The Networked Public Librarian
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Started with the Diebold evoting case, blackboxvoting.org
bbv puts out the materials and a call for help
a New Zealand site picks up on it
distributed ad-hoc network of people start working with the code
cache of emails from Diebold gets replicated, so it becomes useless for Diebold to keep sending out DMCA take-down orders
an ecology of replication, preservation of institutional, non-institutional, commercial, noncommercial, organizational, individual archives
this is very different than the traditional “Pentagon Papers” model
this process affected the structure of how we deal with these things, not the law (which eventually caught up a year later)

Radical decentralization
- research & analysis
- archiving, storage, retrieval
- accreditation through self-selected peer review, critique
- radically decentralized
- done by individuals, for individuals
- alone and in ad hoc networks of diverse longevity
- not impervious, but reasonably robust to censorship, corruption, loss

“Daily Prophet” website, started by a 14-year old girl
let kids write their own newspaper about harry potter
the publisher tried to clamp down on her, so she had to organize a protest with other kids; it politicized her – “we can do this together”
- starts a literacy campaign a few years later, database of fan fiction
- asks readers to send in antique books
- the ambition, the sense of self, the empowerment

The underlying economics that make the first and second story feasible, as opposed to just a silly idea of a young girl

Showed a screenshot of “The Daily Herald” from 1835, when it cost $10,000 to start a mass circulation newspaper
15 years later, it would cost $2-1/2 million

Move to industrial information economy that stabilizes for the next 150 years

In 2002, a Japanese firm takes over supercomputer spot from US, flip-flops back and forth for a few years
everyone ignores SETI project of 4 million computers working together

Move to a networked information economy
in the hands of 600 million – 1 billion people on the planet
computation resources + human creativity
behaviors that were once on the periphery (social motivations, cooperation, friendship, decency, etc.) can now be solved at an individual level by acting together

See commons-based production
- production without exclusion
- individual or collaborative
- commercial or noncommercial

Commons is important as an institutional base. When the technology distributes the technology to the edges, authority is what’s left

Peer production and sharing
- organized around social relationships, not traditional money role
Free/open source software is the most well-known model of this
Wikipedia
imagine that in February 2001, he had said Jimmy Wales had put up 900 short stubs that anyone can edit and that in 5 years, anyone could have a plausible argument that it would be as good as Britannica, he would have been laughed out of the room

4 transactional frameworks (graphic)
- market-based vs. non-market
- decentralized vs. centralized
library is in centralized, non-market

what we have now is the addition into the ecology of social sharing & exchange under decentralized, non-market
can be an opportunity for businesses, but wants to focus on the fact that it can be an opportunity for those in the centralized, non-market space (like libraries)
- Allows NGOs to produce more effective library services
showed the Internet Archive
- Google
Libraries
- subsidization of reading
books will decline in importance over the next decade; only barrier right now is the quality of the display
what will be the transformational move of that role?
- anchor wireless broadband availability
- particularly in small towns
- digitization of collections
- space for storage
- location for distribution
- universal access roll
- machines: more important in poor urban than rural? (audience says no)
- public, broadband, committed to openness
- fiber provisioning around incumbents to a POP
- local redistribution through wireless
- expertise, skills
- geographically local
- selection/curation – less significant as an inclusion strategy, EXCEPT as a new major dimension of;
- navigation: with abundance, navigation, selection
- training
- networked
- craft values and commitment generalized to the networked population as a whole, through networked collaboration
- as counterbalance to commercial values driving change

How important is it for the librarian to remain in the role of pulling information/knowledge in different ways for people who are increasingly organizationally-embedded?

Respondent panel: Nancy Kranich, Joe Janes, and Claudette Tennant

Nancy K.:
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This move to commons-based production affects democracy, which comes from communities. Without the social capital that we need for individuals to come together in a community, we lack those social networks. How do we take those atomized pieces and bring them together to make strong ties, not weak ties, that build community and democracy?

Individuals tend not to be participants unless they’re embedded in social networks
so how do we take these diagrams and turn them into real social networks?
how do we do this democratically, be a 14-year old and do it, without an intermediary?

