Outcome 1a
Describe the evolving nature of the core values and ethics within diverse information environments .
“The changing nature of the Public Good in the 21st Century”
This paper, written for LIS 701 “Core Values, Ethics, and Issues in Library and Information Science”, discusses the evolution over time of the concept of “Public Good”, one of the core values of librarianship defined by the ALA. A literature review is followed by analysis. The definition of Public Good is examined in a historical context, and compared to the current social and political climate. My conclusion is that “the Public Good is not a passive artifact to be guarded; it is an active project that needs to be continually constructed and reexamined.”
In the open source software community, there is a phrase that has been used for
a long time to illuminate an important concept : “Do you mean free as in freedom, or
free as in beer?” In the 19th and much of the 20th century, “free as in beer” was a
significant part of what defined libraries’ mission; physical access to a limited resource
was how information got distributed. “Free as in freedom” was a much more abstract,
although not completely unimportant, component of the mission, and most of the
conversation around it involved copyright disputes and legal arcana. The library of the
21st century is no longer the guardian of a limited resource; some of the most pressing
social issues of our time are a result of the fact that we are all drowning in information
constantly, and most of us understand very little about the way that information is
created and used to influence us.
“The changing nature of the Public Good in the 21st Century”