Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice

Citation

Cole, F. (2007), "Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice", The Electronic Library, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 630-631. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2007.25.5.630.4

This useful set of essays explores major policy issues associated with providing access to recorded knowledge, especially that presented in electronic formats. It does so by applying the idea of a “commons”, defined within a generously‐wide societal context, to “knowledge …as a shared resource” noting, as it goes, the consequent “puzzles and issues all forms of knowledge share, particularly in the digital age” (p. 3).

The editors, in their introductory chapter, identify the general direction and tenor of the collection, begin to clarify the basic terms (an ongoing task), and report useful distinctions, such as between seeing a commons as a “resource system” (characterizing types of economic goods, in particular “common‐pool resources”) and a commons as a property‐rights regime (as “common property” controlled by a “jointly owned legal set of rights”) (p. 5). Co‐ordinating both viewpoints would seem necessary, of course; hence the value of setting these issues in as wide a socio‐political framework as possible. There are many issues which need to be canvassed, and the unsurprising conclusion is that there is “no one solution to all commons dilemmas” (p. 12).

The collection is divided into three parts. The first (with essays by Hess, Ostrom and Bollier) outlines the basic issues, and sketches a way the editors' Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework might apply to them.

The second part (Protecting the Knowledge Commons) looks at the protective role of research libraries (Kranich), the effects of copyright and licensing restrictions (Boyle) and the preservation of digital resources (Waters).

The third part (Building New Knowledge Commons) deals with open access (Suber), intellectual property (Ghosh), stimulating research of public value (Levine), lessons to be learned from the open source software movement (Schweik), and libraries in a digital environment (Lougee). The volume finishes with a description of EconPort, an open‐source digital library in experimental microeconomics, as a case‐study in the “incentives, risks, and possible negative externalities” of such an enterprise (Cox and Swarthout). An index covers the entire collection.

Despite the broad framework against which the issues are set, a weakness of this collection is that there is only a ghost of an historical perspective. This leads the editors to claim, contentiously, that “before 1995 few thinkers saw the connection” between “information” and “commons” (p. 4), and that “most of the problems and dilemmas discussed … have arisen since the invention of new digital technologies” (p. 10). These are surprising, often made, assertions, given that the basic issues encapsulated in copyright and intellectual property law and manifest in the mediaeval enclosure of land commons have ancient histories indeed! The entire collection resorts to a vocabulary that is rich in precedent that could be exploited much further.

Overall, the volume reminds us of the range of unresolved policy issues that need to be addressed. It remains more “theoretical” than “practical”, but is no less valuable for that.