Definition of the Problem
Within the major or profession of science library, the problem is intellectual freedom and involves the subtopics or areas of access to information, copyrights, and Internet censorship.
Potential Solutions
1. Access to Information
In light of the rapid change in Information Technology, libraries should undergo metamorphosis and reengineer their services, train their staff in new skills, and reorganize the library environment, integrate more effective information communication systems, and better the users’ preferences for access to information. All information in the library needs to be made available to all users regardless of their individual viewpoints, backgrounds, financial status, etc. In addition, the information in the libraries needs to represent a variety of viewpoints even if it does not reflect well the librarians, governing bodies, and funders of the libraries.
In addition, both libraries and library users need to engage in negotiations pertaining to the new legal rules and provide recommendations meant to enhance public access to information without infringing on the ability of original authors and publishers to be paid for the value they have created. For example, in the developed world, it is becoming increasingly popular for digital information companies to obtain the digital copyright of a work, and sell its access right to public entities such as universities and public libraries. This allowed the libraries to offer the access to the digital documents to registered students and residents of the community.
It would also be crucial for libraries to consider building the website to bring together resources to save researchers as well as practitioners much time spent on identifying and accessing the relevant material to benefit their engagement with research. Through expanded networking activities, libraries will provide a major development for improved access to broad range of resources in a variety of formats and media as well as offer cost-effective alternatives to share resources.
2. Copyrights
The activities of libraries and librarians are largely informed by copyright laws. Copyright law places automatic protection on printed works, art, websites, software, and almost everything we create and utilize in research. In the digital age, librarians have the challenge of striking balance between maintaining the copyright of users, libraries, educational institutions they are acting on behalf, same as they have managed in the analog environment. Revised copyright laws are needed and should be appropriate and analogous for all parties – creators, publishers, and users.
Dealing with copyright dilemmas requires initial understanding of the copyright law by the librarian and library user. A library user can make use of support team in the form of colleagues who have encountered similar scenarios relating copyright. As such, the library user can benefit from the insights and experience of those colleagues, or directors, department heads, deans who are knowledgeable about working with copyright.
3. Internet Censorship
The problem of Internet censorship could be solved by libraries and librarians unconditionally adhering to their professional obligation to be inclusive. Librarians need to avoid being exclusive in the collection development which relates to all resources in their digital or online library. Libraries and their librarians should not choose the order or remove a given book or resource from their digital/online libraries merely because it contradicts their own point of views or moral standings. They should acknowledge their own fears and biases and then move beyond them to defend the intellectual freedom of the users. By including library resource of divergent opinions on the Internet, libraries and librarians will be upholding the Library Bill of Rights especially the freedom to read.
Description of the Problem
The idea of intellectual freedom which stresses that democracy depends on free and unrestricted access to ideas is a hallmark of the library professional. With the rapid development of Information Technology (IT) librarians are increasingly facing paradoxes pertaining to the intellectual freedom due to their great role in selection of materials and as custodians of the record of public knowledge. Due to this, the library serves as an exceptional public forum with obligation to render information accessible to all people regardless of their viewpoint. Many libraries and librarians are struggling with the issues of access to information, Internet censorship, and copyrights because they still intuitively understand the philosophy of intellectual freedom from the context of print-based technologies. The current transition of libraries to offer digital resources and services has raised a range of complex new concerns relating to the aspect of intellectual freedom.
This breadth of the library mandate often forces them to make available information with the potential to offend or regard potential dangers to public safety. Consequently, librarians hold the responsibility to offer access to such “questionable” materials and often become liable in instances where such are challenged. This has established the issue of intellectual freedom and censorship as a crucial one for all players in the library profession. As such, it has become highly necessary for librarians to strive to comprehend the dynamics of these conflicts in order to perform their duties responsibly and from an informed standing.
There are numerous examples of issues of information accessibility, copyrights, and Internet censorship in the library profession in relation to intellectual freedom. In many developed countries as well as the developing world, the principle of intellectual freedom has not been widely held in the profession. Most public libraries and librarians have often restricted access to all publications. Librarians have been accused of infringing on people’s right of intellectual freedom mainly through their core function of material collection management,for example, budgeting, selecting, and cataloguing. Moreover, they are seen to have persisted with this restriction due to other problematic aspects that are legal in nature such as copyright, pornography, race hate material, as well as ethical dilemmas such as protection of the individual versus intellectual freedom. However, libraries and librarians are also accused of acting irrationally and discriminatory due to their personal taste and from external pressure pushing for limited intellectual freedom at libraries following the proliferation of Information Technology.
The case of the book, “Stupid White Men… and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!”by Michael Moore is a classic example of the problematic areas in intellectual freedom. The book was initially set to be published in the USA in October 2001, but the terrorist events of September 11th made the publisher to demand revision of the book to suit the new post 9/11 climate. The librarian, Anne Sparanese, revealed to others in the library profession of Moore’s situation following a hearing of the author’s difficulty at a New Jersey citizen action council meeting. Consequently, several librarians demanded the release of the book which became a best seller in both the USA and UK. The case redefined the role of public librarian in aiding information access and an evaluation of how they are providing and guaranteeing access to information along with the challenges they need to overcome to achieve this. The Patriot Act (2001) against freedom has emerged as a source of major concern for librarians pertaining to intellectual freedom.
