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Home > About SI > John Seely Brown Symposium
John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society
2008 JSB Symposium Keynote: Brewster Kahle
The fourth John Seely Brown Symposium is sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Information. The centerpiece of the symposium is the John Seely Brown Lecture, which is supported by a gift from John Seely Brown → (a.k.a. "JSB"). Brown is an alumnus of U-M, having earned an MS in mathematics in 1964 and a Ph.D. in computer and communication sciences in 1972 from the University. He has been a strong supporter of SI for a number of years.
Kahle says that his talk will describe how as print resources become databases, libraries are moving away from selecting and organizing materials from a multitude of publishers in order to create their information services to one of acting as collective bargaining agents with a small number of database vendors. This shift is dropping the number of organizations that create and control the information services presented to library patrons. In some circumstances, this has led to one or two corporations controlling a whole type of literature such as Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw's effective control over US law literature, and Elsevier's dominance in scholarly publishing. Google, enabled by several large libraries, is making aggressive investments in book scanning.
If the same few commercial services are offered through most libraries, Kahle says, then the control of library services shifts to these few companies. While applauded by some as more efficient, a lack of diversity and transition to commercial entities from a large number of non-profit ones could create an information environment that will show monopolistic tendencies in pricing and single points of control. For instance, repurposing and bulk analysis of these resources is rarely allowed by commercial services, and a mistake or bias in one can become the bias for all readers.
This "closing" of library services is causing some entities to invest in an alternative: "open" ones. For instance the Public Library of Science offers open journal publishing and the Internet Archive offers open digital book services. These nonprofit services support free end-user and bulk services that are rare in commercial services. This talk will explore some of the characteristics and differences between these two approaches to building library services in the Internet era.
Following the talk there will be a panel discussion with:
- John Seely Brown
- Brewster Kahle
- Paul Courant →, university librarian, dean of the U-M Library, and professor of information, public policy, and economics
- Jessica D. Litman, professor of law and information
A reception will be held after the panel discussion at which the audience can meet the speaker and panelists.
The
first John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology
and Society was held at the University of Michigan on September
8 & 9, 2000.
The inaugural symposium featured a lecture by Stanford Professor
of Law Lawrence Lessig, titled "Architecting Innovation,"
and a panel discussion, "The Implications of Open Source
Software," featuring Brown, Lessig, and the William D. Hamilton Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems at SI, Michael D. Cohen.
The 2002 symposium
featured the second of at least five lectures by internationally
known scholars on the implications of technological advancement
for societies. Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean, University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television and Executive Director, Annenberg Center for Communication, USC, gave the JSB Lecture at that event. Her talk, on what is often termed "multimedia literacy," was titled "Screen as Vernacular: An Expanding Concept of Literacy."
The 2006 symposium
featured Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You and The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, speaking on gaming and learning.
If you would
like be kept abreast of new information on the John Seely Brown Symposium,
please e-mail jsbsymposium@umich.edu
and we will send you details as they become available.
Last updated: Aug 07, 2008
Home > About SI > John Seely Brown Symposium
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Brewster Kahle, co-founder of the Internet Archive → and champion of open, universal access to knowledge, is featured speaker at the 2008 John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society.
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