No library required: the free and easy backwaters of online content sharing

Greenhill, Kathryn; Wiebrands, C.

180950_54610_Cj-67184 Published Version.pdf (648.3Kb)

Access Status

Open access

Authors

Greenhill, Kathryn

Wiebrands, C.

Date

2012

Type

Conference Paper

Metadata

Show full item record

Citation

Greenhill, Kathryn and Wiebrands, Constance. 2012. No library required: the free and easy backwaters of online content sharing, in VALA 2012: 16th Biennial Conference and Exhibition, Feb 6-9 2012. Melbourne, Vic.: VALA.

Source Title

VALA 2012: eM-powering eFutures

Source Conference

VALA 2012: eM-powering eFutures

Additional URLs

http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/vala2012-session-11-greenhill

School

School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts

Remarks

This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19457

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

Twentieth-century libraries were funded to provide content to their communities legally, easily and free. In the twenty-first century, new online competitors supply home consumers, legally and illegally, with what libraries traditionally were best at providing to library users - free and easy content. This paper suggests that library staff arguing for the value of contemporary libraries should be aware of the quality, methods and material of "hidden competitors". Some "hidden competitors" discussed include "blackmarket" journal article sharing, BitTorrenting sites, online textbook-sharing sites, self-distributing artists, programs to strip Digital Rights Management from ebooks, Amazon's ebook distribution and fan fiction. Possible future models for both "hidden competitors" and libraries - and implications of these - are suggested.