Open Access Salon Writeup (& more) in the BCLA Browser

Not only has Allison Trumble done a great job organizing the rebirth of the IPC salons, she wrote up last week’s for the BCLA Browser: IPC Salon: Open Access Week. Thanks Allison!

The Browser also has an article by Leanna Jantzi about BCLA joining the Protect Our Privacy Coalition, which we in the IPC are very proud to be a part of.

BCLA joins the Protect Our Privacy coalition

In light of mounting concerns over user privacy and government surveillance of internet activity, the Intellectual Policy Committee is very pleased to announce the launch of the Protect Our Privacy coalition. We are also very proud to say that BCLA is a member – we are the first library association in Canada to participate in this effort.

In partnership with OpenMedia and dozens of other organizations around the country, the coalition centers on the following statement:

More than ever, Canadians need strong, genuinely transparent, and properly enforced safeguards to secure privacy rights. We call on Government to put in place effective legal measures to protect the privacy of every resident of Canada against intrusion by government entities.

Learn more at https://openmedia.ca/ourprivacy

OpenCanada’s Surveillance Primer

OpenCanada.org has done a bang-up post about NSA-style surveillance in Canada by CSEC entitled Canadian Surveillance 101. Here’s their preamble:

The information leaked by Edward Snowden about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)’s data collection programs is driving a nation-wide debate in America over the future of privacy and national security. Americans, however, are not the only ones who should be considering the consequences the NSA’s activities. Other countries, including Canada, operate similar surveillance programs and participate in national security data sharing partnerships that crisscross the globe. Given this reality, and the fact that much of Canadians’ online data flows though servers located in the U.S. where it is not subject to any Fourth Amendment protection, we think the tenor of the privacy-security debate within Canada is too quiet. Expanding the debate will require engaging more Canadians with what we know and don’t know about surveillance in Canada. To this end, here is a modest exploration of what we’ve learned since the Snowden story broke.

Go forth and read!

Census for Sale: Library and Archives Canada and Ancestry

One would think that the publication of old census data would be a great thing for information professionals. Since our federal government has decided to scrap the long-form census in our current days, at least there’s the old data for people to examine and play with. Including cool stuff like the complete 1921 Canadian Census which Library and Archives Canada have now made available for all Canadians, since that’s their job, right?

Well no.

Instead, as per their August 9 press release Library and Archives Canada instead have gotten a company known as Ancestry to provide tiered access to the data, though they are selling it as more like “You, Canadian citizen, are now spoiled for choice!”

Before we get into the choices let’s just mention that everything involved here is stuff Canadians have already paid for. This is a small part of what taxes are for: Collecting information important to Canadians and making it accessible to them. That’s the service here. But LAC has sold this to a private company.

So now, you will have access to the data through LAC or other libraries that pay Ancestry for the privilege of accessing the search tools. In most libraries you need to be on-site for the privilege of searching through information that is supposed to be every Canadian’s. LAC is so happy to tell you that you “only” have to pay to search the information if you want to do it at home. And don’t forget you aren’t paying LAC for this, but Ancestry, a private company.

In a perfect world far from this vale of tears, the information in the census would be indexed and searchable and remixable and free for all. If this was being done as a government service maybe it could be. They would need more librarians and other experts because this kind of thing doesn’t cost nothing, but rather than creating something for Canadians, Library and Archives Canada hands it over to a private company to make money off of.

A national library is supposed to be a leader, but shrinking the institutional vision down to merely adding to private companies’ revenue streams is not leadership behaviour. Policies that work towards actual Open Access that helps develop culture instead of commodifying it is what we want.

At this point (as with the Heritage project we’ve discussed here before) there’s no transparency as to what kind of exclusivity Ancestry gets in regards to this data or who is actually creating the metadata or any of the details.

What is to be done about this? I don’t know. When I’ve talked with librarians about issues with LAC in the past they’ve said things like “Well, they don’t have any money.” We need to reframe this debate. We’re librarians and our job (if I may be preachy and idealistic for a moment) is not to generate revenue but to disseminate information within our communities. If we’re forced to do both, one of them is getting short-changed. At the very least we should be pointing out the lies about “free access” when it is actually paid for by libraries. And we’re paying twice.