First question, then, is what do these networks mean for building social capital and democracy?
what are the key roles to participating in democracy?
going from a push economy to a pull economy
now we can have customized products that serve local and specialized needs, creating a whole different economy that the long tail fits into

second question is how does this long tail of products affect us?
- unique items
- openness
- creating shared resources
also has a great impact on libraries in a negative way because we have to find our place

third question, what role should we play and how should we embed ourselves into these types of networks and commons? It’s a role we really need to think through, because it creates different governance, financial structures for us
it does not preclude us of still needing the institution, which still has a place – safe places

Claudia:
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Simplistic way of looking at things to make it as easy as possible
why did we become a place for storage and distribution?
- sharing
- efficiency
those values still exist in this new space, even if storage and distribution are changing
But doesn’t think it’s a binary choice
people read for a number of different reasons
the assumption the book will go away is based on an assumption everyone who is reading wants to use a machine
people read for a variety of reasons, not all of which can be addressed by putting a machine in that transaction
tension between being part of the binary and human network have to both exist and we have to be in both places
- authority to act
- ability to act

A large number of people still need us to do these things

Joe:
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Was trying to imagine what many of the librarians he knows and have talked with would take away from what Yochai said
thinks it would scare them because they would “see” what they do as being gone, even though that’s not what Yochai is saying
could be reduced to credentialed vs. not-credentialed
comes down to “says who”

in the networked world, it’s a very different question
we are used to authority, depth, quality, etc., all of which are very different in the networked world
Diebold story wouldn’t have happened if we had relied on mainstream media

Wikipedia still has a structure, an owner, etc., whereas the internet doesn’t
authority to act is different than authority to know
authority to act brings with it responsibility
the library has to be somewhere and everywhere – has to also be a place
we’ve done a good job of this

implicit in all of this is what is the conceptualization of the library?
it’s anytime, anywhere people are engaging in “stuff” – help, values, stuff
in the world that is depicted here, that is a world in which it is not hard to imagine the concept of the library not arising
it keeps arising – internet, Second Life, etc. – but if it hadn’t been around in this highly decentralized world, would it be possible?

Are we pushing something on people they don’t want? It’s a question worth asking.

Howard: unpacking the word “library” – what is a library and what are the kinds of activities, functions, social roles, that will survive, be reshaped due to technological changes? This is what he’s struggling with. If you don’t answer the bigger question, it’s harder to answer the question you’re discussing.

Observations:
- there are actual functions of retrieval of basic collecting that may be up for grabs to a larger community… this is clearly in the realm of what you said will be replaced… but there are other things… digital libraries are not libraries because they lack services, traditions (such as equal access, representing a diversity of opinions and content, an authority for authoritativeness)… these seem like the kinds of functions libraries can still serve
Yochai: hasn’t thought about the library as an institution in a remote sense as you have, but one of the things that this perturbation requires is an examination of what is foundational… place, playing a role for people to come together… I hadn’t thought of this, I can imagine the role of place mapping onto the question of equal access being very different in different communities because of social space people have at home to be readers, learners, people who think… I wonder to what extent place is subsidiary to the question of the professional ethic, the idea of services, authenticity. It’s striking to me that you used the example of digital libraries not offering services versus libraries because that is exactly the kind of tension I see between “stuff” and “help,” with the professional ethic. In a broad matter, I would say look at what is foundational, how much does place really play into communities of interest who might be spread out geographically, all over the world even.

Nancy B.: intrigued by the idea that the authority to act means having the capacity to act
just being able to help a senior citizen fill out a form online, it’s not just the initiative to do it.

Not sure if the book is really here forever. Her son has the same affection for his iPod and cell phone that she has for the New York Times and a paperback book. Loved Joe’s idea of stuff, place, help, and values – but the “stuff” piece is likely to change a lot in the future.

The thrust of the telcos to get broadband in every home – when every home has it – then some of the use of public libraries is going to decline, so we need to look at how to increase emphasis on help and values

Joe: you’re right about the primary piece and that it will drive the others as it changes. As stuff becomes less physical, the nature of the stuff changes, as does place and even values. But those values don’t exist in a vacuum, but in an environment. The other ones move in response to “stuff” moving.
Nancy: so how can we help libraries move emphasis and prepare for this?
David I.: we’re in a come-from-behind fight to get a shred of net neutrality and yet you persist in this notion of the collective human spirit – why are you so damned optimistic when they’re all out to get us?
Yochai: going down the road to meet with the FCC, whose question is what is broadband? A lot of the reason why he writes is because he is not a determinist, although he is an optimist. You know better than anyone else the set of threats in terms of architecture, enclosure, etc. 1995-98, we lost every single battle in terms of intellectual enclosure (WAPO treaties, DMCA, No Electronic Theft Act, Sonny Bono Act, etc.). Practically no one else was fighting these things at that point, other than the people in this room, but database protection didn’t pass, trusted computing, etc. Things started to change, even if it was just blocking action, which is significant giving the trajectory of where it looked like we were heading.
When companies like Sun, IBM, and HP see their interests aligned with of librarians and access advocates (even temporarily), that ads dollars behind moral force, which is always a good thing to have on your side. Processing continues to grow quickly, as does storage, the economics of building fast, capable machines continued to proceed in this form. The culture, the sense of agency that is growing with it, is becoming important on our issues.
Jorge: the stories began to change around 2000 from protecting property and aspects to the dynamics of innovation, what had to be protected. That brought more people into the fold.

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