Abstract:
This paper reports on new research by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is aimed at advancing the study and practice of knowledge and information as a "commons." Commons are natural or human-made resources shared by local, regional, national, or international communities. Effective management and sustainability of commons requires the resource communities to communicate, collaborate, and agree upon appropriate rules and strategies.Rapid hyper change in scholarly communication is touching every corner of how the scholarly record is managed and governed, including how it is generated, stored, and preserved. Like natural resource commons, knowledge today requires new ways of collaborative management, greater individual responsibilities, reciprocity, and cooperation. While ICTs enable the global dissemination of information, they also allow the unprecedented capture, privatization, and enclosure of traditionally open knowledge. Reconceptualizing scholarly communication as a commons may also help educate the academic community about the crucial role that each member plays. The paper presents the theoretical frame of the knowledge commons as well as the practical case of the Makerere digital library initiative. It concludes with an examination of the benefits,challenges, and incentives for such an initiative.

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Hess, Charlotte (2005). Knowledge as a commons: scholarly communication, resource sharing, and the potential of digital libraries.In F.F. Tusubira and Nora K. Mulira (eds) Universities: taking a leading role in ICT enabled human development. Kampala, Uganda: Phanton Solutions. pp.46-53