The democratization of knowledge is the acquisition and spread of

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distin ...

amongst a wider part of the population, not just privileged

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. ...

s such as

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

s. Libraries, in particular public libraries, and modern digital technology such as the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

play a key role, as they provide the masses with open

access to information Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...

. Over the centuries, the dissemination of information has risen to an unprecedented level. The start of this process can be marked from the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...

, the purpose of which was to spread information uniformly among the masses. Today, in a digitized world, the availability of online content outnumbers the information published in books, journals or in any print form.

History

The

was one of the early steps towards the democratization of knowledge. Another small example of this during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

was the creation of libraries for miners in some Scottish villages in the 18th century.

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

co-founder

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name and wrote much of Wikipedia's original governin ...

stated in a 2012 article that "Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion." Sanger's article confronts the existence of "common knowledge" and pits it against the knowledge that everyone agrees on.

In the Digital Age

is rapidly turning into a real-time reference tool in which public entries can be updated by anyone who has access to the required technology and enough time. This and similar phenomena—a product of the digital age—have greatly increased the accessibility not only to fruition of information, but also to its production and diffusion in the post-modern era. This has raised a number of valid criticisms (see

Reliability of Wikipedia The reliability of Wikipedia concerns the validity, verifiability, and veracity of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition. It is written and edited by volunteer editors who generate online ...

). For instance, one could draw a distinction between the mere spread of information and the spread of ''accurate'' or ''credible'' information. Wikipedia, which in principle relies on external sources, may thus be a more reliable source of information in certain spheres, but not in others.

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

has also played a major role in allowing more sensitive and politically-private information to become public knowledge, although some controversies surrounding public safety have arisen as a result of leaks. Digitization efforts by

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

has been pointed to as an example of democratization of knowledge, but

Malte Herwig Malte Herwig (born 2 October 1972) is a German-born author, journalist, and literary critic. His articles have appeared widely in U.S., British and German publications, including The New York Times, The Observer, Vanity Fair, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, ...

in Der Spiegel raised concerns that the virtual

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

has in the search market, combined with Google's hiding of the details of its

search algorithm In computer science, a search algorithm is an algorithm designed to solve a search problem. Search algorithms work to retrieve information stored within particular data structure, or calculated in the search space of a problem domain, with eith ...

s, could undermine this move towards democratization.

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes ...

(and similar scholarly search services) and Sci-Hub (and similar scholarly

shadow libraries A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, ...

) have also been pointed to as examples of democratization of knowledge.

Open Library Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, ...

's and HathiTrust's digitization efforts and their use of the

controlled digital lending Controlled digital lending (CDL) is a model by which libraries digitize materials in their collection and make them available for lending. It is based on interpretations of the United States copyright principles of fair use and copyright exhaus ...

model are also examples of democratization of knowledge. After the most powerful search engine,

, and the most viewed encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the most viewed information based website is the

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

Role of libraries

An article written in 2005 by the editors of ''Reference & User Services Quarterly'' calls the library the greatest force for the democratization of knowledge or information. It continues to say that public libraries in particular are inextricably linked with the history and evolution of the United States, but school library media centers, college and university libraries, and special libraries have all also been influential in their support for democracy. Libraries play an essential role in the democratization of knowledge and information by providing communities with the resources and tools to find information free of charge. Democratic access to knowledge has also been co-opted to mean providing information in a variety of formats, which essentially means electronic and digital formats for use by library patrons. Public libraries help further the democratization of information by guaranteeing freedom of access to information, by providing an unbiased variety of information sources and access to government services, as well as the promotion of democracy and an active citizenship. Dan Cohen, the founding executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, writes that the democratic access to knowledge is a profound idea that requires constant tending and revitalization. In 2004, a

World Social Forum The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemoni ...

and International workshop was held entitled "Democratization of Information: Focus on Libraries". The focus of the forum was to bring awareness to the social, technological, and financial challenges facing libraries dealing with the democratization of information. Social challenges included

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

and the digital divide, technological challenges included information sources, and financial challenges constituted shrinking budgets and manpower. Longtime Free Library of Philadelphia director Elliot Shelkrot said that "Democracy depends on an informed population. And where can people get all the information they need? —At the Library."Quotes about Libraries and Democracy. http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/officers/past/kranich/demo/quotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Democratization Of Knowledge Cultural globalization Information revolution Knowledge

History

In the Digital Age

Role of libraries

See also

References