Information in Society

Information Studies 200, UCLA Fall 2000

Monday 16:00-18:00, 1222 Public Policy Bldg

(discussion sections Monday 14:00-16:00 245/228 GSEIS and 18:00-20:00 1222 Public Policy)

taught by Howard Besser and Rod Cave

assisted by Special Reader Kalpana Shankar

Syllabus

"Examination of processes by which information and knowledge are created, integrated, disseminated, organized, used, and preserved. Topics include history of communication technologies, evolution of literacy, development of information professions, and social issues related to information access."
This is the basic introductory course to the social and professional history and implications of our field(s). You will learn about the rich history of information and the important role that information professionals play. Approximately half the class will be devoted to important issues facing the profession today (most of those involving broad socio-political issues).

General course information

According to the course catalog, this course is scheduled to meet for 2 hours/week of lecture and an additional two hours/week of discussion. All student will meet together during the Mondays 4-6 PM lecture. Half the students will meet in a discussion section immediately before the lecture (2-4) and the other half will meet in a discussion section immediately after the lecture (6-8). There will be a break of approximately 20 minutes between the sections and lecture.

Course Reader -- Most of the readings are either on the Web, in the Course Reader, or in Coyle's Information Highway Handbook. Please purchase the Course Reader at Westwood Copies at 1001 Gayley Ave near Weyburn (Westwood) as soon as possible. And please do the first set of readings before the first class session. Purchase Coyle's Information Highway Handbook at the textbook store, from ALA, or at another bookstore.

Discussion Sections -- Discussion sections (approximately 40 students/section) will meet for 2 hours/week. Each section will be broken down into smaller discussion subgroups (about 8 persons/subgroup). For the first hour of the discussion section, the students will meet within their 8-person subgroup and discuss the reading topics for that week. Each week a different student will be responsible for moderating that 8-person discussion, and should prepare more extensively in order to effectively lead that discussion. During the 2nd hour of the discussion section, the 40-person section will re-assemble as a whole, and a representative of each 8-person subgroup will report back to the group as a whole. The 40-person group will continue to discuss the topics highlighted by the representatives of the subgroups.

Weekly course topics, readings, and schedule

Grading

Assignments

Office Hours

Howard -- Monday 3-4 in 241 GSE&IS Bldg and by appointment (besser@ucla.edu)

Rod --Monday 10-12 in 231 GSE&IS Bldg and by appointment (rodcave@hotmail.com)

Kalpana -- Wednesday 9-11 in 231 GSE&IS Bldg, and by appointment (kshankar@ucla.edu)

NOTE: If you want to get email about the class (which you will need to do if you are taking the class), at the beginning of the term you will need to send an email message to requests@lists.gseis.ucla.edu . Make sure that the return address for this message is your own personal email account. In this message you need to put the words "subscribe IS-200 yourname" in either the subject or the body of the message. (Put your own name in place of yourname.)

Grading

25% mid-term paper (due Oct 30)
35% final paper (due Dec 4)
40% class participation (in both main class and in discussion section and subgroup)

Assignments

Mid-term paper -- A paper based on one or more of the areas covered in the class. Students must incorporate a number of the readings, and must make a coherent argument about some theme in the readings, or compare several of the readings to one another. (It should be pretty obvious to a reader of the paper that the student has read and thought about the readings.) Paper must include bibliography and citations in a standard accepted format. (approximately 5 pages, double-spaced, due Oct 30)
Final paper -- A paper based on more than one of the readings or topics covered in the class. Paper must involve careful thought and synthesis of multiple topics or readings. Paper might include creative application of ideas in the readings to new areas or environments. Paper must include bibliography and citations in a standard accepted format. Students are encouraged to go beyond the readings listed in the course reader and grades will reflect the extra effort. Instructor must approve paper topic. (8-10 pages, double-spaced, due Dec 4)
Weekly Discussion Sections -- Each student must participate in a weekly 2-hour discussion section and subgroup. In the section and subgroup, students will discuss the readings for that week. Subgroup membership needs to remain consistent throughout the quarter. Each student will be responsible for leading their subgroup discussion one week during the quarter, and should prepare more extensively for that week. Ideally, work for this should involve more extensive readings on that week's topic, developing a set of provocative questions that encourages students to synthesize pieces of the various readings, focusing the discussion on particular topics, moderating the discussion, etc.

