Guest post by Larissa Halishoff, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information
Policy class.

The discussion on trade agreements at the Information Policy conference focused on the TILMA agreement, with Ellen Gould (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) leading the group. TILMA’s effect on procurement policies was addressed, as it’s one of the most likely factors to affect libraries.  While the best value for the public in purchasing is through competition, there is a practical factor in having established relationships with vendors.  Under TILMA, building language into institutions’ procurement policies as to local preferences – ie. for local, small-run presses where appropriate – could leave libraries open to liability up to $5 million.  The B.C. government has stated that “only serious cases” will go forward, but the door remains open to pursue those cases it deems worthy of their attention.

Depending on where their funding derives from, it’s possible that some libraries could ask for an exemption, as some municipalities did appeal and were granted one.  If a library is funded both on a municipal and provincial level, it’s possible that they could be considered as well.

We discussed the importance of making the public aware of TILMA, since while the government has largely completed their public consultations, TILMA remains largely unknown to the public.  Ellen mentioned that some municipal consultations are continuing through to April, and that there still might be an opportunity to have our voices heard.

It was generally agreed that the BCLA should spearhead this initiative; to date, they have made a resolution on their position, and it was suggested that they go further in taking action – perhaps through news releases or in-house library displays on the issue.  Part of the reason that movement on this has lagged is that there isn’t been much in the media about it, especially lately; businesses haven’t really come up against it yet so there haven’t been any challenges to date.  Lacking a compelling point to strike off, it is difficult to arouse the momentum need for a change.  It looks like we need to focus on a more immediate impact than how hay is stacked in order to present an argument that will catch the public’s attention.

For further information and reading:

TILMA – official website
TILMA-BC Take Action group on Google Groups
The Peak – summary of potential impact for universities from SFU student paper
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – TILMA Press Release
Asking for Trouble – 43-page report on TILMA from Ellen Gould

Guest post by Mike Conroy of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class

In his closing plenary, Dr. Trosow discussed the importance of creating what he called a ‘holistic critical’ model of information policy.  He explained that information policy issues tend to be dealt with in distinct categories and that such an approach tends not to recognize that a single policy issue can have substantial implications in other policy areas.  What’s needed instead is a unified lens from which to look at issues.  To explain his model, Dr. Trosow used the example of paracopyright , a term he uses for ant-circumvention measures such as digital locks.  Such an issue has implications for privacy and censorship and other issues.  In other words information policy issues are“mutually co-determinative”.

Holistic

Information policy occurs in many venues.  While policy making is often thought of as being conducted at the federal and international levels, it in fact can occur at all levels including down to the institutional level where library policy is made.  These levels of policy making are crucial and are areas where everyone has the ability to influence policy, raise questions, and speak out when library boards, management or departments are making policy decisions.

By recognizing the interrelationship between policy issues, interest groups can reach a greater understanding with advocates in other policy areas.   Furthermore, there is no finite list of information policy issues.  Dr. Trosow, suggests a list of policy issues, “such as” copyright etc, to emphasize the point.  He also suggested that the war in Iraq could be considered a library issue because it affects the ability of governments to provide services in the United States, and mentioned an ALA resolution in opposition to the war.  He also urged the audience not to shy away from the legal side of policy issues, suggesting that information professionals are just as qualified to comment on policy as lawyers.

Critical

The critical aspect to Dr. Trosow’s model involves the adoption of a critical theory approach to information policy.  It involves looking at the qualitative aspects of information, viewing information as a social construction, and recognizing that technology is embedded in our social relations while rejecting technological determinism.  Dr. Trosow also looks to political economy to argue that information is a public good and should therefore be considered over market forces.

Barriers to the adoption of a critical holistic model

Dr. Trosow suggests that the major barrier to the adoption of a critical holistic approach to information policy is perception.  He highlights the narrow thinking of institutional or organizational mandates: “It’s not a library issue”.  Because of the narrow thinking on policy issues, only a narrow range of solutions are ever sought out.  Libraries enter into complex licensing agreements to avoid ‘messy’ fair use issues.  And the dilemma of compensating artists and creators is addressed through copyright-centric proposals to the exclusion of other ideas.  Dr. Trosow notes that there could be plenty of other ways to fund the arts besides imposing greater copyright restrictions.  For example, academics get paid up front for their work or are paid in tenure, which is why they have less issues with copyright.

