In this post I will be reviewing titled Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship by Roxanne Missingham.
“A flourishing digital economy needs broadband access and content relevant to people’s lives,” Missingham states at the beginning of the article. The past and current Australian governments recognise the importance of this. A number of initiatives, such as Gov 2.0, has been put forth to get Australians to become digital citizens. Access to online services and the ability to use them are key areas that needs to be considered before all Australian citizens can become digital citizens by participating in the digital economy. Missingham sets out to discuss “some of the challenges and some of the achievements of the libraries” in this area.
At first glance, Australia’s internet access levels seem high with 64% of the households having access to the internet. However when looked closely, one realises that there are rural areas in Australia with little or no access to the internet. For those with access to the internet, accessing high quality and reliable content becomes an issue. Through four forums organised by the National library of Australia, an agreement among libraries were reached regarding developing a consortium to purchase subscriptions to websites and databases that offer high quality information for a fee. A national purchasing consortium with an opt-in approach called the Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) was created. Now in its second phase (2009) ERA provides free access to quality information for 8,500,000 Australians. School libraries have been especially enthusiastic participants in the ERA which enabled them to purchase widely used resources such as World Book Online (Darby, 2008).
Missingham talks about the importance of ERA to the library users and society at large. She emphasises that it was libraries coming together that made possible the access to high quality digital resources for free for the users.
Missingham does not shy away from the problems that are yet to be tackled. She concludes her article by stating that there are three challenges that Australia needs to tackle before the entire nation could become digital citizens. These challenges are: providing greater connectivity to the internet, creating access to greater number of Australians to reliable digital content, and teaching users how to use the content they access. She hopes that the creation of the National Broadband Network (NBN) will help eradicate the connectivity problem.
A major shortcoming of this article is that the author provides no definition of the “digital economy” ora “digital citizen”. It would be easier for the reader to understand the article if the author defined these terms. Digital citizenship is defined as “the ability to participate in society online.” (Mossberger, 2007) The digital economy is defined as “the global network of economic and social activities that are enabled by information and communications technologies, such as the internet, mobile and sensor networks.” (Australia, 2009)
The author writes in detail about the establishment of ERA and the participation rates. What the author does not explain is how a library “opts in” to ERA and the costs of the products. One might assume even though the price negotiated through the consortium might be lower than to subscribe individually, it still must be considerable.
When looking at the number of libraries that participate in the ERA, it becomes clear that there is more work to be done to provide access to all Australians especially in the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The author should have provided more information on what the ERA is doing to get more libraries in different states to subscribe to the service. Access to these resources could help provide digital literacy to Australians which in turn not only help them become digital citizens but also have better document literacy.
What this article adds to new knowledge is to show others what the libraries are doing to try to conquer the digital divide that exists between the rural and urban Australia. The author’s arguments are clearly laid out and backed up by research. Her direct quote of two people’s submission to the Senate inquiry on the role of the libraries in the online environment is especially powerful.
Missingham is clearly passionate about providing access and content to all Australians and she believes that libraries have an important role to play in the effort. This was a good and informative article on what has been done so far in providing access and content and what more needs to be done to make all Australians digital citizens who participate freely in the digital economy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roxanne Missingham is a Parliamentary Librarian.
She blogs at http://roxannemissingham.blogspot.com/
REFERENCES
Australia. (2009). Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions. Retrieved from www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/final_report.
Mossberger, K. (2007). Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Missingham, R. (2009). Encouraging the digital economy and the digital citizen. Australian Library Journal, 58(4), 386-399.