Weekly Course Topic, Readings, & Schedule

Oct 2 | Oct 9 | Oct 16 | Oct 23 | Oct 30 | Nov 6 | Nov 13 | Nov 20 | Nov 27 | Dec 4 | Dec 11

Oct 2--Introduction--Social Theories of Information

this week's lecture notes and sample assertions

Wilson, Patrick (1977)."Public Knowledge" (Chapter 1, pp. 1-34). Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward A Library And Information Policy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Wilson, Patrick.(1983) "First-Hand and Second-Hand Knowledge" and " Cognitive Authority" (Chapters 1 & 2, pp. 1-37) In Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry Into Cognitive Authority, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Buckland, Michael. (1997) What is a Document?", Journal of the American Society for Information Science 48 (9), pp. 804-809.
Schiller, Daniel. (1988) "How to think about information." In. V. Mosco and J. Wasko (eds.), The Political Economy of Information (pp. 27-43). Madison, WI : University of Wisonsin Press. 1988.
Bell, Daniel. " The Social Framework of the Information Society." In Michael L. Dertouzous and Joel Moses (eds.), The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View (pp. 163-211). Cambridge, JA : the MIT Press.
Nunberg, Geoffrey.(1996) "Farewell to the Information Age." In The Future of the Book. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, pp. 103-33.
Roszak, Theodor. (1994) "Of Ideas and Data." In The Cult of Information.. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, pp. 87-101.

Oct 9--History, Orality/Literacy

recent news item
Discussion focus for this week

Borgman, Christine.(2000) The Premise and Promise of a Global Information Infrastructure. First Monday, 5:8, August 2000
Hay, Denis. (1967) "Fiat Lux." In John Carter and Percy H. Muir, Printing and the Mind of Man (pp. xv-[xxiv]). London : Casell and Co.
Kaestle, C.F. (1991) "Studying the History of Literacy." In Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880. (pp. 3-32) New Haven, CT : Yale University Press.
McCluhan, M. (1964) "The Written Word: An Eye for An Ear." In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. (pp. 84-90) New York: Mentor.
O'Donnell, James. (1998) Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. (see selections on website)
Ong, Walter. (1982) "Print, Space, and Closure." In Orality and Literacy (pp. 117-138) New York : Methuen.

Oct 16, Oct 23--Publishing ("The Book", traditonal pub, electronic pub?)

Oct 16 -- Guest Speaker Sid Berger, Director, California Center for the Book
Discussion focus for week of Oct 16
Schema of the publishing cycle
Discussion focus for week of Oct 23
Publishing issues raised by evening Discussion Groups

Baker, Nicholson. (2000) "Deadline" The New Yorker July 24, pp. 42-61.
Baker, Nicholson. (1996) The Size of Thoughts. New York: Random House.

pp. 36-50 "The Projector."
pp. 70-88 "The History of Punctuation."
pp. 125-181 "Discards."
pp. 182-206 "Books as Furniture."

Bush, Vannevar.(1945) As We May Think, Atlantic Monthly 176, July, pp.101-108
Borges, Jorge Luis.(1964) Labyrinths. New York : New Directions.

pp. 3-18 "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius."
pp. 51-58 "The Library of Babel."

Clanchy, M.T. (1994) "Looking back from the Invention of Printing."? Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 39(3), pp. 309-32.
Feather, John. (1994) The Information Society: A Study ofContiuity and Change. London : Library Association Publishing.

pp. 9-25 "The Historical Dimension: From Print to Script."
pp. 26-35 "Mass Media and New Technolgy."
pp. 35-60 "The Information Marketplace."

Innes, H.A. (1995) "Media in Ancient Empires." In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Societ. D. Crowley and P. Heyer, eds. White Plains, NY : Longman Publishers.
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Current Events readings:

Calling a Classic Into Question; A newly edited version of 'Look Homeward, Angel' arouses a debate over literary archeology, Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2000

Oct 30--Access

Mid-Term Paper Due

Guest Speaker former Dean Robert Hayes on history of information technology

Discussion focus for this week

Besser, Howard.(1995) From Internet to Information Superhighway, in James Brook and Iain A.Boal (eds.), Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, San Francisco: City Lights, pp. 59-70.
Besser, Howard. (1994) "Movies-on-demand May Significantly Change the Internet", ASIS Bulletin 20 (7), Oct/Nov, pp. 15-17
Christians, C.G. and L. Hammond. (1986) "Social Justice and a Community Information Utility." Communication, 9, pp. 127-149.
Coyle, Karen. (1994)"Accessing the Digital Universe." Coyle's Information Highway Handbook Chicago : ALA, pp. 226-236
National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (1999) Americans in the Information Age: Falling Through the Net
Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiativefor 21st Century Literacies
Poster, Mark. (1995) CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere
Regan, Keith. (2000) The Interminable Digital Divide Debate, E-Commerce Times, May 17.
Schiller, Herbert and Anita Schiller. (1988) "Libraries, Public Access to Information, and Commerce." In Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (eds.), The Political Economy of Information pp146-166. Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin Press.
Choosing Quick Hits Over the Card Catalog: Many Students Prefer the Chaos of the Web to the Drudgery of the Library, NY Times, August 10, 2000
Current Events Readings

