Where Do We Go From Here
This article has one phrase that bothered me "some would argue that digital libraries have very little to do with libraries as institutions or the practice of librarianship." How is it not librarianship just because it is online? Is an email not a letter because it is read on the screen rather than the page? The article then goes on to detail milestones in digital library interest and development by organizations like The Library of Congress and DARPA. Then it explores where future research and development will lead the field of digital libraries, including areas that the author finds of particular interest: personal information management, long term relationships between humans and and information collections and systems, the role of digital libraries, digital collections and other information services in supporting teaching, learning, and human development, and Active environments for computer supported collaborative work offer the starting point for another research program.
Intellectual Property Rights and Wrongs
This article highlights the difficulty in intellectual property rights policy, especially the balance between encouraging new ideas by protecting them, and encouraging new ideas by allowing people to use other's ideas. The open source movement is a powerful response to the old ways of thinking. "Patent thickets" are dangerous to progress. Pharmaceutical patents can be complicated when the basis of a drug is an herb well known for its medicinal properties. And it is not a good idea to create a single policy for all, as developing countries have very different idea development needs than advanced industrial countries.
