Each fall the University of Iowa Libraries organizes events to spread awareness of open access and related issues regarding publishing and the free availability of information. Our first event this year is a panel discussion on the topic of “Open Access and the Public Good,” during which Professor Russell Ganim (Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) will moderate a conversation between the Honorable James Leach (Law), Professor Christina Bohannan (Law), and Professor Bernd Fritzsch (Biology). Among the topics will be how research in the Humanities and Sciences is financed and conducted and who has the right to access its results. This panel discussion will occur Friday, September 26th at 2 pm in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber.
This event is free and open to the public, and we hope you’ll come join the conversation about open access. To learn more about open access at the University of Iowa, visit http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/openaccess/ and read the University Libraries’ Scholarly Publishing blog, Transitions.
And our second event is a Free Screening of THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY at FILMSCENE Saturday, September 27th, 2:30 pm, with a Q & A to follow.
Complementing the faculty panel discussion on open access that will occur next week, FilmScene will host a free screening of the Aaron Swartz documentary The Internet’s Own Boy on Saturday, September 27th at 2:30 pm, followed by a Q & A with University of Iowa professors Kembrew McLeod (Communications) and Stephen Voyce (English). The film “follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz’s help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz’s groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. . . This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.” The screening is free and open to the public.
POST-SCREENING Q & A WITH KEMBREW MCLEOD AND STEPHEN VOYCE
And stick around after the film to talk about open access, copyright, intellectual property, and other issues related to the free access of information with two local scholars in the fields of digital scholarship and internet-based creativity:
Kembrew McLeod is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, independent documentary filmmaker, and music critic. His book Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity (2nd ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2007) received the American Libraries Association Oboler Award for Best Scholarship in the Area of Intellectual Freedom. He is also the author of Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World (NYU Press, 2014); with Peter DiCola, of Creative License: the Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011); and the editor, with Rudolf Kuenzli, of Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage, and Copyright Law (Duke University Press, 2011). Follow him on twitter: https://twitter.com/kembrew
Stephen Voyce is an Assistant Professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. His recent book, Poetic Community: Avant-Garde Activism and Cold War Culture (University of Toronto Press, Spring 2013), addresses several key poetic groups collaborating after World War II. He is currently working on a book project titled Open Source Culture: Literature, Appropriation, and the Public Domain, which investigates how late-twentieth-century poets, fiction writers, and artists creatively subvert intellectual property law and the regimes that enforce these policies. He is a member of the University of Iowa’s Digital Studio for Public Arts & Humanities and the director of the Fluxus Digital Archive.
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