This information would have to be available for free access online to read, download, print, or copy the information. The Budapest idea would only require that the author retain the integrity of the work and that the use of the source should be cited. This initiative suggests that a free repository be made available for professors to use themselves as well as creating free journals. As was observed a few weeks ago with the articles posted about anarchy and freedom not being accessible outside of an institution paying subscription fees, these problems are common with academic journals. The Creative Commons license has been used to legally license materials so that they may remain openly available. Prior to the advent of the Creative Commons license, there was no convenient way to have the protections of a copyright without extensive restrictions on the use of the material. In addition the Internet provides a nearly free means of distributing information. The main constraints on Internet distribution are hard drive space on servers, and bandwidth. These have both increased rapidly allowing for an economically nill cost per access to materials.

There are freely accessible journals such as PubMed that allow for free access to their materials, because their research is mainly governmentally funded. Another example is the Max Planck Demography Center journal. ACME is an International E-Journal for critical geographies.

DIS Syllabus

I have invited ljordan@gmail.com to be able to post in this blog so that you can post links if you wish. I am posting the syllabus I have come up with for the DIS. As was discussed previously there is a dearth of peer reviewed articles on open source issues of freedom. I have tried to include information that comes from as reputable a source as possible where journal articles have been lacking. The first week's reading will examine issues of free access to information in libraries. The next three weeks focus on the inside 0f the digital world and the role open source is playing. By this point I should have developed some of the interactive project. There are several readings from well known professors that focus on laws and the freedom of society and technology. There were only a few journal articles that I could find that focus on this topic that FSU subscribes to. The last of the DIS would cover freedom of innovation and future scenarios.

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~kbredemeyer/freedis_syllabus.odt