Real Parents and Ideal Patrons

I`ve had several people ask me to expand on my third point from my Why I`m not a children`s librarian post. Here`s a little bit more on the topic of our frequent shortfalls in achieving social justice orientation in youth services, and my personal experiences with librarians shaming me without realising it.

“If their kid is at daycare all day, the daycare provider is really the parent anyway.”

My blood ran cold when she said that.

I thought of my son, in daycare at that very moment so I could be there in that library meeting, and held my breath as well as my tongue.

Not that I hadn’t heard statements like that before. Not that I considered myself especially vulnerable to such judgments.

I just wasn’t expecting it there – from a “friend” and colleague of mine, at a meeting of a team of children’s librarians specifically dedicated to providing culturally appropriate and accessible outreach programming for socially excluded children and families. The topic of discussion was how to extend outreach library services to go past the child to influence the whole family, so that parents might, say, bring their kids to the library.

And what I really didn’t expect, from that group in particular, was the fact that when one member said something outrageous like the above statement, no one else in the room spoke up. To the day I don’t really know if it was the dreaded librarian “niceness” striking again (inhibiting our ability to hold ourselves/each other accountable), or whether no one else thought she was being offensive.

I was a student intern. They were allowing me to sit in on their meeting, so I could learn. I didn’t feel like I could interrupt and intervene at that time. But I certainly did learn.

***

The dominant library paradigm holds very particular cultural conceptions of the ownership/belonging/responsibility of children. These notions are largely based in euro-colonial and neo-liberal values of the family as isolated, self-sufficient unit.

Even in our progressive and outreach programs, are we really listening to our communities, parents, families, and empowering them to make our services their own?

***

“The best library users, the ones we love to work with, are the parents who already bring their children to storytime. They are the ideal. I love to work with them.”

A library school instructor, one whom I sincerely like and respect, said this in front of a class I took.

Again, I was floored.

My child has never been to a library storytime. I have been a working parent since he was 2 weeks old, first lugging him on my back to my office, and then, too soon for my liking, sending him to daycare. My local library branch does not hold weekend storytimes for working parents. Even the summer reading club events are during weekday workdays, much to my child’s dismay.

I always garnered compliments from my library supervisors, but they don’t know my dirty secret – that I am The Non-Ideal Parent as a patron.

Shh…don`t tell!

***

We are beginning to acknowledge that “the ideal patron” is a problem - that this notion is culturally biased and exclusive; that we should be questioning it. I say this because we as a discipline have published papers to this effect, bestowed honours upon some individuals who have championed this message, and sometimes even committed funding to novel projects that work toward a more just community ownership of libraries.

But trickle down takes a long time, when it works. Will the status quo for plain old regular librarians – ones not leading special programs or “moving and shaking” their institutions - ever change?

***

Oh, but I didn’t mean you. Your son is wonderful, so smart.

Yes, and I don’t “look Jewish,” right? Let me guess, some of your best friends are black and gay?

Putting down who I am, my history and identity, and then telling me I am better than everyone else like me is not a complement.

I am not an exception.

Or rather, we are all exceptions.

I am a bit uncommon, in that I was a low-income single parent who went back to school and became a librarian. But I was certainly not the only one who met that profile in my library school intake of 40 people.

Really, it is highly likely that I am only unusual in following this path because of my privilege. Coming from a family with higher education and economic privilege, It was relatively easy to make the decision to go to grad school and change my situation. I was able to see that option and take the necessary path to get there, yes. However, the important part of this story is not so much how I got where I am now, but what I know of where I was a few years ago.

I know, I know, I’m different from all the other Black/Jewish/queer/Asian/poor/Latina/whatever people. The other daycare parents. You didn’t mean that slur to apply to me.

Isn’t that line getting old by now? Isn’t it one libraries shouldn’t be using anyway?

-Greyson

By the way

If anyone was wondering, you can apparently get a bunch of new blog traffic if you write about both Harry Potter and naked human vaginas.

Is that disturbing?

Further thoughts on the POPLINE debacle: what went right?

