What is an Information Commons?
The term “information commons” is used in different ways in different contexts.
One idea “…draws on the historical existence of the English commons–pieces of land to which members of a community had specific rights of access to meet important human needs…” (From the Editor Inaugural Issue, June 2002, info-commons.org). This leads to “commons” as places where information is “… maximally accessible to everyone in a society….” So called, “intellectual property” may conflict with this idea, but
the info-commons.org hopes for a society in which
“commercial uses of information are balanced with effective public access to information.”
Another use of the term “information commons” refers to places, often hosted by college or university libraries, that provide
services that combine computer access and research assistance. Such commons have the potential for being more than computer labs and more than warehouses of information. They can be places where information is used, not just delivered; where scholars collaborate using specialized tools. ARL has a new
SPEC kit,
SP281 The Information Commons, July 2004 (PDF of Table of Contents and Executive Summary) that describes implementations at almost a dozen universities.