Hello all. This is admittedly likely to be more related to free culture in general than a specific copyright issue, and if it’s too far removed from the scope of the course I have no problem with it being taken down (or taking it down myself). That disclaimer aside…

Today The Consumerist posted a news article announcing that the city of Philadelphia is closing the Philadelphia Free Library and all its branches on October 2nd, due to the economy and the city’s failure to work out its budget on time. I had a pretty visceral (and expletive-heavy) reaction when I saw this article in the RSS feed for our class.

Libraries, like pay-what-you-can museums and public parks, are cornerstones of functioning societies. They are cultural grounding points, and symbolize an effort on the part of the government to ensure that resources often reserved for middle and upper classes (modern technology, Internet access, archived knowledge, and so on) are made available to everyone. They aren’t just about loaning free entertainment to everyone, though that in itself isn’t an objective that should be sniffed at. Libraries often offer free activities for children whose parents can’t afford expensive after-school programs, to no-fee or very discounted classes for adults looking to build their work skills in order to find a job. They are institutions firmly centered around the idea that information is non-rivalrous and the more people that have it, the better.

The entire library system reminds me a lot of the society Barlow envisioned in his Economy of Ideas, even if it already existed when Barlow was hypothesizing about the future some decade and change ago. There’s this belief that all patrons to this source of free culture will treat the materials with care, respect the facility, and return everything in an orderly fashion so that the flow of information isn’t interrupted. And even if “all patrons” is a bit too ideal, the fact is that most patrons do just this, or at least enough of them that the endeavor is considered worthwhile. If you don’t follow the rules, the worst thing that happens seems to be a nominal fee that you can generally pay at your own leisure, and many branches are super forgiving about seeking reimbursement for late and even damaged materials.

All in all, with so much heated, often vicious back-and-forth going on over copyright and digital “piracy,” what are the ramifications when we can’t even protect the bit of state-sanctioned free culture that we already have?