Rachel Walden’s follow-up post on POPLINE has given me a kick in the pants to get moving on my own follow-up post. (Yes, the one that I alluded to months ago…)

I’ve been thinking about the POPLINE debacle. While Rachel rightly points out that all is not perfectly resolved, and we await more answers, in general I’ve been wondering about what went so darned right.

Yes,I know I’ve been one of many ranting about what went wrong - i.e. USAID anti-abortion policies interfering with access to information - but what went right is a different question all together. Considering the positive is something I don’t get to ponder a lot on this blog, so indulge me here.

To recap, for anyone not following along in April: A librarian noticed that abortion was no longer a searchable term in the database and sent out an email about it. The email was passed along on various health librarian and feminist listservs and public outcry was raised. Who-knows-how-many of us emailed the POPLINE admins and blogged it with outrage, and within two days the dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health issued a public statement assuring the world that this would be rectified and investigated.

Wow.

So…as I asked before, what went right here? Why were we successful in calling attention to this issue, and getting it addressed so swiftly? Why did this work fairly well, when in comparison the Canadian Health Network was shut down after months of protest by health librarians, a petition, multiple high-profile newspaper articles, and various other media attention? I’ve been pondering this, trying to figure out what we can do in the future to make our information resources more like POPLINE and less like the CHN, and these are the elements that I’ve come up with thus far:

• US vs. Canada: The US is generally more political & inflammatory, and Canadian librarians will jump on a US database issue, while 99% of the US generally forget that Canada exists or is within the scope of the ALA
• POPLINE is housed at/maintained by a single institution with important people who could be embarrassed at the top of the chain of command vs. the CHN, which was, as I understand it, purposively built on a distributed model
• Specific interest vs. general resource: It’s hard to argue than another resource could easily replace POPLINE, as there aren’t really other reproductive health focused databases like it (are there?), and - however their scope or quality (attirbutes understood by librarians but not everyone) may vary - there are other websites that aim to be broad consumer health resources. It may also be significant that POPLINE is not really for everyday use of the general public, but more for scholars and health professionals.
• The scope of POPLINE, while specifically focused, had broad interdisciplinary appeal (while reproductive rights info access was damaged by CHN removal, as shown in my previous “ABC” post, POPLINE is obviously related to reproductive rights, and thus feminists signed on the campaign en masse: POPLINE was discussed on WMST-L, while the CHN never was)

I know there are more differences that may have been important in determining how things went down. Feel free to tell me what I am missing. My mind is now spinning on how future projects can be built in a way that helps a threat play out in a POPLINE manner, not a CHN one.

-Greyson

The very small silver lining to Bill C-61: Amazing public outcry

Even though I feel pulled in a million directions at the moment, I could not let the weekend pass without some sort of post on the new Canadian Copyright bill, C-61 (aka Canadian DMCA). Just in case anyone reading this hasn’t been amply informed about the supreme badness of C-61, here’s a link to Industry Canada’s explanation of and fact sheets on the proposed changes, and another one to Michael Geist’s special article on the “fine print” of the act.

What has been neat to see, in the shadow of this terrible proposed legislation, has been the public protest against the bill. Bill C-61, looking pretty much like we all feared it would, was introduced Thursday morning. With no public consultation, yet several meetings with members of the entertainment industry and the US Government, a near copy of the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act was no surprise.

Within an hour I was getting questions about C-61 at work. The CLA was on it in a flash with their press release. The Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group (link requires facebook login, unfortunately) gained 10,000 new members (adding to the existing ~40,000) overnight. You couldn’t turn on CBC Radio 1 without hearing someone being interviewed about the bill, and the show Search Engine began a cool webpage asking listeners to write in with their questions and conundrums about the proposed legislation. Neat and evenm fun responses have popped up, including that collaborative video of people proclaiming to be “Copyright Criminals.”

Call me unduly optimistic after a sunny neighborhood block party this evening, but frankly, to my jaded and weary eyes, this outpouring of protest is heartening. It’s not just librarians who care about copyright. On the contrary, suddenly copyright is this hot topic that anyone ‘in the know’ seems to have an opinion on.

