Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 17:39:17 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun@mssrf.res.in> Dear Friends: A few months ago I wrote this article on an invitation from the editors of = a book called "Word matters". The book was released at Tunis during WSIS. I thought you might be interested in this article. Your comments are welcome. Arun = [Subbiah Arunachalam] Public Access to the Internet=0D Subbiah Arunachalam=0D The advent of the Internet brought with it hitherto unheard of possibilitie= s for human creativity, information access, and global communication. When = did these possibilities actually translate into widespread public access to= the Internet? It is difficult to specify a date, but one can identify a fe= w key developments and the key actors behind those developments. =0D Long before the advent of the Internet, the counterculture movement - Vietn= am, alternative technologies, etc. - gave birth to the first community netw= ork, when the Community Memory system was developed in the early 1960s in S= an Francisco by a group of hackers. Then in 1986 the Cleveland Free-Net in = Ohio started a new generation of community networks. Free-Net soon drew tho= usands of new users, and new systems were established in dozens of cities, = mostly in Midwest USA. These free public-access computer networks enabled p= eople not only to exchange and access information but also empowered them. = =0D 1971 saw two key developments: Raymond Tomlinson's invention of a program f= or email[1] for ARPANET, the network of scientists working on Defense relat= ed research, permanently changed the way people viewed computers and human = communication[2], and Michael Hart's Gutenberg Project that made copyright-= free books electronically available[3] led to the creation of huge volumes = of electronic content for sharing world wide. Two more developments took pl= ace in 1973: Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn presented basic Internet ideas bas= ed on ideas for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP, later to be called TCP/= IP) at a meeting at the University of Sussex[4], and ARPANET had its first = intercontinental connection - with the University College of London, Englan= d. The early 1980s saw many institutions not doing defense research accessi= ng the network. =0D By 1985, Internet was already well established as a technology supporting a= broad community of researchers and developers, and was beginning to attrac= t other communities. Electronic mail was being used broadly across several = communities, often with different systems. =0D The first commercial Internet services were offered by PSI and AlterNet in = early 1990. In August 1991, CERN released the World Wide Web, a major miles= tone in the history of the public access to the Internet. On 15 September 1= 993, the Clinton administration formally launched the National Information = Infrastructure initiative in the USA, thanks to the initiatives taken by Vi= ce President Al Gore. The Mosaic web browser version 1.0 was also released = in 1993, and by 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it= referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web. =0D Although the new development was compared to the highways which in an earli= er generation has transformed transportation, it soon became clear that the= Internet was far more than the 'information superhighway' and capable of p= roviding access to higher levels of intelligently ordered and functionally = enriched distributed information. That is where the Internet differs consid= erably from the traditional library, the place where people went to seek in= formation. =0D The growing popularity of computerized communication prompted discussion re= garding many fundamental aspects of social interaction, including questions= of privacy, community, cultural exchange, ownership of knowledge, and gove= rnmental control of information, all of which are related to public access.= =0D What is public access? =0D Public access includes access to the technology (the computer, connectivity= , bandwidth, etc.) and access to all the content stored in the world's grea= test artificial network, as Newsweek calls the Internet. Of the two, the se= cond is hierarchically above the first, as the technology is subordinate to= the content (knowledge) it can bring in. This is similar to bringing in wa= ter to a village through a pipeline, where clearly the water is more import= ant than the pipes. Both the technology access and the content access can e= ither be free or fee based. The content could be textual, audio, video or m= ultimedia. The connectivity can be through a variety of technologies rangin= g from dial-up using a landline telephone and modem to wi-fi and handheld d= evices (smartphones, game console, etc.). =0D The public can use Internet access to send and receive emails, take part in= listservs and discussion groups, and for searching information. Scientists= use it for collaborative research as well, and the common people use it fo= r talking to others either through chatting or through voice-over-IP. More = recent uses of Internet access include data exchange via P2P technologies, = music sharing, blogging, vlogging, citizen journalism, getting RSS feeds of= news from different sources, and podcasting. =0D Apart from their own homes and offices, the public can access the Internet = from public libraries