Open Media on Privacy and the Cloud

Catherine Hart wrote an excellent piece on privacy and storing data in the Canadian infosphere on OpenMedia:

As more and more of our personal information circulates online, is stored in ‘the cloud’, or is moved about on USBs and other portable devices, it’s essential that we make sure those data flows are secure. And as we’ve been seeing, due to a lack of safeguards they’re not secure at all when it comes to the government. Cloud services are likely more secure for both citizens and the government than carrying around USB keys or hard drives full of sensitive data (see “data breaches” below), but that increased security goes out the window when government bureaucrats recklessly use them for spying without our consent.

I tweeted it already but just wanted to stress how good a resource that post is. It’s filled with links so if you’re inclined to get lost in rabbit holes that’s an excellent place to start.

This kind of article is important because it’s not focused on the personalities involved, but the policies. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be supporting Snowden and Manning and Swartz as people, but the issues these people brought to light are bigger even than them.

Organizational Transparency and Closed Doors

We haven’t been talking about the Library Archives Canada/Canadiana digitization project here on the IPC blog these past few weeks for a couple of reasons. The first is mostly because a lot of the discussion has been taking place on mailing lists I’m not actually on, so whenever I sit down to write I feel a bit like I’m missing some crucial context. But the bigger reason is that other people have been writing very clearly on the matter and I haven’t had anything to add.

I’d suggest that the very best piece of commentary I’ve read has been Mita Williams’ The Heritage Heritage Minute and The Digital Library of Canada We Lost. She goes through the chronology of the situation and provides a very even-handed analysis of why people have concerns about the project. Her essay is peppered with links, including to Kevin Read’s We Ask for Transparency, Heather Morrison’s explanation of why the misuse of Open Access in the leaked documents was problematic, and of course Bibliocracy (I’ll just link to Myron’s most recent post which came after Williams’ was published.

In the face of all that there’s not a lot that I would be adding. But I want to make a comment tying this together with the other big information news of the last month. The American Library Association just had one of their annual conferences and at it they passed a resolution about the NSA spying scandal saying:

that the American Library Association recognize Edward Snowden as a whistleblower who, in releasing information that documents government attacks on privacy, free speech, and freedom of association, has performed a valuable service in launching a national dialogue about transparency, domestic surveillance, and overclassification.

Interestingly, the next day that resolution was “replaced” by this resolution in which Snowden’s name was removed and the language was changed to reflect a more general support for “privacy, open government, government transparency and accountability.” In a letter to the Social Responsibilities Round Table Al Kagan said:

As progressive councilors have discussed for the past two years, it is all fine and good to support the results of whistleblowing, but this does not happen without the brave action of individuals. Whistleblowers put their jobs, their careers,their freedom, and sometimes their lives in danger by taking bold measures to bring abuse of the public trust to the media. Nothing happens without the individuals, and they need all the support that they can get.

He also called for librarians to be braver and lead discussion, rather than simply accepting backroom deals.

Libraries in general could benefit from a more open discussion of how our organizations work, especially when some members have issues with the results. Being quiet and unquestioning doesn’t help anyone improve.

access, surveillance & edward snowden

As it stands right now, there are three biggish stories going on in the information policy world right now. As is usual with the IPC, access to information is our unifying thread.

First the World Intellectual Property Organization’s treaty that wants to ensure print-disabled citizens can’t have access to materials for them. That’s going on right now. In Canada library organizations are urging Canada’s negotiating team to argue for certain positions:

• That authorized agencies have the right to bypass a technological protection measure to make alternate format available to another authorized agency or qualified individual worldwide.
• That the treaty not include a “commercially available” restriction on the cross border supply of alternate formats. This would have the effect of placing cumbersome, if not unworkable, requirements authorized entities and severely impede the availability of content to all, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries.
• That cumbersome and unnecessary treaty language referencing other legislative (US fair use) or treaty (Berne’s 3 step test) regimes is unnecessary.

CULC’s full letter is available here. One of the issues with these treaties and negotiations has to do with our old friend Digital Rights Management (or TPM in Canada) and how the language of these agreements (and Canadian laws) are set up to benefit well-resourced lobbying groups even while there’s some reasonable lip-service paid. So this is an issue.

There’s also rumbling about Library and Archives Canada putting up paywalls on digitized materials. This one doesn’t have anything official out there yet, so we’ll just link to some preparatory ire.

And then thirdly there’s the big American news about the NSA keeping databases of phone calls and the program PRISM that gives the NSA access to internet companies’ information and just today Edward Snowden came forward as the leaker of that NSA information.

There’s a lot out there on these things to read. David Simon (of The Wire fame) wrote about how this PRISM thing isn’t a scandal because this is how the law works. Warrants are still necessary, and do you really want to take these tools out of law enforcement’s hands?