And, of course, Michael Geist has been tirelessly working on the issue. Watch his blog for the latest news, links to coverage, creative responses, opportunities to make your voice heard, and his own legal analysis of the legislation and its consequences.

-Greyson

Bill C-61 (or how we all became criminals)

About 6 months ago I started a post about copyright legislation in Canada after reading an article in CBC news ”Copyright reform bill critics eye victory .” I got sidetracked and never got it finished, just got to vent but didn’t add enough content, then things sort of got quiet for a bit. This is what I had written:

It looks like one more attempt to have a tougher copyright law in Canada has been quashed, but when are we going to get a decent proposal for copyright law reform that looks at the interest of the public instead of corporations? When are we getting a law that allows fair use for educational and non-commercial purposes? I personally want a copyright law that allows me to make copies of what I’ve paid for, a law that allows my public library to provide movies for our multicultural communities even if it means disabling DRMS. I want to stop paying a levy on cds that does not go to the artists.

Well, things are not looking better now, things are pretty grim. Now we know that Prentice, Ministry of Industry, was not consulting with Canadians, or at list not with the general public, after realizing that we were starting to make noise and organizing things such as Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group. Little did we know that Mr. Prentice was just retreating to gather strength and plan an unexpected atack  (as in there was no consultation with the public) in the form of bill C-61.

I am looking at the official page for the “Copyright Reform Process” and my blood is about to boil. The lovely introduction is entitled “Government of Canada Proposes Update to Copyright Law: Balanced Approach to Truly Benefit Canadians.” Then, the short text explains to us how the bill ” introduces long-overdue and much-needed amendments to the Copyright Act that will bring it in line with advances in technology and current international standards.” The part this leaves out is how the reforms benefits anyone but Canadian individuals and seriously restricts our rights.

If you don’t feel like reading all or even part of this 57 page bill, check out their Fact Sheets. For example, in Education and Research Amendments it all sounds good until you get to the limitations. You would think this copyright amendment will finally take us out of the dark ages and allow ILL (interlibrary loan) delivery and reserve readings online, and use material for education as per fair dealing. Well, think again. You might do all these good things that will allow you do your work more effectively and serve students and researchers better… unless the material provider doesn’t want you to. If the material has digital locks, well, you are out of luck, because it is illegal for you to circumvent this technologies. Never mind these are actually infringing on your rights under fair dealing.

As far as I am concerned, those digital locks are the ones that are illegal and digital content producers, distributors and clearing houses should be the ones to be penalized. They want their stuff to be protected? Then they need to provide mechanisms for legal use such as for personal, educational and research purposes. How would the do that? I don’t know, but that should be their problem, not ours.

The media has been covering well what this bill will (or I hope, would) mean for Canadian consumers if it became law, as in the Globe and Mail’s “Ottawa gets tough with illegal downloaders,” and organizations such as Canadian Library Association, Canadian Music Creators Coalition have express their disapproval. Michael Geist has written so far 7 posts on this bill since last Thursday and many other bloggers are covering this issue too. Particularly good is his The Canadian DMCA: A Betrayal. So go to any of these or all of them, read, get informed, get outraged and lets do something about it.

mar

Why I’m not a children’s/youth librarian (not right now, at least)

This may surprise some of you, but I went to library school with the full intention of becoming a youth librarian.

I had the perfect combination of elements to make a youth librarian, I thought. I was a former Head Start teacher, youth organizer, camp director, youth group facilitator and youth shelter worker. I like kids better than adults and especially love working with the people everyone loves to hate, “at-risk” or “high risk” youth. Add to all that a past in music and theatre, and a love of children’s - and particularly young adult - literature. Heck, I even had a kid of my own (which in effect means that every day in my life is storytime, so I might as well get paid for it). Yes, I figured my future was in public libraries, or maybe back in a non-profit, or verrry possibly in an academic library working with undergrads, first-generation or nontraditional students.

All this and yet, somehow, I ended up not a children’s librarian. It was so weird, the way it happened. I took lots of children’s services and children’s literature courses. I did a practicum in a great public library children’s department. I even got a student librarian job working on-call as a children’s librarian in a local library system. And then *boom* suddenly I had a great job as a not-children’s librarian.

