Roy Tennant observed that Google hadn’t bothered exhibiting at ALA Annual 2008. I think Roy has a “game over” feeling about that — like we’re finally irrelevant enough for Google to ignore.
I have another take on this, bolstered by Joe Nocera’s article in the New York Times about Google’s deteriorating daycare options. Google has proven itself to be just another aging company where common sense and sincere dedication to human need have yielded to impatience with employees who want, of all things, day care for their children, a need the company has likened to free M&Ms.
Obviously, one point is that the United States still doesn’t have its act together about daycare. Not long ago I worked with a smart, dedicated woman who had grown up and been educated in China, and she observed that our large state university completely fell down on childcare options. In China, her kids would have had childcare. Period. Here, childcare was dangled as an option, but her kids would have been in middle school by the time they moved off the waiting list.
But I’d like to repeat a point I keep making while big universities fall over themselves to participate in Google’s digitization projects. Google is a relatively young company (though aging rapidly, if Nocero’s story has credence). Everyone assumes Google will rule the world forever. But we have thought that about a lot of companies.
In the end, if we really care about our software and our data and our materials, we have to fight to keep them open, to keep them available for use, and to preserve them — on our own, not through the secret back-door doings of a company too young to drive. We keep re-learning this lesson. We learned it when we privatized library software, and we learned it when we privatized library data, and sooner than later, we’ll learn it with Google.
And yes, I’m holding off on comparing Google to a library software company recently in the news for its draconian personnel policies — because others wrote that story for me. (It’s funny how LJ’s correction only dug the hole deeper: “Oh, only TWO years! I feel SO much better!”)
In June, the OECD had a Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy. They published a report which is intended to help countries shape policies concerning the Internet economy. The themes that are addressed are the following:
- Making Internet access available to everyone and everywhere.
- Promoting Internet-based innovation, competition and user choice.
- Securing critical information infrastructures and responding to new threats.
- Ensuring the protection of personal information, respect for intellectual property rights, and more generally a trusted Internet-based environment which offers protection to individuals, especially minors and other vulnerable groups.
- Promoting secure and responsible use of the Internet; and,
- Creating an environment that encourages infrastructure investment, higher levels of connectivity and innovative services and applications.
There were some positive policy suggestions that were made, such as:
- Promote a culture of openness and sharing of research data among public research communities.
- Raise awareness of the potential costs and benefits of restrictions and limitations on access to and sharing of research data from public funding.
The OECD Civil Society Forum, comprised of the OECD Civil Society Reference Group and the The Trade Union Advisory Committee, produced a paper (and their own conference) intended to bring to the attention of the OECD Ministers assembled and the OECD member countries the concerns of those not represented at the Ministerial conference.
Their paper highlights the following:
The policy goals for the Future Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication networks and services.
Their recommendations cover
- Freedom of expression
- Protection of Privacy and Transparency
- Consumer Protection
- Promotion of Access to Knowledge
- Internet Governance
- Promotion of Open Standards and Net Neutrality
- Balanced Intellectual Property Policies
- Support for Pluralistic Media
