Let's go through a scenario to see how the concept of information privilege might play out in life outside of Davidson.
You have graduated from Davidson. You're working for an organization whose mission you are passionate about but they don't pay you much. You are covering your bills every month, but just barely. You come across a news article by Michael Reagan entitled *Obama's Executive Action Won't Slow Gun Violence*. The following quotes stand out to you:
"When the White House and Hillary throw out the claim that '30,000 die from gun violence a year' **they are deliberately being deceptive"**
"There reportedly are more than **300 million privately owned guns** floating around the USA"
"In 2014, according to the FBI, there were 8,124 gun homicides... that means **0.00002708 percent of the guns in America were used in 2014 to kill someone** and .99998 percent were not"
[[Investigate these claims]]
You're shocked and upset by these claims. You're a vlogger so you decide to dedicate your weekly video blog to this topic. You grew up in a community with a lot of gun violence and this topic is very important to you. You want your post to focus on the relationship between gun ownership and crime rates.
To start your research, either go to
[[The New York Times]] for news sources
[[Google Scholar]] for more scholarly sources
You have internet access at work, so you decide to do some searching on your lunch break. You start with the New York Times. After viewing just a few articles, you reach your monthly limit.
<img src="https://sarahecrissinger.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/rate.png?w=620">
You can't access any more articles without paying for them. You see that the public library has internet access to the New York Times from 1980-present.
Do you want to go to the
[[Public Library]]
Or try using
[[Google Scholar]]
You go to Google Scholar and start searching for articles on gun violence. As you're searching, you realize that all of the PDF Full Text notifications on the right side are gone because you are no longer a Davidson student. You finally find an article that looks promising:
<img src="https://sarahecrissinger.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/journal.png?w=620">
You find out that it costs $37. You make minimum wage so, after taxes, this article would cost you **over half of a day of work!**
Do you:
[[Pay for the article]]
Or
[[Give up on your research]]
Or
Go to [[The New York Times]] to see if you can find other sources
You drive to the public library after work. Unfortunately, they close at 5 on Saturdays. You look at the hours and realize that they won't open again until Monday at 9 AM.
Do you:
[[Come back after work on Monday]]
[[Give up on your research]]
You get off of work at 5 PM. It takes you 20 minutes to drive to the public library. By the time you get there, it's 5:30-- leaving you about two hours to search. You have to sign up for a public library card and sign into one of the terminals.
You are used to using LexisNexis at Davidson to search for New York Times content and you find the public library interface less robust and more difficult to work with.
You spend two hours searching and one hour traveling to the library. You do this three more times before finding all of the sources that you need.
You spent 9 hours altogether doing research. Money is tight and you could have made an entire day's wages, almost **$70** instead of doing research.
[[Reflect on this exercise]]
Every year, we ask incoming Davidson freshmen to analyze research scenarios for Davidson 101. This helps us identify misconceptions that they might have about doing research. One of our scenarios was very similar to this one-- the person was a vlogger, they ran into a paywall, and they gave up on that source in order to pursue free (but maybe less reputable) sources. Here's what Davidson students said about that vlogger:
"The vlogger's **ignorance** toward the subject and **laziness** during his research results in him overlooking the importance of having multiple perspectives on a subject"
"The vlogger is both **lazy** and **harmful** in her approach"
"The vlogger could, also, just **man up and pay the fee**"
They would have said the same thing about you and your research process.
How much information privilege does the Davidson community take for granted?
[[Reflect on this exercise]]
You have a great deal of information privilege as a Davidson student. **You will soon lose this privilege.** After you graduate, you will no longer have access to our databases.
Learn more about why & find free sources you can use here: http://davidson.libguides.com/alumni
You can change the system! By sharing your own work openly-- regardless of if it's scholarly or creative-- you can increase others' access. Ask a librarian how to publish in an open access venue or negotiate your copyright agreement.
You pay the $37 to access this article, possibly sacrificing money you need to pay rent, eat, or care for your dependents. You open the article and quickly realize that it doesn't have as much helpful information as you thought it might after reading the abstract.
However, you look at the references and you see two other titles that look promising. You use Google Scholar to find those articles and quickly realize that those also cost money. You can't afford to buy any more articles until your next pay check at the end of this month.
[[Reflect on this exercise]]