How and why did this happen? Various reasons, which I think may take a while to unpack.

1. No one around me valued children’s librarianship enough; not even the children’s librarians
2. To become a full time youth librarian locally, it required starting from the bottom of a pecking order, and the bottom is not a family-friendly place to be
3. I got very discouraged by the prevailing lack of social justice orientation of our youth services and my own feelings of social exclusion got in the way
4. I just don’t have the energy to change all of the above right now in my life.

Regarding #1 above, the lack of value of children’s librarianship was expressed to me in so many ways, by almost everyone except my children’s librarianship professor (who was no longer a practicing librarian but a FT prof). Naturally, non-children’s folk looked down at youth work, as they do in most fields. The body of research on youth and information is rather disappointing, I found in grad school. Practically, libraries tended to limit how far you could ascend in the hierarchy of rank as a children’s librarian, no matter how many years of service or how great a job one did. When I got an academic job offer, supervising children’s librarians with whom I had previously been discussing employment acted really impressed and said of course I should take it. It was all very weird to me, someone who sees youth work as challenging and valuable.

Regarding #2, this is not entirely unique to public libraries, as we see variations on this theme of HR structure in academic libraries too. It seems less common in the special library world. I am strongly pro-union and see the value of job security - I’m not ashamed to admit I wish I had a little more of it myself - but I also see libraries as institutions self sabotaging by their strict policies of hiring from within which force most new entrants into the system to come in as part-time, temporary, or on-call librarians. Those who are unable or unwilling to enter the system in such positions have few opportunities to come in as mid-level librarians with regular jobs. And while it may be bourgeois of me, I’ve been a low-income single parent to a little kid, struggling to find affordable second-shift childcare, and you better believe it taught me to value regular hours and paycheques.

With regard to #3, what can I say about this? Working for social justice as an individual within a bureaucractic organization that does not share those values is exhausting. I’ve been there; you’ve probably been there too. I became a librarian to do social justice work and was shocked that so few of my colleagues shared that motivation. With the exception of special programs (generally time-limited, grant-funded and small) what I saw was good solid traditional children’s librarianship in the local area, and little effort/ability to reach beyond that. When I questioned this, both in library school and in public libraries, I was shamed. And I don’t even know if the librarians who shamed me realised that I was part of the group they were putting down. I think this point required its own post at a later date, so I’ll move along to the last point now.

#4. I read the above and feel sometimes like I “should” be out there fighting the good fight, reforming children’s librarianship. I have worn my self out in such battles before, though, and I am old enough to recognize that there are times in life when one can do that and times when it’s not a wise choice. My young family and my health are priorities right now. So I have found another way to fight a different “good fight” by doing public interest work elsewhere.

Right now I am completely happy with where I am. I have accepted that life often leads me down the most unlikely path, and I am loving and learning so much from health librarianship. I feel respected and treated well, which is a rare and wonderful thing in a job. I am working in the public interest, if not always directly with the public. I have met a lot of amazing people and learned tons from them. Doors I didn’t know I’d be interested in peeking through have opened to me due to my current position. And I have a job that is family-friendly; a very important quality while my child is young.

But every once in a while I do get a bee in my bonnet about getting back to work with kids, and working to make change in youth librarianship where I live. And at those times I think that someday, maybe someday, I will roll up my sleeves and jump back into that youth work I loved so much. I can only assume that if it is meant to be, the right opportunity will present itself one of these days - probably when I least expect it. We shall see.

If there are any youth librarians reading this, I am curious: have you noticed any of the above factors where you work? What have you done about it?

ETA - For aspiring youth librarians, what are your thoughts or plans regarding the state of children’s librarianship and social justice?

-Greyson

Differing opinions on the HP Lexicon: Do we have Soul?

In considering the merits of J.K. Rowling’s lawsuit against the author and publisher of the proposed Harry Potter Lexicon, the outcome may depend largely on how much context the judge considers relevant to the letter of the law. (Background on the case in this previous post.)

A Legal Opinion
FindLaw’s Julie Hilden writes about the HP Lexicon case as strictly an IP issue. She delineates two issues in the case:

1. “the right of the original author to control her creative work,” and
2. “the supposed right of others to freely make use of it.”

