0.4 Three special events in the history of technology for creating  (Page 8/12)

The efficient one-to-many, one-to-one, and many-to-many communication links provided by the Internet and WWWare reinventing the book into a new information system that is tightly interconnected, fast-paced, and inexpensive. The coreconcept is the idea of a digital commons , a vast repository of richly inter-linked hypertext materials that is woven and tended bya multitude of authors worldwide. In the digital commons, authors can form communities to collaborate and continuously improve, re-use, and re-organize the material in the commons. The communityculture created by this system could have some of the attributes of the “collective intelligence” of Levy, Engelbart, Licklider,Barabási, Weinberger, and others where the resulting whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The readers of the commons arealso more tightly connected by communications technologies (email, discussion forums, chat rooms, blogs, wikis, and so on). If currentlibraries can be compared to Eric Raymond’s cathedrals, then the future digital commons will be like a bazaar.

“… humanity has a chance to reclaim its future. Not by placing its destiny in the hands of some so-calledintelligent mechanism, but by systematically producing the tools that will enable it to shape itself into intelligent communities,capable of negotiating the stormy seas of change.” [Levy p. xxv]

In contrast to traditional libraries, the digital commons is global and under continual, 24/7 expansion andrevision. And, in sharp contrast to the “tragedy of the commons” often cited in the literature, this is a commons without anecessary tragedy; indeed, as its use grows, Metcalfe’s Law (which holds that the usefulness, or utility, of a network is proportionalto the square of the number of users) will amplify its effect. The digital commons will provide new opportunities for writing,scholarship, reading, and learning.

… primary and secondary materials will interact more powerfully than before as both are online side byside. Scholarly discussions will quote the original by pointing to it, and leave the reader to explore the original context, not justthe few words or sentences most apposite. Conversely, texts will acquire structured commentaries not by single hands but organizedout of the work of many. [O’Donnell, pp. 132-4]

Indeed, this new format turns out to be similar to some of the modern (or postmodern) ideas in literary,social, and philosophical theory. Landow, Haraway, Hayles, and others have written on this.

Two pillars support the emerging digital commons. The first is a common technology framework for sharing information provided by hypertext, HTML, XML, and the WWW. Thesecond is a common legal framework for sharing information provided by open-access licenses.

Open-access takes its inspiration from the free software and open-source software movements, in whichcommunities of programmers create software such as the Linux operating system, Apache web server, and Mozilla family of browsersand mail tools. When a community is successful, a high-quality piece of work emerges from the open development process, thanks tomany hands to do the work, many eyes to conduct a constant peer review, and pride of authorship and contributions to thecommunity.