LibrarianActivist.org

- JH

The Vancouver Public Library staff have now been on strike for 1 month, 20+ days.

You can lend your support by signing this petition requesting the city of Vancouver to return to the negotiating table.
Vancouver Public Library strike petition (thanks, Toni Samek)

Also check out this article in the Tyee that speaks to one of the main bargaining issues - pay equity. Men earn $6 more per hour than women at VPL. (I’m sorry, which century are we in again …?)

Finally, the CUPE 391 hardship fund received a generous donation from this benefit concert. To make a donation, please contact the CUPE 391 Hardship Committee.

-PC-

Kudos are in order for the London Public Library’s decision to post an online discussion forum to invite public debate on their controversial Internet filtering policy.

Librarians, please weigh in on this important discussion regarding the connection between intellectual freedom and internet filtering. Thus far, the discussion is largely one-sided in favour of filtering.

Go to Internet Filtering Pilot Project Feedback Forum.

Some quick and dirty Internet filtering references from the librarian blogosphere:

Librarian.net
A search on Libworm for both the terms “internet” and “filtering” gave back these results.

I’ll conduct a more thorough review of the arguments both pro and con in the not too distannt future - in the meantime, please use the LA blog for information sharing!

-PC-

With Toronto’s financial woes are continuing on unabated, and the provincial government merely using the opportunity for some pre-election politicking, Torontonians are taking matters into their own hands at a local level.

While citizen and lobby groups in Toronto are lobbying hard on both sides, LA is here to provide information on saving TPL and other essential community services from the chopping block.

A website has been launched by the city to provide more information on the proposed tax. Here are a few highlights from the fairtaxes.ca.

Every major city in the world has fair taxes that grow with the economy — except Toronto

For every dollar of taxes Torontonians pay (income, sales, property taxes and other taxes), only 6 cents goes to your municipal government

Toronto recently ranked fifth as the world’s most livable city (1)

The average Toronto household buys and sells a home once every 15 to 20 years (or five to seven per cent of the population at any given time) (2)

Toronto’s housing market is at an all time high, with record sales and homes selling in record time (3)

The City of Toronto has the lowest municipal property tax rates in the Greater Toronto Area (2)

Municipal property taxes provide 24-hour, 7-day services like police, fire, ambulance, road repair and parks as well as libraries, recreation programs, and community centres, at a cost of about $180 a month for the average Toronto household. (2) That same household may spend $200 a month for car insurance and $150 a month for phone, Internet and television services

Sources:
1. The Economist Magazine (August, 2007)
2. City of Toronto
3. Toronto Real Estate Board press release (August 17, 2007)

Just to recap, after Mayor Miller’s proposed land transfer and vehicle registration taxes were deferred for further consideration at the first vote, libraries were the first to be hit up for service cuts which went into effect this month. TPL has posted this on their website regarding the services cuts. The ‘high priority’ neighbourhoods will continue to open on Sundays .

These TPL cuts are just the tip of the iceberg compared to what may be coming, as community centres closed on Monday earlier this week. And let’s not forget about the smaller, less-likely-to-grab-a-headline players in the arts and culture communities. The Toronto Arts Coalition - a new organization whose mission is to raise the profile of the role and importance of the arts in Toronto - while not explicitly supporting the new taxes, is providing some advocacy tools to lobby the various levels of government to support the arts. Is it just me, or does is not make your life a bit easier when folks like this give you a helping hand with your advocacy tasks?

So what you can do:

If you’re in favour of supporting the new taxes at the October 22nd council vote, here’s who you want to drop an email to:

clerk AT toronto DOT ca

In the subject line write:
“Yes to land transfer tax. Please copy to Mayor and City Councillors (arts and libraries)”

cc’d to:
dmcguinty.mpp.co AT liberal.ola.org
hhampton-qp AT ndp.on.ca
john.tory AT pc.ola.org

Include a paragraph (such as this one) into the body of the email (or make up your own):

“Dear Mayor Miller and City Councillors:

My Toronto includes:

the arts
libraries
community centres
recreation programs
public health services
museums
and the TTC

To protect my city, I support the land transfer tax as an immediate solution to Toronto’s financial crisis.

your name
address
postal code

Even MORE quick and dirty is the email form provided through Miller’s recently launched website, fairtaxes.ca. There is still room for your comments, like how community services are the bread and butter of social inclusion and a liveable, vibrant, cosmopolitan city.

thanks, Siue Moffat for forwarding the draft email and arts links

-PC-

Sorry for being late again this week - same “real world must take precedence sometimes” excuse as last week.

That also means anybody reading this has a bit less notice that September 10 has been declared “Librarians Slam The Boards” day.

Jessamyn West over at librarian.net has more details but basically, the idea is that librarians show up on any of the dozen or so “answer sites” on the Internet and provide responses while indicating that the question has been answered by a librarian.

The idea is to promote the role that librarians fill in providing quality information for others.

“This means making it clear that this question was answered by a librarian/library professional/etc. End each answer with the mention your own library, your VR service, etc. Add the link. Mention that readers should consider their own libraries, too. Promote it to local media. Keep in mind how many people don’t even realize that libraries offer reference services. Let’s surprise and delight them with our quality.

I’d like hundreds of librarians to do this. Thousands? Why not?

I see this as an opportunity to make the reference librarian community more visible. I’d like to see a number of us remain engaged in the answer services, on the chance that the users will have us in the backs of their minds when they have questions they don’t want everyone to see. As such, I’m not expecting to see a huge “blip” in our reference/VR stats because of this. But who knows? The point is to meet some folks where they otherwise wouldn’t expect us.”

I love some of the taglines they’re proposing librarians use with their answers:

# Have a question you don’t want the whole world to see?
# Librarians—Ask Us, We Answer!
# If you need more help, just contact your local librarian.
# Librarians—We eat questions for breakfast!

- JH