As a librarian rather than an IP lawyer I admit to getting my back up a bit at the outset of this article, based on the stated hierarchy that places creator control on a higher plane than public use and re-use. Much as some publishers might claim otherwise, Fair Dealing/Fair Use is not an inferior or less legitimate part of copyright law when compared with Creator Rights. These two elements of copyright law coexist in order to attempt a balance that is in the public interest, rewarding creative work without unduly locking it up and preventing derivative works.

In her article, Hilden delineates the “four key factors” that courts should use in determining “whether an unlicensed use of copyrighted material is a fair use.” These are interesting to me, as a non-lawyer, to consider:

1. Is the use “transformative”
2. Is the work creative?
3. What portion of the original work is used?
4. What is the impact on the market for/value of the original work?

According to Hilden, the first three of these factors cut in favour of Rowling (the third perhaps less strongly than the first two). The fourth factor, she also finds falling in favour of Rowling’s argument, although most weakly of all the factors.

This may all be correct from a strictly legal standpoint. It is true that there is little new “creative” (as in fiction, or creative writing) content added to a reference work. It is true that a reference guide will generally use much of the source content. The market value question…well, I don’t know if that one can even be argued, truly, but if all other points are found in favour of Rowling the fourth one could just limit any damages owed.

However, it is Hilden’s closing that shows how decontextualised this legal discussion really is. She writes:

“those looking for legal battles pitting creative Davids against soulless Goliaths ought to look elsewhere. The creativity here is virtually exclusively Rowling’s, for it takes little soul to reshuffle text someone else has written.”

Little Soul.
Interesting choice of words, as I am sure many colleagues in the information professions will agree. Does it require little soul to create reference material? Are bibliographers and lexicographers inherently slight-of-soul?

This year-old profile of Steve Vander Ark in a local newspaper (the Grand Rapids Press) paints him as, frankly, very soulful. Vander Ark is apparently a “prayerful” Christian who doubles as a staunch defender of the HP series against allegations of evil and witchcraft at the religious school in which he is a library media specialist. This article – written well before the Lexicon lawsuit was filed – paints Vander Ark as a thrilled reader, obsessively creating a HP reference to promote the books and draw others in to his fannish enthusiasm. Not only do other fans fawn over Vander Ark’s resources –Rowling and Scholastic also gush about their utility.

The GR Press article contradicts the idea of a lexicographer as possessing “little soul,” either in religious, moral or creative sense. What Vander Ark has done is not create fiction or new characters, but cultivate a community and stand up for values of intellectual freedom. I am no great HP fan (there, I’ve said it) but I am under the distinct impression that Vander Ark is among the fandom leaders who have greatly contributed to the success of the HP empire. Small publishing is not typically a lucrative business. I would guess that Vander Ark will be lucky if he makes the equivalent of pennies of book profit for every hour’s work he has put into the HP Lexicon - especially if Rowling does indeed compile her own more authoritative lexicon. My understanding is that Vander Ark did most of his Lexicon work online without even a book contract in sight. I have to say that it really does sound like Vander Ark undertook this project as a labour of love. Al, but does love equal soul?

What is Creativity? What is Soul?

And then there’s the question of whether, “prayerful” qualities of some individuals aside, bibliographic work, scholarly commentary, and reference work are creative; whether they have soul.

Oof. Yes, we know librarian work is frequently both behind the scenes and taken for granted. But you really feel it when someone says the work you do, organizing the world’s information and making it accessible to the masses, is soul-less.

My introduction to the bibliographic work of librarians was my supervisor in the Oberlin Conservatory Library pouring years of her time into An Index to African-American Spirituals for the Solo Voice - a bibliography that has perhaps more soul than most. I suppose it could be argued that providing an index to solo spirituals is non-creative, non-transformative, and an example of a white academic re-using creative content from the African American community. However, in a world dominated by lieder and arias, providing soloists, vocal instructors and musicologists – particularly those of African descent - with vastly improved access to music of an historically oppressed group may be a truly progressive, even creative solution to the whitewashing of the art music world.
Does HP have this elusive ‘Soul’ anyway?