By broadening our scope to the scale of the holistic - critical framework, we may be able to find new and innovative ways of addressing information policy issues that take into account the complexity of implications and outcomes of policy decisions.

I’ll admit I was all a twitter to here Michael Geist speak.  Having followed his extensive blog, on a semi-regular basis, and having seen the incredible variety and sheer mass of material that he posts there, I had built him up to be the kind of superhero that Gordon Duggen, in portrays himself to be in <a href=“http://www.appropriationart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/51_state.pdf”> 51^st State The Fight to Save Canada</a>.  I wondered which of Geist’s personas would we, the audience, encounter tonight, the indefatigable advocate, the law professor, or columnist? 

As Geist began to speak this question was quickly answered. Geist, the advocate was present! He indicated that his talk was divided into two sections.  In the first he would speak about what had happened on the copyright front in Canada recently and then he would address the question ‘Why Protest?’  Geist began with a very brief sketch of the recent history of copyright legislation in Canada, and quickly turned to the issue of advocacy, taking the audience on a whirlwind tour of a host of activities and actions taken by Canadians promoting fair copyright.  Many of these activities began as Geist’s own initiatives, but things like his Facebook group, protesting Bill C-61, soon snowballed to include the participation of thousands.  I won’t repeat Michael’s excellent post below, but Geist presented a seemingly endless list of such initiatives.

Geist turned next to the question of why Canadians are protesting this issue.  He broke his answer down in to four points.  First, that social technologies have made it easier to effect change through protest than ever before. This led to the point that, the government, following the lead of the “interweb” is slowly becoming 2.0 itself.  Next, he pointed out that protesting copyright reform was ‘not just about copyright but about our digital future’. Technology is developing in a way that is not compatible with the vision endorsed by the supporters of C-61.  In order to ensure that this technology is able to continue to develop, to best serve the needs and desires of the populace, bills like C-61 that would necessarily hijack these developments need to be stopped.  Finally, Geist said that Canadians should protest because the bill limits what he called “copyright choices.” Following this, Geist went on to briefly describe ‘Part III’ of his talk addressing the future of copyright in Canada and, in his view, the inevitable rebirth of C-61 under another name.

Geist was asked about what initiatives Canadians should take when C-61 makes its return.  He answered this question primarily by suggesting that Canadians should keep doing what they had for C-61 the first time.  This troubled me.  It seemed to me that despite all of the protesting C-61 was going to be passed.  The only thing that prevented this was the timing of the recent election.  Facebook groups, wikis, the presence of the issue on twitter are all wonderful, but the internet is a big place and I was left wondering if many of these initiatives were preaching to the converted.   If copyright activists are wrongly stereotyped as being “geeks in basements with computers” than perhaps it is time for the thousands who support the initiative, on the web, to bring the same numbers and enthusiasm to the streets.

Part 1 – The Facts

The second speaker in the first morning session at Jumpstarting the Public Sphere: Information Policy for the 21st Century was York University’s, David Skinner. His talk, “Medi-Ated: What’s on the Menu for Canada’s Big Media”? addressed some of the major issues surrounding the concentration of media ownership in Canada. Dr. Skinner is on the steering committee of the Campaign for a Democratic Media.

He began by setting the context within which media concentration arose. Canada traditionally has had three distinct and recognizable media ownership models: Government, Community, and Private. According to Dr. Skinner the market driven neo-liberal economic model and the commoditization of information has in more resent years fostered an environment that allows corporations to gain control over vast sectors of the Canadian media market. The corporations have been able to make a case that the other two sectors of media engage in exclusionary practices that undermine free market competition. In this way private corporations have managed to squeeze into sectors of the news media that had previously been unavailable. Remaining regulations concerning media ownership have little impact upon the reality either. In Canada all news media is owned and controlled by only three corporations. The worst is BC where 100% of the media is controlled by one corporation, CanWest.
The tri-opoly of corporate media interests have essentially divided up the market amongst themselves through horizontal ownership, vertical integration and cross-ownership even though the CRTC has recently moved (yet again) to limit cross-ownership. In fact two, CTV-globemedia and CanWest of the “big three” media dynasties in Canada dominate the national media market. Dr. Skinner talked about how this concentration is limiting the perspective of the media and negatively impacting the diversity of voices and opinions being disseminated.

