On the first warm day in April, I decided to visit my favorite branch of the New York Public Library, the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center (LPA). One of Manhattan’s research libraries, LPA is tucked between the Metropolitan Opera House and the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Plaza. Upon entering, visitors can stop at the front desk for information about other NYPL research libraries’ locations and business hours and to pick up some LPA publications. Only feet from the entrance, I was already getting a sense of the knowledge infrastructure of cultural and educational activities that both reinforces and is reinforced by LPA’s commitment to performing arts (Rubin, 1-2). I flipped through a booklet of Spring 2019 LPA Programs and Exhibitions, excited to see what was in store. Unfortunately, the latest exhibitions had been removed in late March, the upcoming exhibitions would be ready in mid-April, and no performances or workshops would be taking place that day. Lucky for me, the front desk administrator informed me that I could still catch an exhibition about Uta Hagen, an actress and teacher, on Level 3 and provided a brochure of Hagen-related LPA events taking place in April.

Behind the front desk, the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery, a large exhibition room, stood empty and the Plaza Corridor Gallery, a wall exhibition space, stood blank as well. Further down on Level 1, I found self-service copier rooms, a circulation desk, biographical circulation items, and public Internet stations. Most visitors on this floor were sitting at the Internet stations to view or listen to reference materials. The main reference materials on Level 1 are Song Index, Scores, and Recorded Sound items, ranging from Madrigals to Yiddish Songs. The Song Index shelves feature an interactive audio installation exhibit, Archives of Sound. Signs instruct visitors to put on headphones hanging from the shelves and to flip nearby switches in order to hear snippets of archived sheet music. I couldn’t take advantage because the exhibit was temporarily unavailable, but I was instantly reminded of Karim and Hartel’s designation of music information retrieval, and art in general, as a “higher thing” in information science. I was curious to see if LPA would live up to Karim and Hartel’s vision to recognize the “informational facets of higher things in life” (Karim, 1133-1137).

Most of LPA’s circulation items can be found on Level 2, including books, scores, CDs, DVDs, videos, and reviews. Each aisle presents staff picks of books related to the performing art on the corresponding shelf. At the circulation desk, I found two useful handouts. “A Guide to Circulating DVDs” lists the types of DVDs found in each aisle. For example, DVD Biographies C-Z can be found on Aisle 7. It also includes a guide to DVD types (“DVD 782 encompasses opera and musicals”) and how LPA organizes  DVDs. I was surprised to find out that LPA alphabetizes most DVD types by letter, but not within letter. The second handout, “Circulating Scores Chart”, lists the types of scores, their call numbers, and the aisles where they’re located on Level 1. The circulation desk also provides a request form for visitors who are interested in viewing or listening to audiotapes, videotapes, or other media from LPA’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Most visitors on Level 2 were either browsing items in the reading room or using the computers.

Finally, I headed up to Level 3, where visitors can really take advantage of one of the world’s largest collections of performing arts materials. LPA’s special collections are the Billy Rose Theatre Division, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, the Music Division, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, and the Reserve Film and Video Collection. Their contents inform and expand the debate surrounding Buckland’s question, “What is a document?” (Buckland, 4-5). In addition to things like manuscripts, photographs, and published and unpublished work relating to performers, the Special Collections also boast objects such as set models, audio recordings, and phonograph cylinders of live Met Opera performances from the early 20th century. Bags and outerwear are not allowed on Level 3. To enter, I had to go through a mandatory coat check and leave everything except the items I would be using: my pen, notebook, and phone. Once inside, visitors can check out items to their library cards for the duration of their visit – items are not allowed to leave the walls of Level 3. Black cabinets of subject specific card references for Music, Recorded Sound, Dance, Film, and Theatre line the walls. Visitors can use these card catalogs, the online catalog, or the archival materials search portal to identify and request items for research. Most Special Collections items are housed offsite and need to be requested in advance to allow for transportation. I observed many visitors studying books, magazines, and microfilm in the reading section nearby. Delicate items, such as rare books, clippings, and sheet music are only released in the Special Collections Reading Room, where I saw a number of visitors conducting research. Special Collections visitors are required to submit a registration form and adhere to the Special Collections Photography and Photocopy Policy.