and cybercafes, and to some extent from educational i= nstitutions and the ever-expanding telecentres as well as hotel lobbies and= airport lounges equipped for wi-fi access. =0D The vast quantities of information that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere= , any time at no cost can be referred to as the information commons. Public= access to the Internet is based on the idea that even in profit-dominated = market economies, communal ownership and control of information resources c= an be efficient and effective [5]. =0D Towards universal access at the world level =0D The major debate today revolves around "universalization" of access. Why is= universalization so important? Researchers like Ernest Wilson worry that, = in the absence of universal access, the rapid diffusion of the Internet int= o the organizations, cultures, and societies of industrialized nations may = widen the multidimensional gap separating them from developing nations, exa= cerbating an already significant moral and practical problem [6]. Larry Pre= ss believes that the Internet's flexible, low-cost communication may lead t= o improved economic productivity, education, health care, entertainment, aw= areness of the world, and quality of life in developing nations and pockets= of poverty within nations, thus reducing disparity [7]. There are a number= of barriers to universal access. While in most of North America and Wester= n Europe, Internet penetration is very high and very nearly every citizen w= ho wants to access the Net can do so, in many parts of the developing world= , and in particular Sub Saharan Africa, only a small percent of the populat= ion can have access, even if the bandwidth is abysmally low and the cost fo= rms a substantial fraction of one's income. The numbers of computers, telep= hones, etc. per thousand inhabitants and the bandwidth in most of these cou= ntries are very low compared to the advanced countries and they are unevenl= y distributed [8]. It is to overcome this "digital divide" developing count= ries are pleading for the setting up of a Digital Solidarity Fund [9]. =0D In many developing countries, efforts are being made to overcome the digita= l divide or the lack of technology by setting up community owned telecentre= s which gather and provide the information needed by the local people. =0D The development of telecentres =0D Telecentres, also known as public access points (France), digital community= centres (Mexico), and so on, differ from cybercaf=E9s in the way they work= . Cybercaf=E9s are mostly intended to provide the people who use them with = an Internet connection, and, where necessary, a very basic introduction to = the equipment. They operate along the lines of a self-service establishment= . Telecentres are intended to accompany community use of the Internet (educ= ation, health, micro-enterprises, and so on). They are generally opened in = neighbourhoods without cybercaf=E9s and are for communities that are a prio= ri excluded from the information society. In addition to making available e= quipment and connections, telecentres provide training and assistance for v= arious uses (helping local people develop community applications, for insta= nce). =0D In practice, the difference between telecentres and cybercaf=E9s is not alw= ays clear-cut, and the two can overlap according to the objectives of the p= eople running them and the development model selected. =0D In fact, there are three main models for the establishment of telecentres: = =0D - Telecentres supported by local or national public authorities. For exampl= e, a town like Brest [10] in France has systematically equipped itself so t= hat each inhabitant has a public access point less than 300 metres from hom= e. Between 1999 and 2001, Argentina implemented a wide-ranging infrastructu= re programme that involved setting up 1,350 Community Technology Centres (C= TCs) [11]. The Indian government took the same approach in the States of th= e North-East [12] and most national plans for the information society now i= nclude telecentre projects under the heading "social inclusion". =0D - Telecentres that are the initiative of a group of local people, a local v= oluntary group or a school. They often receive backing in the start-up phas= e from an NGO [13] or international aid agency. For instance, IDRC, a Canad= ian development agency, and IICD, a Netherlands agency, developed extensive= support plans for telecentres in the early 2000s. UNESCO has also supporte= d many Community Multimedia Centres (CMCs) to promote community empowerment= and address the digital divide by combining community broadcasting with th= e Internet and related technologies [14]. =0D - Telecentres that are designed as private enterprises with authentic busin= ess plans that can only exist in areas where basic needs can be met. Althou= gh their profitable activity brings them closer to cybercaf=E9s, they are n= evertheless dedicated to the needs of the community. =0D The first experiments date back to the late 1990s, and since many telecentr= es have closed down since then, it is possible to identify certain conditio= ns that are essential (although certainly not enough on their own) to the s= uccess of telecentres: =0D - The launch of a telecentre genuinely responding to the needs of local peo= ple, these needs varying considerably not only from one country to another = but from one village or neighbourhood to another; =0D - Funding for training trainers and not only for equipment; =0D - Provision of freeware enabling technological autonomy and avoiding regula= r reinvestment in applications and upgrades; =0D - Existence of the minimum infrastructure to allow technical functioning (e= nergy, viability of the premises, etc.); =0D - Presence in spaces that are already meeting the needs of local people oth= er than connectivity (health centres, social centres, libraries, and school= s); =0D - Construction of a development model that gradually enables financial inde= pendence from the original donors. Many failures were due to outside subsid= ies running out. =0D Public access points, or telecentres, have developed significantly in Latin= America and the Caribbean and many of them have joined forces in the excha= nge network. [15] =0D Africa is, of course, the continent where such centres have experienced the= most problems in keeping going. Low population density, low literacy level= s, oral culture and the poor quality of supply from operators mean that dev= eloping the telecentres is, on the whole, difficult. On top of these generi= c difficulties, telecentres have also come up against the structural imposs= ibility of finding independent income: in solvent areas, cybercaf=E9s have = sprung up at great speed, preventing the establishment of telecentres ; in = insolvent areas, international donors often became tired of funding project= s that were often over-ambitious from the outset (Africa is the continent w= here North-centred visions of the information society have been transposed = without really taking local needs into consideration, thereby condemning pr= ojects to fall into disuse). [16] =0D India, on the other hand multiplied the telecentre experiments by adopting = different models, including community owned, revenue model and government-s= upported centres. =0D A good example of the community-owned model is the village knowledge centre= s established by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in several= villages in southern India. [17] [18] The most well-known use of the Inter= net in these centres is broadcasting, through a public address system advan= ce information on wave heights in the Pondicherry coast, downloaded from a = US Navy website so that fishermen in coastal villages can decide if it is s= afe for them to venture into the sea on a given day. Since this service was= begun in 1999, there has not been a single death in the sea in these villa= ges. In collaboration with OneWorld International, MSSRF set up the Open Kn= owledge Network (OKN), that connects rural communities in Asia and Africa f= or exchanging local content, indigenous knowledge, and traditional practice= s [19]. Besides Internet, OKN uses cell phones and radio for communication.= =0D The ITC's eChoupals are a good example of the revenue model [20]. The Natio= nal Informatics Centre of the Government of India has established many cent= res in the north-eastern states [21]. Thanks to the initiative taken by MSS= RF, a National Alliance, perhaps the largest multi-stakeholder partnership = in development, has been formed to take the knowledge revolution to each on= e of the 638,000 villages in India before the 60th anniversary of India's I= ndependence [22]. The Government of India has come forward to meet a large = part of the costs, to the tune of $1,500 million. =0D While in general technologies tend to exacerbate inequalities and favour th= e early adopters at the cost of those who come in late, thanks to the free = and unhindered flow of information it facilitates, the Internet is inherent= ly a democratizing technology and it can make access to information a level= playing field. How can we translate this inherent potential into reality? = It is here we recognize the great value of the "public commons" approach to= sharing information. =0D Public commons and information sharing =0D Let us see how the public commons approach to disseminating scientific know= ledge is affecting the way scientific research is performed around the worl= d. This example, which has reached maturity, shows the impact of the concep= t of public commons on the spread of global public access to information co= ntent. =0D About 15 years ago Paul Ginsparg, then at Los Alamos National Laboratory, t= hought of a central archive for physics research papers. Now arXiv is flour= ishing with its headquarters at Cornell and has more than 15 mirror sites (= a few of them in developing countries) [23]. Steve Lawrence, then at NEC Re= search, Princeton, started CiteSeer which does not wait for authors to subm= it/deposit their papers but crawls the Net and collects all papers in compu= ter science and related fields [24] . Stevan Harnad at Southampton created = Cogprint, an archive for cognitive sciences [25] . He also wrote a few prov= ocative papers on what he calls a "subvertive proposal" to expand "scholarl= y skywriting", the way scientists are able to write in the internet sky, fo= r everybody to read [26]. Following this impulsion, in the past few years s= cientists have started depositing their research papers - besides publishin= g them in refereed journals of their choice - in interoperable institutiona= l open access archives. The software for setting up these full text archive= s are absolutely free. The interoperability protocol (OAI-PMH [27]) and ass= ociated software that enable a user to trace all papers on a given subject = or by a given author from anyone of the archives (located anywhere in the w= orld) as if they are all in one single (universal) archive is also absolute= ly free.