Limits to perspective come from editorial interference. Instances of editorial interference can limit opinion and fact alike. Many times editors are afraid, especially in profit driven corporate sectors of losing advertisement or sponsorship and therefore refuses to run a piece or requires that the journalist alter it. The trade-off (less accurate or honest reporting) is justified by the market (keep advertisement or sponsorship).
The corporate buy-up of media has also lessened the diversity and localness of information. As companies acquire each other, the number of employees and other staff are cut. This leads to the mass syndication of a few journalists and a vacuum in communities of local coverage.

As mentioned previously the CRTC’s regulatory control of media is weak and has little impact on the erosion of government and community media at the hands of the corporate free market. With this in mind Dr. Skinner finished his talk with ideas about what is and can be done in order to restore balance to the media diet in Canada. He focused on citizen participation as a remedy for the affliction of media concentration in Canada. His 5 prong approach is simple:

1) Let the CRTC know that the rules that are in place are inadequate

2) Lobby for Canadian ownership rules not to be changed

3) Demand public and community media be included on basic cable and by satellite providers

4) Promote independent and alternative media

5) Support public interest groups that focus on media reform – like The Campaign for a Democratic Media

Part 2 – A small observation and a question

Dr. Skinner mentioned that the internet as a tool could prove helpful in assisting to balance media in the face of the overwhelming concentration that is taking place in print and TV. He praises the power of the internet for distribution but is perhaps uncomfortable with the lack of production that takes place. Because of this he showed great reservations about the use of this medium by “citizen journalists” in an effort to democratize the media. His opinion was that citizen journalists merely fill a gap and “lack the time and skill to create comprehensive work.” Therefore, he concluded that the best actions to take are ones aimed at systems correction.

However, if a long range plan is adapted to insure citizen journalists have these “skills” and presumably the time to cover the news then wouldn’t this be a more truly democratic model of media? Should perhaps some of the focus be placed in those areas? What about things like pirate radio, zines, blogs, and other non-mainstream methods of disseminating information - which makes possible all other rights.

Guest post by Suher Zaher-Mazawi, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class.

Ellen Gould’s session on trade agreements was an eye opening presentation which underlined issues that have direct implications for libraries. Although the presentation was limited in time, Gould managed to passionately provide the audience with an overview on international trade agreements such as NAFTA and discuss their risks and restrictions on the public policy space. The focus of her presentation was mainly on the Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) < http://www.tilma.ca > between the province of British Columbia and the province of Alberta, which came into effect in April 2007 and which will be fully implemented in April 2009. She discussed the effects of TILMA on public libraries.

According to Gould, “TILMA goes beyond WTO/NAFTA”. She further explained that “unlike NAFTA, individuals can sue and get compensation under almost all of TILMA’s provisions”. This results from the power within TILMA to eliminate any obstacles to trade and investment between the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. TILMA, often referred to as the “gold standard”, supersedes other existing and new regulations that challenge and restrict trade or investment. As a result, regulations have to be reconciled between the two provinces. This means that business will no longer receive government assistance and no additional training can be required of workers from across the border.

As public institutions, libraries should be aware and concerned about the implications of TILMA and the risks it creates on libraries. According to TILMA, governments cannot pose any obstacles to private investments. As well, all purchases of goods over $10,000 have to be tendered. These are challenges that conflict with what libraries do. Since TILMA does not clearly refer to libraries and provides no exceptions to protect libraries, it is not clear whether our public programs are considered a risk on investment or not. Issues such as culture and access to information are also beyond TILMA’s consideration.

Another major concern for libraries is the issue of procurements and tendering. Based on TILMA, all purchases of goods over $10,000 must be tendered. Libraries currently tender contracts over $10,000 for different purposes including the purchase of books.

Does that mean that libraries no longer can directly purchase books from local vendors? Or send their books to the local bindery?

Furthermore, based on the Memorandum of Understanding between the two provinces on Post-Secondary Education, which justifies cooperation in research and information sharing, how would this affect academic libraries in the area of distance education programs, research and data initiatives, as well as programming?

Gould concluded her talk with metaphor describing trade agreements, whether international or national, as “lions in the grass”. She explains that we all need to get together to “chase them from our territory”.