Frankly, I’m a bit amazed that the NSA and FBI have their shit together enough to be consistently doing what they should be doing with the vast big-data stream of electronic communication. For us, now — years into this war-footing and this legal dynamic — to loudly proclaim our indignation at the maintenance of an essential and comprehensive investigative database while at the same time insisting on a proactive response to the inevitable attempts at terrorism is as childish as it is obtuse. We want cake, we want to eat it, and we want to stay skinny and never puke up a thing. Of course we do.

Others are talking about what shoddy journalism these leaked stories are since all the tech companies are denying that they’re participating. And there’s some indication that all these companies are doing is just making the NSA’s job easier within the bounds of the law.

I have some sympathy with David Simon (and John Scalzi, for that matter) when they say that this whole thing is just how the world works and pretending to be surprised now is bullshit. Money and Power and all that. These are the laws we made to create a legal surveillance state. But that doesn’t make it right. (It’s also impossible to feel any sympathy for (and infuriating to see) a government who is trying to make itself out as the gut-wrenched victim though.)

There’ll be more coming. But one of the things to be aware of here is that even though it’s possible the only person who did anything illegal in regards to this whole NSA program is Edward Snowden for leaking it (and it is very interesting that Hong Kong is where he’s hoping to avoid being extradited; the Chinese probably have more clout on that than they were portrayed as in The Dark Knight) that’s a huge problem. We wouldn’t be able to talk about what these surveillance laws hath wrought if someone hadn’t snuck them out. This just highlights the importance of challenging and changing laws to fit the needs of citizens instead of law-enforcement and spy agencies.

Of course, it is possible to talk about these policies even without a scandal of illegality. Michael Geist has a great post (filled with links and analysis) talking about how the issues raised by PRISM apply in Canada:

Does this mean Canadian authorities are engaged in similar forms of surveillance? That phone companies such as Bell and Telus are subject to warrants similar to those faced by Verizon? That Internet companies co-operate with Canadian authorities? That Canadian and U.S. authorities share information obtained through programs such as the Verizon meta-data program or PRISM? That Canadians are targeted by the U.S. programs?

The law would suggest that all of these things are entirely possible. Given the integrated communications networks and the increased information sharing, it seems very likely. Yet since virtually everything remain shrouded in secrecy, Canadians don’t know for sure.

That “shrouded in secrecy” is the problem in all three of these issues we’re talking about today. As information professionals we need to push for more transparency in our laws. We also need to be working with organizations pushing for more privacy for individuals and more openness for governments (and other powerful organizations). This is one of those times we need to be supporting OpenMedia and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Last word for today comes from Edward Snowden:

The primary lesson from this experience was that “you can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act.”

What do you think we should do?

Collection of Statements from Infopros on National Librarian/Archivist Qualifications

Since Daniel Caron needs to be replaced as the head of Library and Archives Canada (the position is currently being filled by Hervé Déry on an interim basis), information professionals with an interest have been putting out some ideas of what we would like to see. There was a Heritage Roundtable on LAC at parliament on May 17 (organized by NDP Heritage Committee members) where, among other things, Myron Groover said:

We need someone who will not shy away from the difficult task of paring down a bloated and self-serving management culture which has treated LAC as a personal fiefdom. And we need someone with a strong personal understanding of information technology as it relates to libraries and archives – this point cannot be emphasised enough.

Since that roundtable meeting the Joint Statement on Qualities of a Successful Librarian and Archivist of Canada was created and has been endorsed by a number of library organizations across the country (that link was to the Canadian Health Libraries Association’s blog post version, but if you prefer it in PDF format, try the Canadian Library Association’s page). This story has been picked up by Gemma Karstens-Smith in the Ottawa Citizen, and David Akin had a good piece about having a librarian instead of someone with an economics degree at the head of LAC..

Accompanying the statement on that CLA page is an open letter (PDF) to the Clerk of the Privy Council giving a bit more context (though not what the Clerk of the Privy Council’s role in appointing a new head of LAC would be). The Canadian Association of Research Libraries also has an open letter to Stephen Harper on the topic of a new LAC head.

It’s excellent to see information organizations across the country trying to be heard on this issue. Hopefully we’ll have some impact.

Daniel Caron’s Departure

The big news today is that Daniel Caron has resigned as the head of Library and Archives Canada. Teresa Smith has a good story in the Ottawa Citizen which includes quotes from IPC’s Myron Groover.