=0D Today there are more than 400 such interoperable institutional archives pro= viding access to the full texts of many thousands of research papers. This = is especially helpful to scientists in the developing countries. Peter Sube= r maintains a blog [Open Access News] and reports comprehensively on develo= pments of the open access movement around the world [28] . =0D Along with open access archives, there are also open access journals for wh= ich readers and their libraries do not have to pay a subscription. More tha= n 1,700 journals - including a few hundreds from developing countries - are= now OA journals [29]. =0D Access to knowledge all around the world =0D One can see a parallel between the telecenters and the open access archives= . Both of them are using advances in technology to include the excluded and= making available much needed information at a low cost through the "public= commons" approach. Both of them are overcoming a serious problem by intell= igently marrying technology and the public commons approach. Both of them a= re about sharing and caring. Both of them are eminently suited to increase = the overall productivity of the world as a whole and lead to greater collec= tive happiness. It sounds almost utopian. =0D But many publishers, including some scientific societies, are working to st= all the progress of the open access movement, as they see it as a potential= threat to their business interests. On the other hand many donor agencies,= such as the Wellcome Trust, who fund scientists to perform research are av= id supporters of the movement. =0D In the area of scientific data, as distinct from full texts of research pap= ers, organizations such as ICSU (and CODATA) are promoting the culture of o= pen access. Even Celera Genomics Corp., the for-profit company that sequenc= ed the human genome simultaneously with the public-funded Human Genome Proj= ect, has stopped selling subscriptions for access to its sequence/data and = would donate the data to the National Center for Biotechnology Information,= USA. As Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute pu= t it "data just wants to be public." =0D Scientists in developing countries need particular attention, says Bruce Al= berts, former President of the US National Academy of Sciences. In his 1999= presidential address [30] to the National Academy of Sciences, USA, he sug= gested "Connecting all scientists to the World Wide Web, where necessary by= providing subsidized Internet access through commercial satellite networks= ," and "taking responsibility for generating a rich array of scientifically= validated knowledge resources, made available free on the Web, in preparat= ion for a time when universal Internet access for scientists is achieved in= both developing and industrialized nations." =0D =46rom cyberspace to the real world =0D In the early days of the Net, there was a feeling that the Net had given us= the freedom to do things independently from the governments and the law of= the land. Indeed, back in February 1996, John Perry Barlow, an Internet ac= tivist, published a "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". [31] "= Governments of the industrial world," Mr Barlow declared, "on behalf of the= future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among= us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. You have no moral right to ru= le us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to = fear. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders." And the Internet became= one of citizen advocacy's most important tools used for research, public e= ducation, organizing, political discussion, coordination, and much more. = =0D Unfortunately digital technology also has brought about new forms of inform= ation enclosure that undermines the public's right to use, share, and repro= duce information. Such enclosures threaten to undermine the political disco= urse, free speech, and creativity needed for a healthy democracy. And in re= ality governments can and do have considerable control over what is transac= ted on the Internet. As the Economist pointed out, "the Internet is part of= the real world. Like all frontiers, it was wild for a while, but policemen= always show up eventually." [32] =0D Both the democratic character of the Internet and its ability to reach out = to a 'near infinite' knowledge base have come under question. If the high c= ost, low quality and rarity of Internet access add up to make the first bar= rier to public access to Internet in poor countries, the policies and attit= udes of institutions and governments lead to a second kind of barrier. As t= he Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has found, governments can pr= event their citizens from visiting certain sites they consider harmful to n= ational interest, control access to overseas sites, monitor postings by the= ir citizens, and they can literally isolate their people from the rest of t= he network [33]. Schools and parents may use a filter to save children from= the ever-increasing presence of smut sites on the Net. How can we otherwis= e save ourselves and our children from the menace of the presence in the Ne= t of nudity, sex acts, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, violence