From the Realm of Necessity to the Realm of Freedom, One Webserver at a Time...

Kelley Walker kelley at interpactinc.com
Mon May 14 01:48:44 PDT 2001


At 10:13 AM 5/14/01 +0200, Peter van Heusden wrote:
>On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 01:34:17AM -0400, Kelley Walker wrote:
> >
> > it is an utterly meaningless gesture on their part because the kind of
> > learning they're offering has _always_ been available to anyone with
> access
> > to a library.
> >
>
>And that is who, exactly? Here in Cape Town, I loved having access to
>the University of Cape Town library. Unfortunately, even as an ex-student,
>the best access to that I can now get is if I pay R XXX a year to get
>access to 1 book for 1 week at a time. I don't have access to the
>library at the University of the Western Cape, but even if I did,
>due to the legacy of Apartheid, its pretty impoverished. The public
>libraries in CT are even worse. (I only get to read 'left' books
>like 'No Logo' if they appear in the bookshop where a friend of
>mine works, or someone scans them and puts them online)

maybe i was just lucky. i went to a nontrad uni like the brit open uni. i didn't see Educating Rita til years later, but that's just about what my life felt like! :)

I couldn't afford books even though I'd gotten a scholarship awarded during high school but which I could never take advantage of til later in my life. even so, i couldn't afford books. the wasband used to give me $20/wk for groceries; it was n't forking over for college or books!

so, i got nearly every one of my books from the library. i used the local library and the state university libraries.


>MIT's courseware will probably be difficult to access, etc. etc. - but
>possibly, just possibly, with a bit of hacking it can be made useful.
>And then the useful stuff can be squirrelled off onto the far
>corners of the Internet (though no doubt that would be against
>the license agreement). I don't hold up much hope, but its better
>than nothing.

could be. but, my point was that it simply wasn't that noble a gesture. making that info available costs them nothing. and, further, hacking would have made it available to the very people who'd squirrel it away anyway!


>This, and the pressure on science journals to put issues online
>after a given period (e.g. 6 months) is a *good thing* in my opinion.
>If only something similar could happen to humanities texts - then
>maybe I could join in the quoting spree that you and Yoshie indulge
>in.

it's not a bad thing. it's a good thing. but it is new. it's an old aspect of the professions! it's an old aspect of the university system--to "donate" their knowledge. come one. universities have always done stuff like this. So, when Brad fawned all over the initiative as if it was some kind of noble gesture... please!


>Peter
>P.S. maybe I should go and register bitterautodidact.com right around
>now. :)

you're referring to me or you?

kelley



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