Securing Digital Rights for Libraries

/

When the World Wide Web came along, there were many predictions that it would mean the end of libraries. Reports of libraries’ collective demise were of course an exaggeration. We’re as busy as ever, often because of the ‘Net, and remain strong n providing quality information and entertainment. But what about the ‘Net? The question is not how widely used it is, but how healthy it is, especially in providing the free and accurate information that was forecast by its champions to lead to a human transformation. The answer, for all the good one can find online, is not very. Disinformation, pay walls, and the perpetuation of suffering (with, to quote the BBC”s Coupling, the creation of “an enormous international database of naked” people) are on full display.

What if it could be better? Our friends at the Internet Archive and Movement for a Better Internet are asking.

Thanks to Lila Bailey for sharing news of a new report, “Securing Digital Rights for Libraries: Towards an Affirmative Policy Agenda for a Better Internet.” She notes what ReadersFirst have long advocated for:

The rights that libraries have always enjoyed offline must also be protected online. The report articulates a set of four digital rights for libraries, based on the core library functions of preserving and providing access to information, knowledge, and culture.

  • Collect digital materials, including those made available only via streaming and other restricted means, through purchase on the open market or any other legal means, no matter the underlying file format;

  • Preserve those materials, and where necessary repair or reformat them, to ensure their long-term existence and availability;

  • Lend digital materials, at least in the same “one person at a time” manner as is traditional with physical materials;

  • Cooperate with other libraries, by sharing or transferring digital collections, so as to provide more equitable access for communities in remote and less well-funded areas.

Download the free and open-license report HERE.

Consider joining on Thursday, December 8 (1 PM Eastern) a webinar discussion about the report with leaders from Internet Archive, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and the Association of Research Libraries.

Above all, advocate for the Four Digital Rights. Inform your patrons. Lobby your legislators. Publishers can have fair prices without devastating libraries and their mission. In this case, as in so many, libraries are the bulwark of democracy.