Internet's Toll on Social Life? No Cause for Worry, Study Says, Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2000
Clear Channel Fined Just $8,000 by FCC for Payola Violation, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2000
Review of AOL-Time Warner Deal Extended, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2000
Microstations and Goliath (editorial), Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2000
A Novel Idea: Small Tenderloin brings its books to the streets; after -- school Library on Wheels Brings Books to Homeless People, San Francisco Chronicle, August 30, 2000

Nov 6--Institutions/Professions

Guest Speakers: former ALA Executive Director Elizabeth Martinez, Archivist Bill Landis

Discussion focus for this week

Besser, Howard. (1998) The Shape of the 21st Century Library, in Milton Wolf et. al. (eds.), Information Imagineering: Meeting at the Interface, Chicago: American Library Association, pp. 133-146
Besser, Howard. (1997) The Transformation of the Museum and the way it's Perceived,in Katherine Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington: American Association of Museums, 1997, pages 153-169
Besser, Howard. (1997) The Changing Role of Photographic Collections with the Advent of Digitization,in Katherine Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington: American Association of Museums, pp. 115-127
Besser, Howard.(1994) Fast Forward: The Future of Moving Image Collections, in Gary Handman(ed.), Video Collection Management and Development: A Multi-type Library Perspective, Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp. 411-426 (online version only available from UCLA workstations)
Bourdieu, P. (1993)"The Field of Cultural Production." In The Field of Cultural Production. New York : Columbia University Press. 1993, pp. 29-73.
Douglas, Mary. (1986) "Institutions Cannot Have Minds of Their Own." In How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Hannigan, Jane Anne and Hillary Crew. (1993) "A Feminist Paradigm for Library and Information Science." Wilson Library Bulletin 68, pp. 42-46.
Harris, Roma M. (1992) "Pressing for change within: The professionalization movement." Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman's Profession, pp. 3-21. Norwood, NJ: Ablex..
Maack, Mary Niles. (1997) "Toward a New Model of the Information Professions: Embracing Empowerment." Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 38, pp. 283-302.
O'Toole, James. (1990) "The History of the Archives Profession." In Understanding Archives and Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists., pp. 27-47.
Current Events Readings

Rising cost of serials, problems with consolidation in publishing industry

As Publishers Perish, Libraries Feel the Pain, New York Times, November 3, 2000
Reed, Thomson Attempt to Buy Harcourt Could Face Tough Antitrust Scrutiny, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 3, A3
Librarians Seek to Block Merger of Scientific Publishing Giants, David Malakoff, Science, Nov. 3, 2000, pp. 910-911
Companies & Finance: The Americas: Opposition to Harcourt buy, Financial Times, Nov. 2, 2000 (search under ARL)
U.S. library group seeks to block Harcourt sale, by Robin Sidel, Reuters, Nov. 1, 17:31 EST

Web site offers to sell U.S. presidential votes, CNN, August 18, 2000
Nader Trader -- vote trading website
A Little Help From Her Famous Friends; Crisis: Novelist Isabel Allende is among those who run an independent Marin County bookstore while the owner recuperates from a heart attack, Los Angeles Times, October 25, 2000
Librarians Ignore the Value of Stories, Wayne Wiegand, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2000
Bayh-Dole Act Set Collision Course for U.S. Interests, Ethics; Two decades later, many questions still unresolved, by Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 2000
Wired into the Curriculum: Tech Titans Gave Millions to Start Sage Hill School in Newport Beach, and They Want a Say in How and What Students Learn, Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2000

