Think local to change the global

Life is really an amazing series of serendipitous moments! Recently, on the way home from work, I listened to Facing the Future, a broadcast of a lecture by Prince Charles on the struggles of managing the mess that we have created with our planet. I was so enamoured with his eloquence that I will jump at the first chance to see one of his speaking engagements.

But that, alone, is not what got me thinking...
It was his profound message.

I was captivated by his statement:

...how could we better empower all sorts of communities to create a much more participative economic model that safeguards their identity, cohesion and diversity – one that makes a clear distinction between the maintenance of Nature’s capital reserves and the income it produces? That is the challenge we face, it seems to me – to see Nature’s capital and her processes as the very basis of a new form of economics and to engage communities at the grass roots to put those processes first. If we can do that, then we have an approach that acts locally by thinking globally, just as Nature does – all parts operating locally to establish the coherence of the whole. (HRH, para 39)

Having just posted an article, here, discussing the problems with association memberships, and suggesting that we must think "locally", I was intrigued to hear him say that we must act locally to, "establish coherence of the whole". We hear this message of "thinking" locally with more frequency. We hear it when we discuss changing our attitudes towards how we acquire our food. We hear it when we discuss the evolution of our health, education, and transportation systems. We feel it when we watch all of those horrifying Discovery Channel documentaries about the fate of the human race. This message, like a system of small waterways, is converging into one major river system that represents our need to realign of our thinking. We need to reconnect with nature. We need to reconnect with our communities.

As I mulled all of this over, I began to reflect upon the role that libraries can have on this process. The Prince of Wales astutely points out that in celebration of post-war Modernism, "there was an eagerness to embark upon a new age of radical experimentation in every area of human experience which caused many traditional ideas to be discarded in a fit of uncontrollable enthusiasm." (para 7) It appears, to me, that the repositories of knowledge that we have struggled to build and maintain, also house the solutions to our current plight as a civilization in crisis. The studies are in and the debate is over. We are in trouble.

Yet, the answers to many of our problems reside in the philosophies of our predecessors and those who continue to champion the value of natural order and balance in nature. I was deeply moved by the Prince's reasoning that we must think differently about our relationship with our planet by becoming more connected to it. It is no longer sufficient for us to be the "keepers" of information - we must be the conduit if we are to inspire social, economic, and philosophical change.

HRH The Prince of Wales. (7 July 2009). Facing the future: 2009 Richard Dimbleby lecture. St James’s Palace State Apartments, London. [Transcript]. Retrieved November 16, 2009 from http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/the_richard_dimbleby_lecture_titled_facing_the_future_as_del_573388579.html

Canadian Copyright and the threat to our intellectual freedom

Once again, the Canadian government is attempting to tackle its elusive copyright laws. Until Sept. 13, there is a "public" (and I use the term very loosely) consultation process.

You should be shaking in your boots.

"As an instrument of public policy, the Copyright Act has two primary objectives: to encourage the creation and dissemination of original works, and to promote access to knowledge for the benefit of Canadian society as a whole."
-- Canadian Library Association, 2008.

As Micheal Geist, Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce law, clearly states we need, "...copyright laws that look ahead, rather than behind." Yet, the current consultative process shows that the deck is stacked tightly in favour of corporate interests.

On August 28th, Now Magazine, an independent weekly from the streets of Toronto, publishes a story, "The town hall that didn't invite the town," that questions a recent town hall meeting that included chair and industry minister, Tony Clement. Discussion was clearly focused on the interests of the music industry and seemed suspiciously rigged to favour conservative views (view the meeting here).

On August 27, Geist suggested that the electronic copyright consultation process (that we are ALL invited to participate in) (CCER Submission Form Service) may be tampered with. For more information see Geist's August 27th blog entry.

So where is our national library leadership in all of this? Today, as a write, I comb the Canadian Library Association website and see nothing dealing with the issue of copyright reform. This matter should be FRONT and CENTRE this month, considering that our ability to consult ends on the 13th. Meetings have been slow to manifest and the library community has been somewhat quiet on this front.

As a "library" person, I have some concerns...

1. There would be a three strikes and you ar OUT rule. Guilty until proven innocent. If an external agency accuses you of "stealing" copyrighted material electronically, you can be shut down by your ISP without an option to prove your innocence. Right now, you can be warned but the onus is on the accuser to prove your guilt before the "plug" can be yanked.

Just think of how easy it would be for an organization to get rid of "pesky" people.

2. Fair Dealing - there seems to be a more constricted interpretation in the new Bill. This means that rather than expand the nature of research and creative exploration, fair dealing is more limited.

3. The Bill says: "The patron receiving the electronically transmitted material could not make permanent copies, digital or otherwise, other than a single print copy, and could not distribute it further. Electronic access to the material would terminate after five business days. The library must ensure that only the intended recipients receive the protected material and that they abide by other conditions set out in the provisions."

This means libraries would have to:
a) ensure that the correct recipient gets materials
b) ensure that the protected material be eliminated after 5 business days
c) ensure the patron can not make duplicates

In addition, the act states that it will have a regulation that will tell libraries how these points will be dealt with.
Worried yet? OK, how about this one:

4. There will be a blanket clause preventing anyone from circumventing ANY digital locks.
How does this enhance innovation????

