Critical review of Roxanne Missingham’s article “Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship”.

The article, “Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship”, looks at not only the concepts in its title but also focuses on Electronic Resources Australia, the convener of which, Roxanne Missingham, wrote the article. Missingham puts forward her views on why Australia needs to strengthen its digital economy and how it can do so, i.e. there are three major issues to overcome: connectivity, content, and capability. While essentially coming a biased author, the article is well researched and thought out, peer reviewed, and provides little to critique.

Unfortunately, since the publication of this article in 2009, Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) has been discontinued (“An announcement on the future of ERA”, 2012) due to funding problems. In her article, Missingham makes a strong case for ERA, showing that it provided millions of people with access to quality information that would improve “education, community, health, life and business needs in their communities” (Missingham, 2009, p. 395). Yet its inability to be self-sustaining may be a reflection that its users did not consider it to be that important.

The first significant issue that Missingham addresses is that of connectivity, i.e. access to affordable and fast Internet connections. Australia’s rankings for this, when compared to other countries, goes a long way to prove Missingham’s point: how can Australia truly have a strong digital economy if large amounts of people, particularly those in remote locations, cannot properly access the Internet. This is reinforced when other studies have shown the same sort of problems, for example “34 percent of people from outer regional and remote areas aged 15 and over did not use the Internet in 2008–09, compared with only 23 percent of people in Australia’s major cities” (Dias, 2012, para. 2).

Secondly, Missingham raises the issue that more high quality content should be available to all Australians. Beyond government resources, no real detail is given regarding what sort of content will be necessary in the future. Certainly some of the databases that ERA provides access to, such as Good Reading Magazine Online (“Product List”, n.d.), are not essential for strengthening the digital economy.

Missingham’s last issue, capability, is essentially the need for information and digital literacy skills. Her suggestion that public libraries will be responsible for training users in these skills is lacking. A more accurate analysis posits that digital literacy is “a life-long process” involving schools, universities and other social institutions (Bell, 2009, p. 46). To leave this training up to public library staff members, who may not be adequately trained themselves, would not be thorough enough.

Overall the article provides a good insight into what factors need to be improved for Australia to form a strong digital economy and encourage digital citizenship. However with the demise of ERA a re-evaluation of what should be done to replace it will be needed.

References

An announcement on the future of ERA. (2012). Retrieved from http://era.nla.gov.au/

Bell, G. (2009). Getting connected, staying connected: exploring South Australia’s

digital future. Adelaide: Adelaide Thinks in Residence

Dias, M. P. (2012). Australia's project for universal broadband access: From policy to

social potential. First Monday, 17(9). Retrieved from

http://www.firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticl

e/4114/3299#34

Missingham, R. (2009). Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship.

Australian Library Journal, 58(4), 386-399

Product list. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://era.nla.gov.au/product_list/