Groover said that since the beginning of Caron’s tenure in 2009, he “wasn’t very interested in working with librarians, archivists or technology specialists, thinking instead that he could just go it alone and figure out this huge modernization push without any sort of grounding in fiscal or professional reality.”

While there’s been a bunch of talk on Twitter about being glad to see the back of the figurehead for gutting LAC and destroying the NADP in the name of mismanaged digitization, it’s also important to realize that for the community of information professionals this doesn’t mean much.

Myron says it better here, but in summary: The shitty policies at LAC are still in place. Their budget has still been slashed. There will be a new head of LAC and it’s important that we make sure that that person is someone who takes the role of a memory institution and its challenges seriously and that requires us to do the work to make our voices heard.

bc library conference 2013 recap

This is not a formal report by any means, but a bit of a recap of some IPC-related activities at this year’s BCLA conference. Feel free to add information in the comments or on Twitter about info-policy related activities you participated in as well.

We start achronologically with the BCLA Annual General Meeting on Saturday morning. The IPC had two resolutions on the table: one condemning the muzzling of government employees meant to provide a “[f]ramework for activism to support employees of Library and Archives Canada, employees of other government libraries, and government scientists” and one commending the life and work of Aaron Swartz. Both resolutions passed but there was a significant moment when our chair was asked what exactly the point of the Aaron Swartz resolution was, what would happen because of it? Our chair responded that this was something to do to show people in the future that yes librarians care about this kind of stuff, we don’t just remain silent, and it was also a decent human thing to do.

Didn’t expect to get teary at AGM. Thx @bibliocracy for resolution in memory of Aaron Swartz #bclc2013

— erinzee (@zeeerin) May 11, 2013

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Outside the AGM, IPC partnered up with Steve Anderson from OpenMedia.ca to talk about netroots advocacy and the kinds of things librarians can do to get involved. Steve took us through the activities his organization has been involved in, which involved a healthy amount of meme-ification. Canadians do care about a neutral internet even if they don’t think about it, and Myron pushed the attendees to educate ourselves so we can talk about these issues with our members who would be affected by online spying bills, predatory pricing and undemocratic international agreements (read: everyone). And Barbara Jo May made sure we were optimistic in our abilities to make change in our world.

Participation gap is on the mat with @bibliocracy and @openmedia_ca here #bclc2013. (So glad to have @stranack on the case #nopressure)

— Maryann Kempthorne (@maryakem) May 11, 2013

On Friday night the Hot Topics panel got heated near the end which was probably to be expected with a librarian, an information ethics specialist plus two panel members were current/former board members of Access Copyright. The discussion began with Rowland Lorimer explaining to the audience that “a book is just a license in physical form.” Kevin Williams from Talonbooks talked about the challenges of copyright and digital sales in a changing marketplace and Tara Robertson talked about the ridiculous workflows imposed on her job of making accessible versions of textbooks for Langara’s students. I feel that the panel didn’t quite get into the back and forth the way I’d hoped. I think Micheal Vonn’s views on privacy and whether it is possible to be an ethical stealer of information would have been worthwhile to learn about. It was interesting to see people with a stake in the Access Copyright regime defend their York lawsuit and deny that the supreme court had actually ruled on fair dealing, but that occupied only the very end of the presentation (before Tara suggested continuing the discussion over beer).

Essential we don’t forget this RT @shlew: Risk of this “orgy of the free” is losing a culture that supports professional creators. #bclc2013

— Franklin Sayre (@fsayre) May 11, 2013

Outside of Info Policy specific events, Phil Hall‘s Friday session entitled “Are We Irrelevant Yet?” had a good test for what makes us relevant. Librarianship is about an X and a Y added together. The X is “information transfer/empowering people to use information” or whatever your preferred definition is (mine is “facilitating knowledge creation”) and Y is “anything else.” I appreciated that as a way of deciding what we should be doing in our libraries and in our librarianly lives, really. It gives us a way to say that yes, advocating for laws that help us empower people is part of being a librarian, saying yes LAC employees speaking at conferences and sharing the knowledge of their specific Y contexts is hugely important (and shouldn’t be smothered by terrible codes of conduct). Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but it was a way for me to look at this information policy stuff we go on about and how to explain its connection to day-to-day work in a library serving the public (which I’m lucky enough to do).

Of course, meeting up with librarian colleagues and talking about the shit (cool, bad or otherwise) going down in the world today was a big part of what these conferences are about. I come out of the conference excited to be doing more work with IPC this year and hope you do too.