Freedom of Information and the Civil Society ETL 523

As I read in Schauder’s paper about the civil society and the role that libraries play in the free flow of information and ideas I had a number of responses (Schauder, D. (2006). Libraries, ICT policy, and Australian civil society: isues and prospects from national consultations. Paper presented at the VALA 2006: Connecting with users. 13th biennial conference and exhibition 8-10 February 2006 Crown Towers, Melbourne, Australia. Conference proceedings. Retrieved from
http://www.valaconf.org.au/vala2006/papers2006/50 Schauder Final.pdf.

The civil society is certainly to be promoted and the role of libraries in the process needs to be recognised and encouraged. The notion of e-democracy, where citizens are able to vote on any and every issue is both one of Athenian utopianism and science fiction intrigue. The male Athenians could indulge in this practice because they had slaves and the female members of their households to attend to their other affairs. Science fiction and speculative fiction (including Dennis Potter’s Cold Lazarus) have highlighted the danger of instant populist democracy. We see glimpses of this already in the number of polls conducted on subjects as diverse as cricket, cars and politics.

The opening of the “Charter for Knowledge Societies” of the IAMCR could be read as a manifesto for Wikileaks. Does that make free access to information a positive or a negative principle to pursue? What are the implications for privacy? Why are the “conversations” of political leaders more in the public interest to disclose interesting than those of industrial leaders, who arguably have more influence on our lives? Is it because, as Browne (Browne, M. 1997, “The field of information policy: 1. Fundamental concepts”, Journal of information science, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 261-275) suggests governments continue to operate with a plethora of overlapping and disorganized policies, while companies and corporations have managed to have their interests protected by copyright and other laws. The recent iinet case in Australia ¬– as with the French (p. 62) and American (p. 68) cases referred to by Dearnley and Feather (2001. Information policy. In The wired world: an introduction to the theory and practice of the information society (pp. 60-93). London: Library Association) – demonstrates that these large companies may have met their match in the world wide web. Or is it because Freedom of Information has created the “right to know” and the technology has created an immediacy of access (legal or illegal) to such a vast amount of information that governments aren’t yet sure of the security implications of the information and certainly don’t have the time to assess it all. Given what Dearnley and Feather (2001, p. 67) say about freedom of information legislation in the USA, one wonders how that government can make the threats that is has allegedly made about the actions of Wikileaks.

The third point is that leaving the provision of knowledge “to the market” can lead to a continuing or new digital divide. This is part of the political debate in Australia at the moment over broadband.

The implication is that libraries have a significant role to play in providing access to a range of information that promotes the public good through the seeking and imparting of information. Libraries will no longer just be repositories or terminals of information, they will be the place where information is generated and from which it is disseminated. They also have an important role to play in the monitoring, critiquing and advocating of information.