ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on knowledge. It examines those areas in which information communication technologies (ICTs) are changing the patterns of creation, dissemination, and use of knowledge. ICTs create many fundamental changes in the patterns of dissemination of knowledge. All publications of books, journals, magazines, and newspapers are currently undergoing major transformations. A major shift is occurring today in the focus of academic libraries. Not too many years ago, these libraries devoted a substantial portion of their resources to purchasing materials necessary to support the research and instructional activities of their local faculty and students. Current copyright law in the US illustrates both the clarity and confusion created by the proliferation of ICTs, and more specifically by the Google Book Project. The phrase online publishing includes a number of quite different activities; it is useful to distinguish among three categories: self, combined, and electronic.
