After five years of working on making literature available on public domain through digitisation, Servants of Knowledge, a Bengaluru-based community initiative, held its first meeting with city residents.
The panel of experts at the meeting included Carl Malamud, an American technologist who runs Public.Resource.Org since the 1980s; Lawrence Liang, dean of the Ambedkar University School of Law; and Omshivaprakash H L, an open access advocate who co-founded the Servants of Knowledge initiative.
The panelists discussed the nature of knowledge in the modern context and how corporations have limited access to sources. The panel dwelt on why access to knowledge needs to be democratised.
In an age where disinformation reigns, Malamud explained that the presence of legitimate sources of knowledge is vital for citizens to stay informed.
While it is not possible to ensure that one is consuming accurate material, open access initiatives can provide users with a way to understand and assimilate truth into popular narratives.
The experts also introduced the process and technology involved in converting books, manuscripts and other material in public domain into digital archives — the process of scanning, recreating old fonts to enable optical character recognition, and navigating copyright law to facilitate free access.
Liang explained that in India’s case, copyright law does not have a 'quantitative restriction' — how much of the material can be reused in another context. “Courts decide on a case-to-case basis,” he explained.
The initiative has digitised 22,000 texts, which can be used by researchers, students and hobbyists. The meeting was designed to introduce those interested in the world of digital archiving in the public domain — a primer into how to contribute towards the open access movement.
Published 19 May 2023, 21:16 IST