Understanding knowledge as a commons : from theory to practice / edited by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hess, Charlotte.

Ostrom, Elinor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knowledge management.

Information commons.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (367 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Looking at knowledge as a shared resource: experts discuss how to define, protect, and build the knowledge commons in the digital age.

"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."

Contents:

Introduction : an overview of the knowledge commons / Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom

The growth of the commons paradigm / David Bollier

A framework for analyzing the knowledge commons / Elinor Ostrom and Charlotte Hess

Countering enclosure : reclaiming the knowledge commons / Nancy Kranich

Mertonianism unbound? : imagining free, decentralized access to most cultural and scientific material / James Boyle

Preserving the knowledge commons / Donald J. Waters

Creating an intellectual commons through open access / Peter Suber

How to build a commons : is intellectual property constrictive, facilitating, or irrelevant? / Shubha Ghosh

Collective action, civic engagement, and the knowledge commons / Peter Levine

Free/open-source software as a framework for establishing commons in science / Charles M. Schweik

Scholarly communication and libraries unbound : the opportunity of the commons / Wendy Pradt Lougee

EconPort : creating and maintaining a knowledge commons / James C. Cox and J. Todd Swarthout.

Notes:

Digitized and made available by: NetLibrary.

Includes index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-09639-7

0-262-25634-7

1-4294-2107-X

OCLC:

923250332