and profanity, cul= ts, racist, extremist, and intolerant groups, illegal gambling and fraudule= nt business ventures? The challenge here is how we can balance our quest fo= r freedom and openness with the need to curb porn, obscenity, and intoleran= ce. =0D That is the greatest dilemma libraries offering public access to the Intern= et face. Whereas almost all public libraries in the USA provide free Intern= et access to their readers, the situation is abysmal in almost all developi= ng countries. =0D As Nancy Kranich has said, public access to the Internet is vital to rekind= le civic participation, and to claim for public space and to promote the pu= blic interest in the digital age. =0D There are two ways of promoting public access to the Internet: =0D - Enabling citizens the world over to use the tools of the information netw= ork to gain access to available information, as well as to create their own= information and circulate it worldwide. =0D - Ensuring free access to essential information, so that the opportunities = provided by the Internet are actually used to spread throughout the world a= ccess by all to knowledge. =0D References=0D [1] http://openmap.bbn.com/ tomlinso/ray/home.html=0D [2] Ian R Hardy, Email history, 1996. http://www.ifla.org/documents/interne= t/hari1.txt=0D [3] http://promo.net/pg/history.html=0D [4] - Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, =ABTowards Protocols for Internetwork Co= mmunication,=BB IFIP/TC6.1, NIC 18764, INWG 39, - Robert Kahn, Vinton G. Ce= rf, =ABWhat Is The Internet (And What Makes It Work)=BB, http://www.interne= tpolicy.org/briefing/12_99_story.html =0D Ronda Hauben, The international origins of the Internet and the impact of = this framework on its future, talk given at Columbia University on Nov. 4, = 2004=0D [5] Nancy Kranich, The Information Commons - A public policy report, The Fr= ee Expression Policy Project, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of L= aw,2004. http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/infocommons.contentsexsum.= html=0D [6] Wilson, Ernest, Meeting the Challenges of Internet Inequality, OnTheInt= ernet, Vol. 5, No. 6, November/December, 1999, pp. 26-30.=0D [7] Press, L., The Role of Networks in Developing Nations, Communications o= f the ACM, Vol. 39, No. 2, February 1996, pp. 23-29, http://som.csudh.edu/f= ac/lpress/devwins.htm=0D [8] http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/=0D [9] http://www.dsf-fsn.org/=0D [10] http://www.mairie-brest.fr/cnt/papi.htm=0D [11] http://www.links.org.ar/infoteca/ctc-peru.pdf=0D [12] http://home.nic.in:80/projects/cic.pdf=0D [13] See, for instance, the work in Africa of the French association "Mosa= =EFque du monde" http://mosaiquedumonde.org/association/index.php?lapage=3D= centre=0D [14] http://www.unesco.org/webworld/cmc=0D [15] http://www.tele-centros.org/=0D [16] Annie Ch=E9neau-Loquay : "Ce qui sert le plus en Afrique, c'est la voi= x" http://www.internetactu.net/index.php?p=3D6071 =0D [17] http://www.mssrf.org/special_programmes/ivrp/ivrpmain.htm=0D [18] Subbiah Arunachalam, Reaching the unreached: How can we use ICTs to em= power the rural poor in the developing world through enhanced access to rel= evant information? 68th IFLA Council and General Conference, Glasgow, 2002.= =0D [19] S Senthilkumaran and Subbiah Arunachalam, Expanding the village knowle= dge centres in Pondicherry, Regional Development Dialogue, 2002, vol. 23, N= o. 2, pp.64-84. http://www.openknowledge.net=0D [20] http://www.echoupal.com/=0D [21] http://www.cic.nic.in/=0D [22] National Alliance for Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre, = MSSRF/PR/04/55, June 2004. http://www.mssrf.org/special_programmes/mission_= 2007_NA/namain.htm=0D [23] http://arxiv.org/=0D [24] http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/=0D [25] http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ harnad/=0D [26] For a complete coverage of the impact of Stevan Harnad thinkings on th= e open access movement, see also : Poynder, Richard. Ten Years After. Infor= mation Today, october 14, 2004. http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct04/poynder.s= html=0D [27] http://www.openarchives.org/=0D [28] http://www.earlham.edu/ peters/fos/fosblog.html=0D [29] http://www.doaj.org=0D [30] Bruce Alberts, Science and the World's Future, Presidential address, 1= 36th Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 26 April 1999= http://www.nasonline.org/1999address=0D [31] Barlow, John Perry. A declaration of the independence of Cyberspace ht= tp://homes.eff.org/ barlow/Declaration-Final.html=0D [32] The Internet's new borders. The Economist, 9 August 2001.=0D [33] Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authorita= rian Rule by Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, 2003 by the Carnegie Endo= wment for International Peace.=0D ------------------------------------=0D This text is an extract from the book Word Matters: multicultural perspecti= ves on information societies. This book, which has been coordinated by Alai= n Ambrosi, Val=E9rie Peugeot and Daniel Pimienta was released on November 5= , 2005 by C & F =C9ditions.=0D The text is under the Creative Commons licence, by, non commercial.=0D Knowledge should be shared in free access... But authors and editors need a= n economy to keep on creating and working. If you can afford it, please buy= the book on line (39 =A4)=0D Creative Commons License=0D