LibrarianActivist.org

Lisa Spieker, a librarian at Rasmussen College, won a Pathfinder Award a couple of weeks ago for her work on the college’s Diversity Committe, and her work to educate staff and students on campus via panels and open discussions about diversity.

The local newspaper in Minnesota, where the award was presented, quoted Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Board members as saying that “Lisa sets an air and expectation of tolerance and respect from staff and students [....] (She) has created a culture where people can ask questions, respect and be respected, and learn from each other.”

Awarded in Mankato, Minnesota, the Pathfinder Awards are intended to recognise people who or organisations that “exemplify the ideas of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

(Via).

A great story from Ars Technica looking at a new study out by the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) entitled: “Free to Invest: The Economic Benefits of Preserving Net Neutrality.” (pdf) The article summarizes IPI’s cost-benefit analysis this way:

Were the big ISPs allowed to offer priority access tiers, it would represent a siphoning of money from the Internet’s content sector to its infrastructure sector. Free to Invest’s cost-benefit analysis calls this transfer bad economics. Competition in the Internet content market is much stronger than it is in the market for broadband service, the report contends. (…) [A]bandoning net neutrality would transfer money from the most competitive parts of the Internet and actively reinvest it in the least competitive.

Every January 1st is Public Domain day, where copyright expires for thousands of works across the world — except in the United States, where decades of copyright extensions have eliminated public domain day for many years to come. Notable authors whose works will be in the public domain in Canada (where copyright is life + 50 years) and other countries (where copyright is life + 70 years) include author, singer, and songwriter Boris Vian, Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, Canadian inventor of basketball, James Naismith, and former Québec Premier Maurice Duplessis, one of Canada’s most repressive politicians, especially when it came to freedom of expression.

Connected to Public Domain day is a new celebration created, by Public Knowledge, called World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD). It will be a day of free talks in Washington, D.C. on such things as ACTA, emerging media, and participatory culture.

According to this post in BoingBoing, the Philadelphia Free Library System is shutting down. How can this be possible? From the library website:

Specifically, the following will take effect after the close of business, October 2, 2009:

• All branch and regional library programs, including programs for children and teens, after school programs, computer classes, and programs for adults, will be cancelled
• All Parkway Central Library programs, including children programs, programs to support small businesses and job seekers, computer classes and after school programs, will be cancelled. We are exploring the possibility of relocating the Philadelphia Author Series programs to other non-library facilities.
• All library visits to schools, day care centers, senior centers and other community centers will cease.
• All community meetings at our branch and regional libraries, and the Parkway Central Library, will be cancelled.
• All GED, ABE and ESL programs held at Free Library branches will be discontinued, students should contact their teacher to see if other arrangements are being made.

In addition, all library materials will be due on October 1, 2009. This will result in a diminishing borrowing period for books and other library materials, beginning September 11, 2009. No library materials will be able to be borrowed after September 30, 2009.

Even as we remain hopeful that the State Legislature will act and pass the enabling funding legislation, we wanted to notify all of our customers of this very possible outcome.

SaveOurNet.ca had a town hall meeting in Ottawa yesterday that I was fortunate enough to attend. I’m not sure if it will be podcasted, but the Toronto one was.

Here is a summary of the Ottawa event. (I hope I was able to get everything right):

Steve Anderson’s introduction:
Anderson defined net neutrality and went on to mention that net neutrality is like electricity. You can plug any toaster into an electrical outlet, and it will work. That’s because Hydro companies do not tell you which toasters can or cannot function. Similarly, if two guys in a garage make something (an application or service, etc.) for the Internet, it should just work, no questions asked.

Speaker #1: Michael Geist:
Geist mentioned “four” hanging fruit relating to Net Neutrality that need to be addressed by a combination of groups such as the CRTC, the Competition Bureau, the legislature, the privacy commissioner, etc.:

1. No content blocking
2. Transparency (all ISPs should disclose their network management practices, etc.)
3. No undue preference (ISPs should not provide preferential treatment to their own content. Pelmorex gave a good example of this happening by wireless service providers (WSPs) during the new media hearings.)
4. Deep Packet Inspection (the privacy commissioner has raised serious privacy concerns regarding this technology).

Speaker #2: Charlie Angus:
Charlie Angus (NDP MP for Timmins) talked about how the Internet is a tool that empowers citizens. According to his website “Charlie Angus was a major organizer in the fight to stop the Adams Mine dump and the battle to stop toxic waste imports into [his] region.” He said that it was the Internet that allowed the organizers to win these battles by educating themselves on the issues.

Speaker #3: Rocky Gaudrault (Teksavvy):
In his short speech, he mentioned that we need to challenge the use of the word “choice” in the context of choosing ISPs in Canada since the large telcos and cablecos own 96% of the market.

Question Period and Discussion:
Marita Moll, the discussion facilitator, summarized the issues and themes that were discussed. These are the issues that we need to move forward on regarding Net Neutrality advocacy:

1. Spectrum reform: It was mentioned that we need to get prepared on the issue of auctioning off the white space (it should happen in 2010) which will become available in the analog to digital transition in 2011. Geist mentioned that it should be allocated for unlicensed use (like WiFi) so that anyone can connect to it.
2. Net neutrality is an economic issue just as much as it is a social one. The Internet drives a big part of our economy and we cannot let that be controlled by a few ISPs.
3. Innovation: There is less innovation in Canada because the prices to access the networks are so high. There will also be less innovation on the network if ISPs can decide what runs (applications, services, content, etc.) on their networks and what doesn’t.
4. Competition: There needs to be much more competition to lower prices and increase innovation and improvements on the network (speeds, access, etc.)
5. Geist’s four hanging fruit (see above)
6. We need to enable legislation to protect Net Neutrality (Charlie Angus and his private member’s bill C-398)
7. Create toolkits to help citizens get involved (SaveOurNet is working on this)
8. Infrastructure buildout: Australia, for example, is spending billions on their broadband infrastructure. We also learned that Industry Canada is planning on building a map that will show broadband deployment in Canada that will include speed of connection as well.
9. The debate needs to be framed as a free speech issue
10. The debate needs to be framed as an access issue
11. The debate needs to be framed as a citizens rights issue (Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication)

Other people in the room commented on the fact that we need to engage the research, medical and educational communities as this will affect all of them. It was mentioned how so much research is being done in the Arctic now, but because there is so little broadband penetration there, it is actually quite difficult to send the data back to the researchers’ institutions.

All in all, it was an excellent and well attended evening with a lot of pertinent and interesting discussions.