The Commons

The key concept of libraries are completely important to democracy because it has to do with sharing knowledge and information openly and for free. Without the access to knowledge, information, books, etc., democracy could barely exist. As Bollier states, both libraries and librarians are dedicated to instilling the virtue of freedom to learn and read and share information. The concept of libraries is similar to the concept of the internet, they are both spreading and sharing information for free (not completely free for all of the internet). Together, the internet and the library create the vast majority of information that is stored in our world. However, if the information in the library turns into marketed information, and the internet becomes more secure and privatized, the democracy and sharing of information will have some issues. This is when the concept of the commons vs. market comes in. The libraries and most of the Internet are considered a commons because the information travels and is shared freely. But the market puts a price on everything and looks at success as how much money one makes.

Vaidhyanathan describes the difference between anarchy and oligarchy as completel opposites with barely any room in between to settle on. The libraries and peer to peer networks (all sorts of them) are the anarchies because they share information without much structure or guidance. He describes this as a “radical democracy”. On the other hand, the ridiculous laws that are coming into play lately, such as copyright and piracy etc, are moving towards the oligarchy side. As Vaidhyanathan explains, the cyber world is not becoming the real world, the real world is becoming the cyber world. This is a little dangerous. Vaidhyanathan hopes that we can mediate between the two extremes so our society does not dig ourselves deeper.