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The Future of Digital Commons

Nancy Kranich Ann Wolpert Steven Pinker: September 22, 2005; Running Time: 2:01:22

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Nancy Kranich says the debate boils down to this: “Is information a public good or a commodity?” The more profit to be made, the higher the tension. Kranich envisions an “information society of the 21st century,” where the ruling metaphor is the commons: information is neither public nor private but something shared. Intellectual assets are not given away but managed “to sustain communities of interest,” and to foster free expression, creativity, innovation and democracy.

Ideas, unlike popsicles, do not disappear once they are consumed, Ann Wolpert notes. And the resources of the academic world are intended to be used repeatedly -- exchanged and enhanced. Wolpert finds particularly threatening the notion of extending copyright law to the work of academics. Ideas should not “be stuffed in the same box as Mickey Mouse,” she says. The internet has fundamentally changed the flow of information, and while it has encouraged a greater degree of “social sharing,” it is now threatened by market forces, which insist on controlling and realizing profit from ideas. Asserts Wolpert, “Neither the academy nor society can tolerate tight control over movement of information. For knowledge to advance, production and distribution systems can and should occur outside the tightly controlled, capital intensive publishing system.”

Steven Pinker admits that “as both a consumer and producer of information,” he has not resolved the conflicting demands of distributing his research freely, and making a living from it. “There is the question of how many … books would I write if I didn’t get a check in the mail from the publisher every once in while.” He warns against designing and promoting an information commons that relies exclusively on generosity, openness and inclusiveness -- human nature being what it is. However, Pinker finds hope in such models as Apple’s iTunes, with its micropayments to download music, and Wikipedia—the online, participatory encyclopedia—where people engage in uncompensated activity for the prestige of making “accurate and useful entries” in a shared online resource.

Lecture Details

Location: Stata Center
32-155

About the Speakers

Nancy Kranich

Former President, American Library Association
Guest Lecturer

Nancy Kranich served as president of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies. In 2003-2004, she was a senior research fellow at the Free Expression Policy Project in New York, where she wrote The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report. Previously, she was associate dean of libraries at New York University where she managed NYU's libraries, press, and media services.

Ann Wolpert

Director, MIT Libraries

As Director of Libraries, Ann J. Wolpert is responsible for the MIT Libraries and MIT Press. The MIT Libraries consist of five major collections, a number of smaller branch libraries in specialized subject areas, a fee-for-services group, and the Institute Archives.

The Institute Archives and Special Collections preserve the historical records of MIT and the personal papers of many faculty members.

The MIT Press publishes about 200 new books and more than 40 journals each year in fields related to or reliant upon science and technology. The Press is widely recognized for its innovative graphic design and electronic publishing initiatives.

The Director's Institute responsibilities include membership on the Committee on Copyright and Patents, the Council on Educational Technology, the Deans' Committee, and the Academic Council. She chairs the Management Board of the MIT Press and the Board of Directors of Technology Review, Inc.

Prior to joining MIT, Wolpert was Executive Director of Library and Information Services at the Harvard Business School. Before working at Harvard, Wolpert was involved in management of the Information Center of Arthur D. Little, Inc.

Wolpert received a B.A. from Boston University and the M.L.S. from Simmons College. In 1998 she was nominated for and accepted into the National Network for Women Leaders in Higher Education of the American Council on Education.

Steven Pinker

Harvard College Professor, and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology
Harvard University

Steven Pinker returned to Harvard in September 2003 after 21 years at MIT, where he was most recently the Peter de Florez Professor of Psychology in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. A native of Montreal, he received his B.A. from McGill University in 1976 and his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1979. His scholarship has brought him awards and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Many more awards and worldwide recognition have come from several popular science books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. He is currently at work on a book about violence.

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