Portfolio Essay 1

Huanxi Zhang

ENG113B TTH

Jeffrey Klepper

Dec.13.2013

Network Resource Sharing

      The rapid development of modern information technology has greatly improved the ability of collecting information.  Technology development has made network resource sharing the most efficient and convenient way to obtain the required information. Sharing information on the Internet has a lot of benefit for people, and it is our right to getting information on the Internet.

       Internet as a one of the fastest carrier to transport information and resources in modern society, it makes our life more convenient and gives us more knowledge. Thus, the progress of human society requires the convenient features of Internet; human knowledge can be more quickly and appropriately improved only when accumulated more idea. [No library today can be expected to directly hold all of the resources to fulfill all the needs of its users. Rather, most libraries supplement their local collections through resource-sharing arrangements that allow them to offer their clientele access to a broader universe of materials.] (Breeding Marshal) According to Breeding Marshal said, Internet plays an important role in support of resource sharing; even library uses Internet as a effective way to sharing and offer people articles and knowledge.

       Some of the people said there are some harmful sides of sharing articles and information on the Internet. Some people thought although the information technology is rapid developing, so that we can save much more time for put those information and articles online, digital technology also makes it easier to share the information. However, human knowledge is created in different languages, different history background, different publication types and different carriers, so online literature information resource is not standardized yet, that makes online information very complex, and making them very difficult to be used in a effective way. Also internet is an open system, everyone can share information on the internet, and any individuals and groups cannot interfere in other people's online behavior. Then cause information uncontrolled and disordered, making information on the Internet very massive, this characteristics of the Internet itself causing information pollution. However, that information that mixed by many different culture and different languages can offer people more chances to know something we didn't know before. Besides, everybody needs to fully understand and learn to sensibly deal with the role of Internet in the complicated information networks. Secondly users need to learn to filter useful information, so that the Internet gives full play to its role. Additional use sensible vision to deal with the negative effects of the Internet, to improve their own ability to exclude invalid information.

       Moreover, we all have to admit that Internet changes the way our society works. One of the strongest thesis is that in the last few years is information sharing on the Internet. In a very short period of time, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube have all become a part of modern life, while people are sharing everything on the Internet or on their personal websites. Moreover, users do not need any software, without any advanced technical training, people can choose to add a huge variety of space and upload their own observations and knowledge. In the book Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig said "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so on."(7) Although these are not the focus of this book, he was trying to state an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet itself in this book. From the introduction, Lessig thought The Internet has caused an important effect and some unrecognized change though its improving. This change will completely change the tradition that was recognized by the public. In most cases, if the publics recognize this change, they may reject it, but most of the people do not even see the changes that the Internet has introduced. I agree with this point, the Internet has changed the way people communicate with each other. A great amount of information can be obtained from the Internet. It changes so fast, so that we are changing our habits of getting information. In the past, many of us were accustomed to learn about news by listening to the radio; few years later it changed to watch television for news show, then search news on the Internet. In the past, people learnt industry information through meetings, nowadays; they can web browsing related web site to learn information about their work. Some people might like to read magazines and newspapers previously. But now they even have some favorite blog that they would read on time.

       We can't deny that sharing and getting information on the Internet have become a big part of our life. Then what we need to do is that try our best to keep the Internet environment clean, because we need to look at the whole picture, not just its parts. Secondly, we need to share information better. In other words, the Internet environment will be better if most of the netizen are responsible for the information they shared. Internet engineering can help resolve many of the system problems, but not those information shared by the netizen all over the world. The thing we can do is to be responsible to the works we did or the things we shared on the Internet.

      Many people can learn a lot of things through rational use of network. Nobody knows what will happen if there is no such a rapid and convenient place which contains all the excellent resources that can truly reflect their own values. At the same time, this problem may make a lot of people that very sensitive and may still be the focus of peoples talking, those opinions listed below are just me as an ordinary netizen to express my personal views.

Works Cited

Breeding, Marshall. "Introduction to Resource Sharing." Library Technology Reports,     49.1 (2013): 5-11.

"Sharing is Everything." Geospatial Today, (2012).

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin, 2004.