IFLA/UNESCO Internet Manifesto Guidelines. 2006. Retrieved August 05, 2009 from http://archive.ifla.org/faife/policy/iflastat/Internet-ManifestoGuidelines.pdf
Abstract:
The Internet Manifesto was conceived from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It aims to provide every citizen, regardless of his race, gender, culture, political affiliation or even gender or sexual orientation, equal practice of freedom of expression and freedom of access to information in all media.
Things I Learned:
- I have leaned that there is an on-going effort to promote equality in terms of practicing the freedom of expression and freedom of access to information.
- Though the manifesto aims to provide access to to all kinds of information, policies are still set to ensure that only proper information will be accessed.
- The responsibility of providing access to information is imposed on libraries and librarians.
It is indeed very nice to know if everyone can practice thier freedom of expression and freedom of access to information. That may be a dream not only for some but for everyone. But in my opinion, the manifesto's goal is hard to achieve, if not impossible. The public libraries will be the main access points of most individual for information access, but can these public facilities be able provide access to information if even their print collection is lacking. There is no doubt that this can be done in rich countries, but in order to fully implement this, a more serious and enormous help and assistance should come from well-to-do countries. For academic libraries which are not open to the public, the most that they can do is to provide links and access to open access sources which were discussed in the prevoius RA. Another effort to achieve the goal of the manifesto is the "Ask A Librarian" service of most libraries. This service is not limited to the institution's clients only but to the global nation as well. Through this service, freedom to expression can be practiced. We, as librarians should also realize the role we are playing in this manifesto. We are the mediator between the user and the information. In a world where all kinds of information can be accessed by anyone, like what the manifesto proposed, we are the ones responsible for promoting responsible access and use of information to our users.
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