[Crosstalk] THE FUTURE OF THE DIGITAL COMMONS -- FORUM THIS WEEK -- THURS, 22 SEPT. IN STATA CENTER]

[Jean Foster]

FYI:
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MIT COMMUNICATIONS FORUM

the future of the digital commons

Thursday, September 22, 2005
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
32-155 (Stata Center)

Speakers:
Nancy Kranish, former President, American Library Assn
Ann Wolpert, Director, MIT Libraries

Respondent: Steven Pinker, Harvard University

Arguments and legal confrontations over the control of music, writing
and visual materials
have become a permanent feature of contemporary life and will almost
certainly enlarge 
and intensify in future years. As corporate producers and distributors ­
including some 
universities and private libraries ­ move aggressively to claim
ownership of digital content 
of all kinds and as some industries lobby for building surveillance
principles into the operating 
systems of computers, others defend an alternative vision. This
alternative embraces ideals 
of sharing and civic community and warns that recent extensions of
copyright threaten creativity 
and the free exchange of ideas. Is there a future for this idea of a
digital commons? Is the American 
tradition of free public libraries a valuable precedent for the digital
age? Is the commercialization 
of cyberspace already a problem for those seeking reliable information?
Are there features or 
tendencies inherent in digital technology that will always challenge and
even undermine efforts 
to control information or charge a fee for accessing it? Our speakers
and our audience will engage 
these and related questions. 
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Nancy Kranich served as president of the American Library Association in
2000-2001, focusing 
on the role of libraries in democracies. In 2003-2004, she was a senior
research fellow at the Free 
Expression Policy Project in New York, where she wrote The Information
Commons: 
A Public Policy Report . Previously, she was associate dean of libraries
at New York University 
where she managed NYU's libraries, press, and media services. 

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard
University. He is the 
author of many essays and books, including The Language Instinct (1994)
and The Blank Slate: 
The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002).

Ann Wolpert is director of MIT Libraries and a member of the MIT
Committee on Copyright 
and Patents. She also chairs the management board of the MIT Press and
the board of directors 
of Technology Review, Inc., which publishes Technology Review.
-- 
Jean Foster
Usability Consultant/
Academic Computing Communications Coordinator
MIT Information Services and Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
N42-040, jfoster at mit.edu, 617.253.3909