Not according to Orson Scott Card, who responds to lawyer Dan Shallman’s assertion that Rowling “feels like her words were stolen” with:

“Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender’s Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.”

It’s been documented that Rowling’s HP books are of questionable originality – for example, “Muggles” were previously written about in 1984 by author Nancy Stouffer, creator of characters Larry Potter and Lilly Potter.

Card further points out that Rowling herself has

“already had made personal use of Vander Ark’s work and found it valuable. Even if it has shortcomings, she found it useful.

That means that Vander Ark created something original and useful – he added value to the product. If Rowling wants to claim that it interferes with her creativity now, she should have made that complaint back when she was using it – and giving Vander Ark an award for his website back in 2004.”

A Librarian Opinion?

So…perhaps a librarian’s understanding is infused with more cultural and literary context than the typical lawyer’s understanding of the case. Returning to Hilden’s four points:

1. Lexicons may well be considered “transformative” as they provide access to the literature
2. Lexicography is indeed creative in that, while non-fiction, they add original value by virtue of annotation and arrangement of information from source materials
3. Presumably (this is an assumption based on general practice in reference works; I have not seen the HP Lexicon manuscript) the fair use of source material is limited to small snippets well within the limitations for fair use typically applied to literary criticism and encyclopedias
4. The impact on the market for/value of original works is generally to enhance their usability and value, by providing more access, more excitement, or both

Thoughts? Does your library or information type work have soul?

-Greyson

The Vancouver Sun parody & SLAPP

When I moved to Canada, I was shocked to learn that parody is not a specially protected form of speech here. It is in the US, and I like to think I made pretty good use of that principle over the years. You may already be aware of some of the freedom of expression lawsuits media company CanWest has been involved with. Here’s another for the list: CanWest is suing Vancouver activist Mordecai Briemberg for a parody of the Vancouver Sun newspaper - a parody Briemberg maintains he had no hand in creating.

The parody is well done, with high production values, although I doubt anyone could mistake the four-page
parody for the actual newspaper being spoofed. The parody focuses on the alleged pro-Israel bias of the Sun and the Asper family (owners of CanWest). While the suit documentation from CanWest discusses at length Briemberg’s “anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian media activities,” the part of the suit that has actual potential legal grounds is trademark infringement. You see, the parody paper creators used the actual title “The Vancouver Sun” and mocked it up to look just like the real newspaper header. However, I daresay that CanWest will be hard pressed to show any actual damages done by reprinting the trademark.

What is most outrageous about this lawsuit is that it is a prime example of a “SLAPP” - a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Such suits are aimed at, well, shutting people up, to put it bluntly.

Briemberg maintains that he had no hand in the creation of the parody paper. Briemberg admits to picking up some copies at a public meeting at the public library and handing them out. Briemberg is a well-known activist who has been critical of the State of Israel and supportive of the Palestinian people. The best I can figure is that CanWest was pissed off about the parody and shot in the dark at a likely suspect who also irritated them, figuring that even if it wasn’t Briemberg, at least maybe the SLAPP in the face would shut him up.

In solidarity with Briemberg and/or out of anger toward this kind of lawsuit and intimidation tactic, several individuals and outlets have been posting copies of the parody paper both in print and online. Great idea!

Here’s my contribution:

Feel free to print it out and put it on your office door, post it in your neighbourhood or your own blog! Better copies of front page and a PDF of the full text (no images) are also available elsewhere.

For ideas of what else you can do/more background on Briemberg and this case, see the recent post from We Read Banned Books and the Seriously Free Speech Website. Or look at the BC Library Association resolution on the issue from the recent AGM. Seriously Free Speech is coordinating many efforts in support of Briemberg, from a Facebook group (go there for details; Facebook is too evil for me) to petition to briefing notes you can use.

-Greyson

Who CAIRS about Access to Information? (hint: Not Steven Harper)

The Canadian policy wonk blogosphere has been abuzz with the breaking of the news last week that the Tories (capital-c Conservatives for the non-Canuck readers out there) sent out a notice to civil servants advising them reporting access to information requests to the centralised database, CAIRS, was no longer a requirement.