The police action in 1997 to confiscate the Robert Mapplethorpe book from the University of Central England’s library on obscenity grounds is one of the major incidents relating to intellectual freedom in the UK. In March 1998, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ruled the sexually explicit images in the book for the public good as their primary consumers would be arts students and artists. In 1987, the Margaret Thatcher’s government had attempted suppression of the autobiography Spy Catcher by Peter Wright, a former MI5 Senior Intelligence Officer.
The 2006 case, Macrovision Corp. v. Sima Products Corp, addressed an issue of monumental interest to libraries – a prohibition by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act’s against the circumvention of technological limitations on copyrighted materials. Libraries, other creators and users of digital material joined as amici curiae to a brief filed by Sima Productions Coporation petitioning that the interpretation of the lower court of the DMCA threatened to outlaw technology used to digitalize analog content. Upholding of the interpretation would threaten a broad range of technologies together with a vast range of legitimate users. In addition, it would outlaw the use of new sophisticated copiers having page-turning capability which render it possible to reproduce high-quality digital copies of existing bound books.
In Perfect 10 v. Google, the Library Copyright Alliance teamed with the Electronic Frontier Foundation as amic curiae in a case filed the adult entertainment publisher Perfect 10 against the Internet search company on critical issues relating to digital issues. Google’s Image Search service was accused of violating copyright laws through indexing Perfect 10 photos that were posted on several unauthorized websites, then creating and offering thumbnail images of the images in its search results. The court’s ruling ordered Google to pull put links to certain websites carrying Perfect 10 photographs as the outcome of the case was awaited.
Importance/Significance of Inquiry
The intersection of Information Technology and intellectual freedom in the library profession has presented wide range of opportunities and challenges to all involved. Seeking effective solutions to the problematic areas relating to access of information, copyrights, and Internet censorship are the remaining pressing and distressing to libraries, librarians and library users today. Previous solutions suggested by many forward-thinking, tech-oriented librarians about emerging technologies have only focused on such practical issues as pricing, implementation, and sustainability. Similarly, the solutions by intellectual freedom advocates pertaining to professional values of the library professions have also been generally abstract or too broad without workable specifics.
In order to truly place intellectual freedom as a central and vibrant aspect of both theoretical and practice of librarianship, there needs for it to be integrated in everything in the profession, for instance, become a culture. This would entail libraries to the uses of technology in fulfilling their institutional goals and missions which should be guided by all their most basic and central professional values. The growing proliferation of Information Technology makes it necessary to find appropriate solutions to the problematic areas of intellectual freedom for the greater present and future generations. The future of the profession is bound to be threatened if workable solutions to the current threats to intellectual property as relates to academic and research libraries. The library environment is bound to rapidly evolve and almost entirely transform such that information will proliferate at unprecedented rates, necessitating the preparation of libraries to deliver reliable and authenticated information continuously using new technologies.
Relevance Statement
The research involved with this proposal is socially and culturally important because the potential of library profession to solve challenges facing intellectual freedom in the current environment is characterized by rapidly evolving Information Technology. Intellectual freedom in libraries, cultural institutions, and social centers could only be thrives and flourished in the cultural and social contexts where they exist.
Scope of Inquiry
Considering that the topic of intellectual freedom has a wide breadth, this proposed study will narrow its scope to probing intellectual freedom as a general principle and its three major subareas that are the sources of controversies: (1) access to information; (2) copyrights; and (3) Internet censorship. The scope of the proposed study shall not include issues related to freedom of the press, censorship controversies in the broadcast media and film, the problem of pornography, and controversies relating to funding for the arts. Similarly, the scope will not include covering the growing problem relating to defining the parameters of freedom of expression on the Internet as well as other electronic media. While all these problematic areas are related to the scope of the proposed study, they are excluded because of their own voluminous nature deserving a separate discussion.
The first subtopic, access to information, deals with the challenge that libraries and library users are facing due to the transformational change as digital technology significantly redefines the ways in which information is accessed and how information is categorized. This section tackles crucial dilemma that faces the library profession at present: the great potential to access information as well as the potential for uncontrollable and unexpected chaos relating to issues of intellectual property.
The second subtopic, copyrights, deals with the problem of useful information unavailable to scientific researchers at digital libraries because it is subject to copyright. It shows that even most material whose copyright has expired is yet to digitalized, and no systematic efforts are being taken to address this gap to the disadvantage of modern-day and future scientific researchers. This is an area of great concern and particular interest to students as a researchers relying on new technologies.
The final subtopic, Internet Censorhip, deals with the problem of libraries rendering some types of information unavailable to the general public while there is still no clarity and definition of the role of libraries as pertains to the selection, preservation, as well as provision of digital resources through the Net. The section explores the reasons for Internet censorship of information: security concerns, politics, power, social norms and moral. This issue is of greater relevance to students in an information age.
Methodology
The methodology of the proposed study shall entail collecting data from information professionals in three leading libraries in the United States on the problem of intellectual freedom in public libraries. The participants will be notable figures with established interest in the area of intellectual freedom and familiarity with the effect of growth of IT on access to information, Internet censorship, and copyrights.
The proposed study shall use email as the means of communication with the respondents. Furthermore, a series of open-ended questionnaires will be designed for each participant. However, most of the questions shall reflect in each questionnaire for the purpose of drawing comparisons between opinions of the respondents. The general objectives of the questions will be to gauge the feelings of the professionals on the issue facing intellectual freedom as a whole and specifically, the place of libraries and librarians in exacerbating and addressing theissues.
