Summer 2007		Room		Time		Instructor: Howard Rosenbaum		Office: 005B@SLIS		Office Hours:
		L 036		1:00-4:00 T, Th		hrosenba@indiana.edu		Telephone: 812 855 3250		11:30-1:00 PM T, Th

Introduction

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of [them]

John F. Kennedy, 1962

Censorship, restrictions on free speech, the ability to disseminate and access information, the control of privacy and personal information, digital rights management, the spread of surveillance, the protection of intellectual property - these are some of the issues that shape the concept of intellectual freedom in the 21st century. These issues are also central to the information professions. In this course, we will investigate intellectual freedom in three contexts. We will look critically at:

• Libraries, where principles of intellectual freedom are used as a basis for standards of library practice and ethics;
• Society at large, where intellectual freedom issues have an impact on our personal and professional lives; and
• the Internet, where some of the most difficult and complex issues surrounding the creation, exchange, and use of information are found

For example, intellectual freedom has been a cornerstone of library practice throughout this century and has faced and withstood many challenges. It does, however, embody a paradox; the core of this concept is rather simple to express and extremely difficult to use as a basis for professional activities. According to the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association¹, intellectual freedom rests on the conditions that:

• All individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey ideas in any form the individual deems appropriate; and
• Society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information

This concept has been incorporated into an Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights which has been expanded to include the networked information environment²:

Freedom of expression is an inalienable human right and the foundation for self-government. Freedom of expression encompasses the freedom of speech and the corollary right to receive information. These rights extend to children as well as adults.

Libraries and librarians exist to facilitate the exercise of these rights by selecting, producing, providing access to, identifying, retrieving, organizing, providing instruction in the use of, and preserving recorded expression regardless of the format or technology.

It is clear that libraries have an important role to play as institutions which provide unrestricted access to information and attempt to create and maintain the conditions that support a "climate of intellectual freedom." Challenges to this role have arisen in the form of censorship disputes, access issues, privacy issues, and collection development. One purpose of this course is to provide you with the opportunity to carefully develop a reasoned position on these and other issues and, more generally, on the problem of the preservation of intellectual freedom in libraries, librarianship, and the information professions.

However, the problems that coalesce around the concept of intellectual freedom have moved far beyond the walls of the library. Branscomb³ points out that the issue of the ownership and control of information is intricately intertwined with the concept of intellectual freedom and developments are occurring in society at a rate which far outpaces the ability of the legal system to keep up; as a consequence, "controversy over the ownership and control of information is rampant today." There are important decisions being made in the courts, in the legislative and regulatory branches of government, and in the private sector that will affect the public's access to, control over, and use of information. For example,

• To what extent are you able to control your personal information? What rights to you have to control this information once it is outside of your personal sphere of influence?
• To what extent and for what purposes is surveillance justifiable, in public, in your home, and in the workplace?
• How can we best manage the tension between the desire to preserve our civil liberties and the desire to live in a safe and secure society?

Another purpose of this course is to give you the opportunity to explore these issues in some depth.

A third arena where some of these issues are being discussed and, in some cases fought over, is the Internet, where, some argue, the traditional concepts of intellectual property protection and copyright no longer hold. The Internet, the argument continues, may be the last preserve of intellectual freedom. How long this situation may hold, however, is an open question, since there are a number of challenges to intellectual freedom arising in the networked information environment. These involve the such events as the ongoing series of court cases in which the RIAA sued people who were operating peer-to-peer network nodes from their campus computers and others who were accused of trading copyright-protected music files, the revision of the Patriot Act, which greatly extends the ability of the Federal Government to monitor online and offline activities, the Federal GovernmentÕs warrantless spying program, the controversy over what has become known as "cyberporn," and the growing debate over a fee-for-service internet. Some current issues that are moving to the center of the debate include:

• The tension between the protection of the right to free speech and the desireto protect children from pornographic materials available on the web
• The protection of intellectual property in a networked digital environment
• The increasing technological ability to monitor the online activities ofnet users

A third purpose of this course is to consider the issues that surround intellectual freedom in the networked information environment.

Why should these events be of concern to information professionals?

The library and information professions are deeply involved in the acquisition, storage, and dissemination of a wide range of print, traditional non-print, and electronic information, so familiarity with the issues involved in the ownership of and provision of access to information in a networked environment will have personal and professional benefits for you.

It is now commonplace that this environment has become well integrated into libraries and information centers, so a concern for the problem of intellectual freedom in this environment is simply an extension of traditional concerns, and as future professionals, you should be aware of the issues that will arise as the struggle for the ownership and control over different type of information unfolds over the next decade.

This course will be divided into three sections to accommodate these major components of intellectual freedom. The first section will be "Intellectual Freedom and Libraries," the second will be "Intellectual Freedom and the Society," and the third will be "Intellectual Freedom and the Internet."

Notes:

1. ALA. Office for Intellectual Freedom. (2000). Access to Electronic Information, Services, and Networks: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted by the ALA Council, January 24, 1996 Available at:

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/interpretations/qandaaccesselectronic.htm

2. . ALA. Office for Intellectual Freedom. (2002). Intellectual Freedom Manual, 6th Ed. Chicago: American Library Association.

3. Branscomb, A.W. (1994). Who Owns Information? From Privacy to Public Access. New York: Basic Books. p 74.