Let’s talk about what’s going on here.

CAIRS and public access to information

Per the CBC:

Originally created in 1989, it was used as an internal tool to keep track of requests and co-ordinate the government’s response between agencies to potentially sensitive information released.

Now, users mine the database to do statistical studies, fine tune phrasing on new requests and discover obscure documents — often using the information against the government.

Over the years the database has become semi-public thanks to the work of a couple of dedicated individuals who basically recreate a public access version of the database by requesting the records of requests. Yes, it is more than a little bit convoluted that a mirror CAIRS database has had to be assembled one Access to Information request at a time, when, according to the Toronto Star

Public Works, which has operated the database, spent $166,000 improving it in 2001. As recently as 2003 federal officials had been working on a publicly accessible, online version.

In an attempt to get a better idea of the relationship between CAIRS and public access to access to information requests (that looks very strange written out…I suppose that’s a testament to how bizarre keeping access to information requests secret really is), I poked around the website of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada.

In the 2002-2003 Annual Report, the OIC says:

Of continued interest…is the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS). The system was created in 1989 and was modernized in 2000 to meet Y2K requirements. Its basic functionality remained relatively unchanged, despite earlier considerations to open the site to the public. The Board is working towards removing the remaining impediments to on-line access…

The following report, 2003-2004 considers the question “Does the government have the right to refuse on-line access to CAIR?” and discusses the tensions between the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) and the public interest and right to know. This section of the report concludes

Lessons Learned

When government institutions find themselves creating records from a database in response to an access request, they should ask whether or not on-line or real-time access to the database would be desirable and feasible. There is no reason, in law or policy, for forcing individuals to make repeated access requests for access to information which is an electronic database to which public, on-line access can readily be given. (emphasis mine)

In the most recent annual report posted, 2006-2007, there is a bunch of rhetoric about how

(T)he right of access has become more and more entrenched in the operations of government. There is more transparency and, hence, accountability in government. No, it is not always easy for Canadians to stomach what they see through the windows into government opened by the access law, nor for public officials to govern in a fishbowl. Yet excessive secrecy would be even harder to digest; our democracy is all the more vibrant for the legally enforceable right we Canadians have to go behind the “stories” governments choose to tell us, to obtain source documents, and to explore the stories which all governments store in dark corners.

…but not one mention of CAIRS in the whole report, despite the fact that “extensive” consultations have supposedly been going on. I guess they weren’t so extensive as to already be on the radar a year ago?

Why was the requirement to update CAIRS done away with?

According to the initial CBC article

A Treasury Board official confirmed to the Canadian Press on Friday that the system is being killed because “extensive” consultations showed it wasn’t valued by government departments.

Instead, “valuable resources currently being used to maintain CAIRS would be better used in the collection and analysis of improved statistical reporting,” said Robert Makichuk.

Looking into what exactly these valuable resources currently being used to maintain CAIRS might be, more specifically, I found that in the interdepartmental Access to Information Review Task Force’s report – which was issued in 2002 – the costs of administering the entire Access to Information Act were noted to have been

around $30 million annually, or less than $1 per Canadian per year. This is a modest cost, in light of the significant public policy objectives pursued by the Act: accountability and transparency of government, ethical and careful behaviour on the part of public officials, participation of Canadians in the development of public policy, and a better informed and more competitive society. (emphasis in original)

So, either the cost of administering the database has somehow skyrocketed since 2002, despite no notable upgrades since Y2K nor going ahead with the plan to make CAIRS publicly searchable on the Internet, or $1 per Canadian per year is suddenly too much money to spend on access to information?

Yes, Harper’s Tories have finished off the CAIRS database - at least for the time being -

probably hoping to avoid brouhaha by doing so quietly and with no advance notice. All part of a day’s work for an administration that is hard at work opening up access to information “more than ever before” and rewriting history. And hopefully this will backfire on them due to the growing political outcry, causing CAIRS to be reinstated.

But one thing I want to know is why was an independent journalist (and prior to that an independent academic) maintaining the only public access to this database to begin with, when in 2002-2003-2004 it was clearly being reasoned by the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada that online access was easy, inexpensive, and ethically compelling?

