Knowledge Shared Empowers Everyone

Jakarta Globe, Cemara Dinda, February 13, 2014

Library directors from the United States, Germany and Indonesia spokes about
the global ‘Open Access’ movement at @america. (JG Photo/Cemara Dinda)

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” Victor Hugo once said.

The words of the French poet and novelist resonated throughout the digital conference and discussion “Open Access,” held last week at the US cultural center, @america.

Library directors from the United States, Germany, Jakarta, Medan and Surabaya discussed a worldwide movement that can open up doors for knowledge to be shared for all.

Myra Brown from the US Embassy’s library in Jakarta explained that Open Access was “an unrestricted Internet access for scholarly research,” liberated from barriers such as subscription fees to view academic writings.

This has become possible by Creative Commons, a non-profit organization in the United States that enables creativity and knowledge to be shared through copyright licenses that writers and researches are comfortable with. Those who use their work as a reference are therefore free from the tussles of copyright infringement and plagiarism while gaining free access. With an exciting premise.

“Open Access can integrate communities, young people will get a lot of international knowledge, so it’s a win-win situation,” said Christel Mahnke of the Goethe-Institut.

OA’s success in the US and Europe is now being replicated in Indonesia.

Sri Hartinah from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) explained how it had embraced Open Access as LIPI was “all about the disclosure of information and knowledge.”

Formed in 1965, LIPI has encouraged research in Indonesia and is now improving the digitalization and therefore sharing of reports, dissertations and journals.

Jonner Hasugian from the University of North Sumatra showed that Open Access was becoming more visible and accessible.

Programs such as the Technological and Professional Skills Development Project (TPSDP) and Indonesia — Managing Higher Education for Relevance and Efficiency (IMHERE) have improved educational support systems such as libraries and sources for online learning.

“Why put knowledge out on the shelves if it can’t be shared?” Jonner said.

Open Access enables these works of knowledge to be shared by users on the Internet where they can read, copy, download and distribute them.

But authors retain a say on how their works should be treated by not allowing readers to use their work for commercial purposes. It is important to keep that in mind, to avoid confusion and quarrels as who is utilizing the “true” Open Access and who is not.

According to Jonner, those born in the digital era are well on their way to a higher education — what better way to make their long hours researching more bearable than open access to knowledge? So the remaining main challenge of librarians in Indonesia and abroad is to be a partner to researchers, synchronize movements with the government and universities, as to strengthen the impact of Open Access internationally.