Information Commons - Friday - Intro Session
I'm at a workshop of Libraries and Information Commons at the Cerritos Public Library. The introductory session on Friday evening was taken up mostly with introductions of all the participants, but there were two brief talks on the Commons:
Nancy Kranich -- Articulation of the Commons
Framing the debate (inspired by George Lakoff)
Understanding how people make their decisions: belief systems, existing frames of reference & language
Reinforcing our values into the language of the debate
Charlotte Hess -- the Nature of Commons
"Public Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Ground Water Basin Management" by Elinor Ostrum -- dissertation of natural resource commons: public capital build by commons/collaborative/cooperative network for public profit
Predates "The Tragedy of the Commons"
Commons aren't inherent failures; commons fail due to ineffective management and inappropriate rules
Commons is a revived concept, after a long period of enclosure, commodification & capture of resources
The New commons: applying the principles of natural resource commons to other types of commons
How to examine commons: what are the resources, who's using them, and under what circumstance
Commons require collective action by each user/actor
Antithetical to Lessig's notion of the commons: the commons must be managed in order to be protected
More later ...