Info as commodity (RE: Message from Pat Schroeder re: Librarians)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

What's happening here, I think, is that we librarians are finally being
forced to confront the silliness of our idea that information is a public
good.  Of course it isn't.  It's a commodity.  It is created by force of
human effort, and it is essentially "owned" by its creator until she sells
or gives it away.  Information has always cost money, and it always will;
library services have never been free, and they never will be.  The longer
we resist waking up on this issue, the faster we'll become irrelevant and
useless to our patrons.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Electronic Resources/Serials Coordinator
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno
1664 No. Virginia St.
Reno, NV  89557
PH  (775) 784-6500 x273
FX  (775) 784-1328
rickand@unr.edu

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of Norman Frankel
> Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 3:32 PM
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Message from Pat Schroeder re: Librarians
>
>
> Information, food, clothing, lawn maintenance, utility payments, mortgage
> payments, college tuition, etc are all commodities and/or services.
> Similar economic models can be applied to all of them.  It would be useful
> to look at information in a wider context- as another commodity or
> service.
>
> Norman Frankel
>
> >>> Libsome@isugw.indstate.edu 02/19/01 06:15PM >>>
>
> I would like to know what Ms. Schroeder considers an equitable solution to
> protecting an author's copyright and a publisher's livelihood?  Would it
> actually be for authors to hold their own copyright and for publishers to
> actually value content with a cap on profit?
>
> Mike Somers