Nov 13--Free Speech/Censorship/Intellectual Freedom

Discussion focus for this week
Lecture notes for this week

Bright, Susie. (1995) "The Prime of Miss Kitty MacKinnon," in Susie Bright's Sexwise, Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, pages 121-127.
Coyle, Karen. (1994) "Censors Take on the Net." Coyle's Information Highway Handbook. Chicago : ALA, pp. 190-202.
Iverson, Sandy (1998/99) Librarianship and Resistence, Progressive Librarian 15.
California Library Association. (1992) California Intellectual Freedom Handbook: A Manual for California Librarians. Sacramento, CA: California Library Association, pp. 1-11.
Fish, Stanley. (1994) "There's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing, too." In There's No Such Thing As Free Speech and It's a Good Thing, Too. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 102-119.
Kadie, C.M. (1996) "Applying Library Intellectual Freedom Principles to Public and Academic Computers." In R. Kling (ed.), Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices (2^nd ed.), pp. 569-579. San Diego, CA:Academic Press.
Lievrouw, L.A. (1994) "Information Resources and Democracy: Understanding the Paradox." Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(6), July, pp. 350-357.
MacKinnon, Catherine A. (1987) "The Sexual Politics of the First Amendment" In Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 207-213
Putnam, Robert (1995) Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, Journal of Democracy 6:1, Jan 1995, 65-78
Current Events Readings

InfoEthics 200: Third UNESCO Congress on Ethical, Legal and Societal Challenges of Cyberspace, Paris, November 13-15, 2000 (Right to Universal Access to Information in the 20th Century)

Carlos M. Correa, Fair Use and Access to Information in the Digital Era
Bernt Hugenholtz, COPYRIGHT AND ITS LIMITATIONS IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT (Professor in Law, Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Barry Steinhardt (ACLU), Preserving Fair Use in the Digital Age

Nov 20--Intellectual Property

Discussion focus for this week

Besser, Howard. Intellectual Property & New Info Technology (website)
Besser, Howard. Slides for 10/30/00 Talk to Borgman's Electronic Publishing class
Besser, Howard. (1999) Recent Changes to Copyright: Attacks Against the Public Interest, November (to be published in Handbook for Digital Projects, September2000 by Northeast Document Conservation Center; a shorter version of this appeared in Peace Review March 1999)
Barlow, John Perry. (1992) SellingWine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net
Barlow, John Perry. (2000) The Next Economy of Ideas: Will copyright survive the Napster bomb? Nope, but creativity will, Wired 8.10, October 2000
Coyle, Karen. (1994) "Copyright in the Digital Age." Coyle's Information Highway Handbook. Chicago : ALA, pp. 96-113.
Mosco, Vincent. (1998) "Information in the Pay-per Society." In V. Mosco and J. Wasko (eds.), The Political Economy of Information,pp. 3-26. Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin Press.
National Resources Council, National Academy of Sciences. The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, (read Executive Summary)
Rifkin, J. (2000) "Monopolizing Ideas" The Age of Access New York : Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000. pp. 56-72.
Rosenberg, Scott.(2000) Why the music industry has nothing to celebrate; Napster's shutdown will only cause a thousand alternatives to bloom, Salon, July 27.
Samuelson, Pam. (1996) The Copyright Grab, Wired 4.01, Jan. (commentary on the NIIWhite Paper)
Samuelson, Pam. (1991), "Is Information Property?" Communications of the ACM 34(3) p. 15(4)
Current Events Readings

New network links up libraries online, San Jose Mercury (online), November 19, 2000
Muralist Takes On Internet Image Provider, Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2000
Support for Software Law Eroding, November 20, 2000
October 26 decision by Librarian of Congress on Technical Protections of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act

American Library Association response, ALAWON 9:85, October 26, 2000
Digital Future Coalition press release, October 26, 2000
"PAY-PER-USE" SOCIETY ONE STEP CLOSER -- Statement of Congressman Rick Boucher on "Anti-circumvention" Rulemaking, press release, October 27, 2000

Online Music and Napster

Courtney Love does the math, by Courtney Love, Salon, June 14, 2000. MusicianCourtney Love discusses how even successful bands make very little money. She contends that the four largest recording companies are the real pirates,who have used their stranglehold on distribution channels and manipulatedintellectual property laws to place musicians in the role of share-cropperson the record company plantations. In her section on "Content Providers"she also admonishes attempts to turn music into a commodity. (Warning:the discourse here is more like a series of rants than an academic discourse. But it offers a critical point of view.)
BMG's Owner, Napster in Surprise Online Deal, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2000
Music Downloaders Say They're Not Thieves; Only one-fifth say they pay for files, poll shows, San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2000
Napster Launches Round 2; Appeals-court brief filed minutes before deadline, San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2000
NapsterBeing Bullied, Lawyer Says; Music industry trying to `stifle' technology,San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2000
The Napster Effect: Program may have started something that no court can stop, San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 2000

