Knowledge in digital form offers unprecedented
access to information through the Internet but at the
same time is subject to ever-greater restrictions
through intellectual property legislation,
overpatenting, licensing, overpricing, and lack of
preservation. Looking at knowledge as a commons--as a
shared resource--allows us to understand both its
limitless possibilities and what threatens it. In
Understanding Knowledge as a Commons, experts from a
range of disciplines discuss the knowledge commons in
the digital era--how to conceptualize it, protect it,
and build it.Contributors consider the concept of the
commons historically and offer an analytical framework
for understanding knowledge as a shared
social-ecological system. They look at ways to guard
against enclosure of the knowledge commons, considering,
among other topics, the role of research libraries, the
advantages of making scholarly material available
outside the academy, and the problem of disappearing Web
pages. They discuss the role of intellectual property in
a new knowledge commons, the open access movement
(including possible funding models for scholarly
publications), the development of associational commons,
the application of a free/open source framework to
scientific knowledge, and the effect on scholarly
communication of collaborative communities within
academia, and offer a case study of EconPort, an open
access, open source digital library for students and
researchers in microeconomics. The essays clarify
critical issues that arise within these new types of
commons--and offer guideposts for future theory and
practice.Contributors:David Bollier, James Boyle, James
C. Cox, Shubha Ghosh, Charlotte Hess, Nancy Kranich,
Peter Levine, Wendy Pradt Lougee, Elinor Ostrom, Charles
Schweik, Peter Suber, J. Todd Swarthout, Donald
Waters
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