MacKenzie Smith is the Associate Director for Technology at the MIT Libraries where she oversees the Libraries' use of technology and its digital library research program. She is currently acting as the project director for DSpace, MIT's collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Labs to develop an open source Institutional Repository for scholarly research material in digital formats. She was formerly the Digital Library Program Manager in the Harvard University Library's Office for Information Systems where she managed the design and implementation of the Library Digital Initiative there, and has also held positions in the library IT departments at Harvard and the University of Chicago. Her background and research interests are in applied technology in libraries and academia, and digital libraries in particular.
DescriptionOver the past several years MIT has embarked on a number of high-profile projects that address issues of intellectual property in an academic context. DSpace, the MIT Libraries digital repository system, was created to capture the intellectual output of MIT faculty's research and teaching, both for immediate networked access and long-term preservation. DSpace is free, open source software that is being adopted by many other institutions world wide to build a federation of intellectual assets that achieves a virtual library of enormous scholarly value.
OpenCourseWare is another initiative to digitize and distribute on the Web, for free, all of MIT's course materials. The Open Knowledge Initiative and its successor, SAKAI, are developing free, open source course management and other educational software applications over a standard interoperability framework for academic enterprise computing applications.
MIT faculty and librarians are closely involved in the Creative Commons, which seeks to offer authors alternatives to standard copyright protection for their creations, as well as the Budapest Open Access Initiative and similar efforts to inform scholars of the value of providing free and open access to their scholarship instead of relying on expensive commercial journals for the distribution of their work. Put this all together and you have a picture of an institution that is taking on the forces of commerce around intellectual property in a significant way, without damaging its institutional financial base or other best interests. With these initiatives MIT is setting an example of what can be accomplished by active experimentation and public opposition to current trends in intellectual property rights, to protect the world of creativity, scholarship, and academia from the encroaching forces of intellectual property commerce.
This seminar will stimulate many ideas for initiating change in your environment!
Replay** Member $69 |
**Replay - Through the latest in web-conferencing technology, SLA can now offer a replay of the audio and video of the seminar exactly as it occurred live. Purchase of a Replay includes a link to the session and a PDF of the handout. You will have 30 days unlimited usage. Access will begin upon receipt of materials.
The following link will help you with all system requirements for viewing the live presentations and Replays:
http://main.placeware.com/support/sys_req.cfm
You will be able to see and hear the seminar, including the questions and answers, just as those who participated in the live event. You will also be able to start, stop, and re-wind the presentation.
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