Towards the end of my stroll about Level 3, I found the Uta Hagen exhibit that I had heard about at the front desk. I also happened upon smaller, more niche exhibits, like one about music in the time of Jane Austen. As I was exiting Level 3, I noticed that the wall across the coat check had been transformed into a large bulletin for information about upcoming performing arts events. I expected to find ads for major performances at Lincoln Center, but was pleased to see that there were mainly posters hung by visitors who were both publicizing their own forays into the performing arts and contributing to the knowledge infrastructure that props LPA. Overall, I was impressed by LPA’s institutional support for a focus on higher things in information science, how it highlights the information value of pleasurable things like the performing arts, and the way it invites visitors to participate in the city’s performing arts culture.

References

Buckland, M. (1991). Information as Thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science. Jun1991, Vol. 42 Issue 5, p351-360. 10p.

Karim, J. & Hartel, J. (2007). Information and Higher Things in Life: Addressing the Pleasurable and Profound in Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(8), 1131-1147.

Rubin, R.E. & Janes, J., (2016). The Knowledge Infrastructure. (1-30). Foundations of Library and Information Science. Fourth Edition. Chicago: ALANeal Schuman.

INFO 601-02 – Observation

INFO 601-02 – Assignment 3 – Event Attendance – Vella Voynova

How does the Internet impact freedom of speech? What does this mean for liberty? These questions occupy Moran Yemini, a Senior Fellow at the University of Haifa’s Center for Cyber Law and Policy and a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and Cornell Tech’s Digital Life Initiative. Yemini explored these questions at length at Cornell Tech’s seminar on March 7, 2019, “The New Irony of Free Speech.”

What is the irony of free speech?

The original irony of free speech that Yemini references was introduced in 1996 by Owen Fiss. Fiss argued that freedom of speech laws were originally intended to protect citizens from state interference, but gradually came to favor the wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else. While the laws granted everyone the same liberty to speak, only those with clout and authority could afford the expressive capacity to make their speech heard. The advent of the Internet and what Yemini calls the digital ecosystem democratized expressive capacity and gave citizens an online platform to reach bigger audiences across greater distances. Yemini’s “new irony” of free speech is that what we have gained in expressive capacity, we have lost in liberty to speak. Although the Internet carries our speech louder and farther, it makes us more vulnerable to interference. The use of the word “irony” perplexed some of the audience. Yemini explained that he finds irony not only in how the Internet has subverted expectations that it would solve the problem of free speech, but also in how much of the public believes that the problem has been solved.

Free speech and democracy

Audience questions also led Yemini to clarify that the problems and conditions he describes are found in liberal democracies and do not apply to authoritarian countries. While true that citizens in democracies enjoy more liberty through media, they should not take these conditions for granted. In a democracy, competition determines who controls media development, which makes the media a constant battleground (McChesney, 65). Competition is more intense when democracies face critical moments, such as negotiating the rules for Internet speech.

How does the digital ecosystem interfere with our liberty to speak?

During the majority of the seminar, Yemini discussed how the digital ecosystem interferes with our liberty to speak. Sources of interference are all around us: search engines that track histories and manipulate results, as well as broadband and cloud providers who create the framework for Internet speech. Additionally, media ownership concentration forces us to rely on digital platforms that conduct mass surveillance. This does away with our anonymity and enables media companies to manipulate us through data collection. Lawrence Lessig has already pointed out the value of privacy and anonymity. In order to protect these values on the Internet, we need to monitor those who design and profit from the digital ecosystem (Lessig, 104). The corporate and political actors who shape the Internet are not neutral in their motivations and have the means to interfere with our liberty to speak.

The technologically induced endowment effect

Yemini’s conclusion emphasized the importance of the technologically induced endowment effect: it is much harder to part with technology that we use than it is to live without that technology in the first place. While the increased individual freedom of the Internet may be gratifying and obvious, the interference allowed by the digital ecosystem is not always directly felt or perceived. We are in danger of becoming so dependent on the Internet’s expressive capacity that we may become willing to overlook the less apparent ways in which it curtails our liberty.

What happens next?

While Yemini outlined how the Internet is transforming freedom of speech and threatening our liberty, he did not propose clear solutions. Given his legal background, I expected to hear about how constitutional law could be used to approach the problem, or suggestions for policies that could safeguard our liberty to speak in a complex digital ecosystem. Jürgen Habermas argued for the necessity of a public sphere where citizens are free to express themselves without worrying about interference (McChesney, 66). After listening to Yemini, it is impossible not to be concerned that most of us perceive the Internet as a public sphere without giving sufficient thought to the ways in which its current structure interferes with our liberty to speak.

References:

Lessig Lawrence. (1999). “Open Code and Open Societies: Values of Internet Governance,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 74, 101-116.

McChesney, Robert. (2013). Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. New Press.