Open Source, Information Commons, and Librarianship
The following column is also published on Webjunction.org as part of the inaugural issue of Post-Tracks which I had the pleasure of establishing with my colleague Vanessa Chavez as our Capstone project for the completion of our MSIS from the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. If your involved in the LIS field feel free to leave comments both here and at Webjunction’s discussion forum.
This year there has been significant coverage of mainstream source projects such as the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird email client. The development of these products in utilizing a robust concept of an information commons and collaborative work is vital. Eric Lease Morgan covered the similarities between open source software development and librarianship in 2000. In his article, Morgan summarizes the four similarities between open source and libraries. Resources for open source systems for libraries can be found at oss4lib. However, libraries have yet to implement open source on large scale despite the values that open source and librarianship share.
The concept of information commons is central to both librarianship and open source software. The idea that creative works should shift to the public domain after being legally protected for a reasonable length of time, and the ability to modify and redistribute these public works, builds and strengthens the culture they appear in. The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office of Information Technology Policy (OITP) has an information commons blog that covers recent news on the information commons front. One of the organizations that promotes that provides a legal basis for putting projects into the information commons is Creative Commons (CC). CC allows for creators to select copyright licenses for reuse of their created material while defining in plain language the requirements for attribution and usage rights. However CC is only one of many options out there for the reuse of created works; the Open Source Initiative (OSI) provides a list of approved licenses for open source software projects, all of which provide an information commons of some sort, although particular to the software project under development.
While ALA has pushed for a greater information commons, there is no designated office in the national organization pushing for open source projects and development. There is an Open Source Systems Interest Group associated with the Library & Information Technologies Association (LITA) division of ALA. However, this group is just one of many within LITA and should have a higher priority, this lack of emphasis on open source technology at ALA is an area that could be improved. One reason ALA should address this at a national level is that some of the concerns raised about libraries switching to open source, especially at smaller institutions, have been about the lack of technical support for open source technology. Libraries might not have funding to pay for top-notch technical talent, or if the talent is available, staff would spend too much time providing support for the products. Since open source products are dependent upon what could be a sparsely populated developer base, which is a concern since without a critical mass of developers, a software product might have bug fixes and updates would be few and far between.
One way to work towards a solution for the of lack of talented technical support within libraries and the small developer base would be for programs in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field to adopt open source programs that serve the LIS community. ALA could encourage this by emphasizing technological skills and fostering a collaborative environment in its accreditation standards. By integrating the development and maintenance of open source programs–such as Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) compliant Internet filters and Integrated Library Systems (ILS)–into LIS degree programs, systems will solve several problems at once. This would increase the developer base for relevant programs and ensure regular and rigorous maintenance. Additionally, as LIS students graduate from their programs they will bring with them the technological skills to continue maintenance, technical support and customization at the institution they work for.
By pushing for increased technological skills as part of the standards of accreditation, and LIS schools adopting open source programs as part of the core of an LIS degree, schools will help strengthen ties between open source programs and librarianship. By emphasizing and instructing in collaborative development for an information commons through adopting open source projects, students receiving LIS degrees from these programs will be well placed to spread these values virally through their workplaces. Adopting open source software programs at LIS schools will also provide additional opportunities for LIS students to gain practical experience before they graduate and enter the job market. Implementing open source programs would be great way to provide students with practical experience, keep the institutions on the cutting edge of technological change, and provide service to the LIS community in both the institutional and those served by the institutions.
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