While the lack of mention of CAIRS in recent annual reports casts doubt on the actual extensiveness of the consultations (the consultations, regardless of extent within the government, did not seek public input) that led to the CAIRS shutdown, the apparent lack of movement toward greater public access over several years, in the face of rhetoric indicating that would be the correct direction, makes me wonder. Was this just the opportune moment to shut down a service that some never liked to begin with? What role did the Tory administration really play in this shutdown - could their general killing of government services to the public merely have provided an opportunity, or was there really a more nefarious anti-transparency agenda?

Finally, I have to admit I laughed a bit at the notion that the accountability database should be shut down because those being held accountable didn’t value the service. Didn’t you laugh at that? That’s like saying that parking tickets should be abolished because people who park illegally don’t value paying the fines.

-Greyson

Net Neutrality in a Nutshell

Here’s the backgrounder I pulled together for the BCLA Resolution on Network (Net) Neutrality. A great debt is owed to Danielle Dennie (of LibrarianActivist fame) for her assistance in writing both the resolution and this backgrounder. Yes, this has been cross-posted in a couple of other places. -Greyson

Net Neutrality in a Nutshell:
Backgrounder for the BCLA AGM, April 19, 2008

What is “Net Neutrality”?
Network (“Net”) Neutrality is “the principle that all information that is sent over the Internet should be treated equally.” This means that:

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs, like Telus, Shaw, Rogers or Bell) shouldn’t interfere in web content getting to you
• All sites and formats should be treated the same by ISPs
• Users are free to go where they want on the Internet, and access whatever information they wish

Who is opposed to Net Neutrality, and why?
The primary opponents of regulation to require net neutrality are telecommunications and cable companies. They argue that they need the ability to block or filter their networks in order to prevent illegal file sharing, viruses and spam, and congestion due to bandwidth-intensive traffic (such as video streaming). Net neutrality regulation would also prevent ISPs from levying surcharges on users or content providers who want premium (fast or equal) access to their networks.

Who supports Net Neutrality, and why?
The National Union of Public and General Employees (which represents more than 340,000 workers across the country), the Council of Canadians, the Campaign for Democratic Media, and the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, and the Independent Film and Television Alliance, to name a few. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage also raised concerns about non-neutrality’s impact on Canadian heritage, in their recent report.

Primary arguments for net neutrality are that both the Internet and Canadian Telecommunications Policy rely on the principle of “common carriage” – that public networks shouldn’t discriminate among content. Supporters of net neutrality don’t want to see the Internet run by a bidding war, with fast access sold to the highest bidder. As Michael Geist warns, “imagine a world in which Chapters cannot compete in the online book space because its content is on the slow lane while Amazon is on the fast lane.” That is a world without net neutrality.

What are some examples of non-neutrality?
Non-neutrality is often likened to a highway with a toll fast lane for content providers who pay a premium, and a regular slow lane for the rest of us. Here are just a few exampled of violations of net neutrality in Canada:

• During the 2005 Telus labour dispute, Telus blocked its internet subscribers from accessing a website that supported striking union members (and 766 unrelated sites with the same IP address)
• In 2006, Vonage filed a request for a CRTC investigation because Shaw was privileging its own VoIP service by charging a $10 fee to customers who use another company’s VoIP service
• This March, the CBC decided to use BitTorrent to distribute an episode of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister. When ISP “throttling” (deliberately slowing high-bandwidth activities) made the download of this show excessively long, Bell and Rogers Communications’ practice of “traffic shaping” came to the public’s attention – and that of smaller ISPs who buy wholesale access from the big ISPs.

Do any existing laws or regulations pertain to Net Neutrality?
The principle of Common Carriage is enshrined in Canada’s Telecommunications Act (1993), Sec. 27(2): “No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.”

But in 1999 the CRTC decided that regulating the Internet was beyond its scope. The CRTC is currently reviewing its jurisdiction over new media and their report should be released in May. Several organizations and individuals are filing submissions to the CRTC this spring, and there is a call for public hearings on the issue.