Last year, the CLA outlined many more issues that are well articulated in their statement. So have a look, if you are interested. Unlocking the Public Interest.

It is a quagmire of legal-speak when trying to sift through the legislation and much of the debate around it. Be careful at the resources you look at and cast your net far and wide to get a feel for the potential ramifications of copyright change.

For instance, extending copyright protection might seem like a simple and helpful change for creators but is it? The ability to extend copyright ownership protects corporate ownership and diminishes our chances of things ever becoming public domain. Look at the "Happy Birthday" example. This melody was written by two sisters in 1893 and words later appeared in 1912 with no designated writer. In 1935 the Summy Company registered it and in 1990 Warner Chappell bought the rights when it bought Summy. Copyright expires in 2030. (see Robert Brauneiss' paper, "Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song").

Without permission (and a cheque) and you publicly perform the song, you are in violation of the law. So, in such cases, who's creative interest is protected?

Click here to request a license to use the song. You might need it someday. In fact, you will probably need it sometime in the next year!

So, where does it all end? It doesn't. However, our freedoms might so speak out, read up on it and talk about it!

As one astute CBC member says, "after i get paid to build you a staircase i cannot charge you every time you let a friend use them."

Side note: Don't believe everything you hear from the Conference Board of Canada. They had to retract their support of tighter copyright laws when Micheal Geist publicly accused them of plagiarizing their support statement from the International Intellectual Property Alliance.

Ahhh...the irony.

RDA - Dead or Alive?

Resource Description and Access - RDA has been in development since 2004 with the intent to replace AACRII as the new cornerstone of cataloguing practice.

This undertaking has been met with a great deal of caution from practicing librarians and technicians. Despite the Joint Steering Committee for RDA claims that RDA builds on AACR to better incorporate all forms of content and media, it has evolved into a very large and, arguably, unwieldy resource. It has yet to be trialed and many cataloguers have left initial training sessions, shaking their heads in confusion. Considering that RDA is meant to be more inclusive, enabling other fields to use it as a means of organizing data, it is profoundly disappointing that it is shaping into a tool few understand and even fewer want to adopt.


There was no intention to create a printed version of RDA, even though sections of it can, in theory, be printed. Used primarily as an electronic resource, it is very difficult to understand how it can be used in the classroom to teach new cataloguers.

Although information on RDA has been trickling out for over 5 years, it is difficult to formulate a true sense of how this new tool is going to be incorporated into practice. Thus, I shall go out on a limb and state my reservations without seeing the "whole" package. It seems that its greatest liability is in trying to be a standard that extends beyond traditional "libary" work. Unfortunately, by trying to become more inclusive, the rules become more flexible. Yet, the purpose of defining rules is to provide structure, convention and uniformity. In its attempt at inclusiveness, RDA runs the risk of becoming unmanagable as cataloguers struggle to identify elements to be used in description. If the process of cataloguing is too complex, no one will want to use it!

Having used AACR extensively over my years as a teacher, I would like to have seen time and money invested in expanding AACR guidelines for non-print media. In addition, an overhaul of its examples would be warmly welcomed. Instead, we see a monumental effort made to craft a new tool (based, presumabley, on the prinicples of AACR). I could be mistaken but, from my armchair observations, RDA has morphed into an entity that does not serve the needs of cataloguers and their clientele. It has taken a very cerebral turn that has left many cataloguers baffled and concerned. Does it have real-life application and value? Perhaps the answer resides in trial testing that is supposed to be taking place in 2009.

At IFLA, even the Library of Congress expressed its dissatisfaction and concern over RDA. So WHO is it going to serve? WHO is going to teach us how to use it? And, finally, HOW are we actually going to apply it?

It truly amazes me to read through discussion blogs that centre around cataloguing and RDA and see the extreme intellectualization of the process. Granted, there SHOULD be core principles associated with organizing ideas and information but these must be principles that can easily be transferred to practice. AACR has done this. Will RDA enhance what we already have? The jury is out.


http://www.rdaonline.org/

Search Engine Optimization

In the mid to late 1990's, I spent a surprising amount of time "optimizing" my organization's ranking on search engines. In essence, I would make sure that when someone typed in our name, or something very close to that name, our website would pop up in the first five "hits". Since then, SEO (search engine optimization) has become an INDUSTRY designed to cut in at the front of the result-line when some unknown stranger blithely types in a keyword search.

An Industry?

There are actually companies who are paid to audit other organizations' sites, recommend strategies for improving result list results and/or manage the optimization on a longer term contract. There are thousands of these consulting companies but most focus on American, Canadian and United Kingdom clientele.

As in the old days, there are strategies that fall in accordance with the policies and guidelines set out by major search engines (like Google) and then there are techniques that ignore these conventions and look for sneakier ways to improve results. Since money is the driving force for the these activities, linking searchers with the BEST information is not really a priority.

So how does this kind of activity affect the information we find on the Web? I wonder what kind of influence it has (and will continue to have) on the quality and accessibility of information. Perhaps, such activities will only further enhance the role of libraries....?

Welcome to the LIBIT Scene

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The intention of this blog is to inspire discussion and debate on issues related to the field of information studies. There is a lot to talk about! Everything from education to copyright law.