The big message for libraries in BC (as well as in Alberta), is that there need to be a concerted effort to place exemptions from the TILMA agreement as far as libraries are concerned, or institute safeguards. If the BC municipalities managed to get zoning exemptions, libraries can do it too!

Here at the BCLA Info Policy blog, we’re going to have some guests in the coming week.  The students in LIBR 561: Information Policy at SLAIS are all attending the Jumpstarting the Public Sphere: Information Policy Issues for the 21st Century conference Oct 23-24 at Vancouver Public Library.

All of our cool and keen students are going to be blogging part of the conference, and putting their posts here as guest posters.  Keep your eyes out for them in the next week or so!

Interesting article from BBC - excerpt:

The Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive has been developed by a community based in Australia’s Northern Territory.

It asks every person who logs in for their name, age, sex and standing within their community.

This information then restricts what they can search for in the archive, offering a new take on DRM

Dr Kimberly Christen, who helped to develop the archive, told BBC World Service’s Digital Planet programme that the need to create these profiles came from community traditions over what can and cannot be seen.

“It grew out of the Warumungu community people themselves, who were really interested in repatriating a lot of images and things that had been taken from the community,” she said.

“You find this a lot in indigenous communities, not just in Australia but around the world… this really big push in these communities to get this information back and let people start looking at it and narrating it themselves.”

Thanks to slashdot via Mark Jordan on Digitization Blog

Tuesday October 14th is the First International Open Access Day! More than 100 organizations are taking part.

Did you know that BCLA is recognized on Peter Suber’s Open Access Timeline as one of the first library associations in the world to adopt a Resolution on Open Access (in 2004)?

Correction note:  October 14 is Tuesday, not Monday as previously posted.  Thanks, Tara!

Update: STM is the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.  Here is their website:  http://www.stm-assoc.org/

The STM publishing industry is worth about $5 billion annually (according to a study commissioned by STM, by Mark Ware, which can be found on their website).  So if these folks have an opinion on copyright and libraries, they have some rather substantial resources to lobby for their point of view.  The $5 billion pretty much comes from academic library budgets, with a small percentage from special libraries budgets and another small percentage from advertising.  So in a roundabout way, we could be paying for lobbying efforts to eliminate library exemptions under copyright.  (Tara, thanks for asking the question).

Libraries and the educational community should take note of the STM Digital copyright exceptions and limitations for scholarly publications in the education and research communities
(Position paper of the International Association of STM Publishers), available for download from here.

In brief, the position of STM is that because education is their primary market, there is no reason for education and research to be considered a “certain special case” under the Berne convention. There is no reason to allow interlibrary loan, for example, if items are available for purchase. STM recommends licensing contracts with fewer rights than are available to libraries and educational institutions under copyright law.

The Basic Principles begins with:
STM publishers prepare and distribute their materials (scholarly and scientific journals, books and databases) for and into the research and education communities, communities that therefore constitute their most significant audiences and markets.

Comment: these arguments sound very similar to the ludicrous Conyers bill in the U.S. The basic principles imply that STM publishers are alone responsible for preparing and distributing materials. This is not correct. A great deal of the research that is published by STM publishers is paid for through publicly funded research agencies; the articles themselves are written by authors who are not paid for their work, and reviewed by peer reviewers who are not paid for their work, either. The contributions of STM publishers are real, and of value, but only a small proportion of the total resources that go into the works that they publish.

Authors - retain your rights!

People often ask, “so…what kind of stuff does the information policy committee do?”  I still stumble through an answer.

Um…the IPC is a British Columbia Library Association committee that is concerned with all kinds of um…information policy issues, like copyright, access to information, open access scholarship, intellectual property, privacy, RFID, open source software, trade treaties, net neutrality and media democracy.

Many people have said that they feel intimidated to get involved because while they are interested in some of these issues, they feel like they don’t know a whole lot about any of these issues.  And we use a lot of acronyms.  If you are interested, please get in touch with Jeff Davis at jeffd@eln.bc.ca.  We would like you to get involved, speak up on the listserv, come to a meeting, a salon, or the upcoming conference.

And if someone’s throwing around acronyms you don’t understand, ask them to explain.  Chances are there are other folks who have no idea what the jargon means either.  I will try to curb my use of TLAs.

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