Dubhgan is now back in Japan after having presented in Taichung, Taiwan.
Abstract
The premise of this presentation is quite simple. Cory Doctorow (2012) stated in his talk entitled ‘An elegy for a book’ that, “The library of tomorrow should be better than the library of today”. When framed in the context of the Internet, the current Information Age, and the foreseen Internet of Things this becomes an obvious statement that many would assume to be true. However, upon closer examination of the issues surrounding libraries, Doctorow’s statement is quite complex, especially with regards to libraries making the transition to including eBooks as an ever expanding portion of their book collections under the current legal structures of extended copyright and Digital Right Management software and systems. In order to comprehend the root causes of the why Doctorow would need to make such an apparent statement about future libraries, the presentation will introduce the concepts of the traditional commons (Hardin, 1968), current anticommons (Heller, 1998), and how extended copyright has reduced the number of print books and eBooks available (Heald, 2008 & 2014, Smith, Telang & Zhang, 2012). Less available content is cause for concern for English educators as learning management systems are becoming common place which in turn need to be content rich and perhaps compete on a more global scale for students. One solution of a mashup of open domain content will be proposed. Specifically, a real world example of providing lexically analyzed eBooks and audio books for teachers of English in Lesser Developed (LD) countries by using books in the public domain will be presented.