We are Plato’s children
| Pages | 297-302 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005594 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | Jerry Everard |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
We are Plato's children
Jerry Everard
Introduction
I write as a non-librarian, and as an observer
of national policies and their impacts. The
paper considers what I see as some of the
drivers of national policy in Australia, and
why it is that the more things change, the
more they stay the same. What I hope to do is
to throw out a few challenges, a few ideas and
see where they might tie-in to the library and
broader information community, and
highlight some of the challenges that
knowledge workers will face in responding to
the continuing development of policy.
Policy is a bit like sand. It seeks out the
cracks and tries to fill them, put it under
pressure and it turns to stone, and it is an
essential ingredient in concrete. And there are
seemingly contradictions in this set of
statements. Sand is both fluid and set in
concrete. But whatever its form, its placement
is neither without reason, nor without impact.
Information policy is about people, and
community. Above all, it is about cementing
people into that community.
Some key concerns
Here are some concerns people have
expressed over information technology:
.information security will be
compromised;
.authorship will be difficult to
authenticate;
.people will think they know something,
but will lack understanding;
.its main use will be to catalogue, rather
than promote knowledge;
.education will become shallow ± people
will not learn, they will just quote;
.its good for games and recreation, but not
much else; and
.it will destroy relationships because
people will stop interacting with each
other.
And the person who said this was: Plato,
Phaedrus, ca. 410BC (see Cooper and
Hutchinson (1997)).
So concerns about information technology
and its social implications go back about as far
The author
Jerry Everard is based at the Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia.
Keywords
Australia, Data protection, Intellectual property,
Information management, Knowledge management,
Social responsibility
Abstract
Considers some of the drivers of national information
policies in Australia, indicating that many of the issues
and their social implications date back to the time of
Plato. They have still to find solutions. The major issue
requiring policy action is mediation. The impacts of
current policy are discussed ± privacy, censorship,
intellectual property, security of transactions, archives
legislation etc. The challenges are identified: the
management of information in a non-technology-specific
way, and how to get comfortable with thinking about
information in a non-linear and non-commodity way.
Electronic access
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This paper was originally presented at ALIA 2000:
Capitalising on Knowledge ± The Information
Professional in the Twenty-first Century, 24
October 2000, Canberra.
297
Library Management
Volume 22 .Number 6/7 .2001 .pp. 297±302
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0143-5124
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