Digital Milennium Copyright Act Site , Digital Futures Coalition
Issue Spotlight: Peer-to-Peer Networking, Current Cites 11:10, October 2000 (Berkeley Digital Library Sunsite)
Justices Won't Get Involved in 'Tiger' Cat Fight, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2000
Unocal Patent on Clean Fuel Stirs Outrage, Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2000
Paramount's Claim for Character Ownership in 'Cheers' Case Rejected, Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2000
Free-Lancers Sue for Web Royalties; Articles posted on search-engine sites, San Francisco Chronicle, August 16, 2000
Web Site Feuding Enters Constitutional Domain, San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2000
Latest Use for One's DNA -- Thwarting Counterfeiters, San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2000
Joel Kahn's Frankentoons 1999 incident (see especially the letter from a copyright attorney)
DVD/DeCSS:

Chasing Hollywood 'Pirates', by David Streitfeld and Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, August 9, 2000, page A01
NorwegianTeen Becomes Industry's Latest Test Case, Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) press release, January 25, 2000 (includes links to lots of interesting [and relatively reliable] analysisof the issues involved in this case)

Nov 27--Privacy

Guest Speaker: IS Professor Phil Agre on Privacy
Guest Catherine Brown briefly speaking on the Mentor Program
Discussion focus for this week

Agre, Phil. (1999) "The architecture of identity: Embedding privacy in market institutions," Information, Communication and Society 2 (1), 1999, pages 1-25.
Clement, A. (1996) "Considering Privacy in the Development of Multimedia Communications." In R, Kling (ed.) Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices.(2^nd ed.) (pp 907-931) San Diego CA : Academic Press.
Kling, R. (1996)"Information Technologies and the shifting Balance Between Privacy and Social Control." In R. Kling (ed.) Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. (2^nd ed.) (pp 614-636) San Diego CA : Academic Press.
Boyle, James.(1996) "Spleens." Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, pp. 97-107.
Branscomb, Ann Wells.(1994) "Who Owns Your Medical History?" Who Owns Information: From Privacy to Public Access New York : Basic Books, pp. 54-72.
Coyle, Karen. (1994) "Privacy and Intellectual Freedom in the Digital Age." Coyle's Information Highway Handbook. Chicago : ALA, pp. 148-163.
Current Events Readings:

EMusic Uses Search-and-Cease Program Targeting Napster, Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2000

Program Hunts Users Of Napster, San Francisco Chronicle, , November 22, 2000

High-Tech Snooping All in Day's Work, Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2000
Corporate Case in Ohio Raises Questions on Internet Anonymity, New York Times, October 17, 2000
2 Firms Ordered to Identify Internet Message Posters, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2000
Amazon Flunks Its Pricing Test; Sliding costs anger shoppers, San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 2000 (from Washington Post)
E-mail industry group announces privacy standards, Boston Globe Digital Mass, September 26, 2000
One Consulting Firm Finds Voter Data Is a Hot Property, New York Times, September 9, 2000
Trust and Privacy Online: Why Americans Want to Rewrite the Rules, Pew internet Project Report, August 20, 2000 (and see newspaper summary article: High User Anxiety Over Net Privacy; 94 percent say violators should be punished, San Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 2000)
Errant E-Mails Violate Privacy of Kaiser Members, San Francisco Chronicle, August 10, 2000, page A1

Dec 4--Design

Final Paper Due

(unless you're writing about Design)

Guest Speaker, Professor Leah Lievrouw on Telecommunications History

Discussion focus for this week

Castells, Manuel. (1996) "The Space of Flows." In The Rise of the Network Society, pp. 376-428. London : Blackwell.
Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies -- Design Issues
Norman, Donald. (1990) "The Psychopathology of Everyday Things." In The Design of Everyday Things, (pp. 1-33). New York : Currency.
Poster, Mark. (1996) "Databases as Discourse." In D. Lyon and E. Zureik (eds.) computers, Surveillance, and Privacy. (pp. 175-192) University of Minnesota Press.
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar 1997 (the Linux model of Open-SourceSoftware)
Van Slyke, Abigail. (1995) "Giving: The Reform of American Library Philanthropy." In Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture, 1890-1920. (pp. 1-43). Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
Winner, Langdon. (1985) "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" In E. Mackenzie and J. Wajcman (eds.) The Social Shaping of Technology,pp. 28-38. Milton Keynes : Open University Press.

Dec 11--No Class

Final Paper Due (for those writing about Design)

To see ongoing activities and course taught by Besser click here. To send email to the entire class, write to IS-200@lists.gseis.ucla.edu

Last updated
11/27/00