Digital technology has made culture more accessible than ever before. Texts, audio, pictures and video can easily be produced, disseminated, used and remixed using devices that are increasingly user-friendly and affordable. However, along with this technological democratization comes a paradoxical flipside: the norms regulating culture's use - copyright and related rights - have become increasingly restrictive. This book brings together essays by academics, librarians, entrepreneurs, activists and policy makers, who were all part of the EU-funded Communia project. Together the authors argue that the Public Domain - that is, the informational works owned by all of us, be that literature, music, the output of scientific research, educational material or public sector information - is fundamental to a healthy society. The essays range from more theoretical papers on the history of copyright and the Public Domain, to practical examples and case studies of recent projects that have engaged with the principles of Open Access and Creative Commons licensing. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the current debate about copyright and the Internet. It opens up discussion and offers practical solutions to the difficult question of the regulation of culture at the digital age.

This well-documented study examines one of the increasingly pressing problems for US homeland security: the storage and management of radioactive waste. Despite pressing homeland security and energy security concerns associated with highly radioactive waste, political considerations have prevented policy makers from adopting adequate long-term solutions to the problem. This book explores nuclear waste problems through the broader lens of federal, state and local government and the resultant constraints on policy that emerge within the American political system. Presenting specific case studies to highlight the deficiencies in current policy and planning as well as the possibility of terrorist activity, it is highly suited to courses on security studies and environmental politics.

Repositories for low use books have long existed for the larger cultural institutions across the globe. Libraries have long been strong developers of off-site storage. This need has evolved for libraries because of their continuous collection of print materials as a record of the intellectual and cultural output of different cultures. Libraries have had this role described neatly and executed as a clear professional role. This new book will primarily examine two aspects of this role: Firstly, the organisational and technological responses to this evolving role will be explored and secondly, the wide breadth of strategic responses to challenges of ‘digital’ will be detailed. In this authors to this edited volume will describe their work for libraries but increasingly for Galleries, Archives and Museums. The papers are drawn from Europe, United Kingdom, the United States and Australasia. The organisational models discussed in the book provide clear illustration of imaginative responses to the plight of the individual institutional library. New organisational models are shaping the way in which business can be done in times of change. The pressures today on all cultural institutions are similar and so there is a new convergence of similar need and similar solutions. This book is an acknowledgment that there are a wide variety of strategic, organisational and technological responses to the retention of cultural objects whether they be books, art, records or other cultural objects. It is illustrative of the power of good lateral thinking and planning by professionals, of the power of international networks and of convergence in response to need. The book will be an edited with a future perspective by Pentti Vattulainen and Steve O’Connor who have had significant experience in this area internationally.