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Archive for September, 2008


Digital Wish List: Week 2

Published September 25th, 2008 in elections, internet rights, net neutrality | No Comments »

This week’s episode of Spark on the CBC gives an interview with Ron Deibert who runs the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. His digital wishlist for the Canadian election is available as a video and can be summarized in three excellent points:

  1. An elected government should ensure net neutrality
  2. An elected government should protect the Internet internationally to ensure free, unfettered access to information in all countries
  3. An elected government should support technological innovations that have goals other than those of making money (or those that follow the market rationale). For example, technological innovations that can support human rights.

Ron Deibert says that the Internet is a shared global communication medium but it’s being “carved up, colonized, and militarized” and an elected government in Canada should do all it can to stop this.

Gearing up to vote

Published September 23rd, 2008 in advocacy, telecommunications policy | No Comments »

The CLA has put together an Election Kit that pulls together a series of issues of importance to the library community and how to bring those to the attention of the candidates. These include copyright, net neutrality, public library infrastructure, etc.

In the meantime, the CCPA has just come out with a free online book called The Harper Record.

This book gives a detailed account of the laws, policies, regulations, and initiatives of the Conservative minority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper during its 32-month term from January 2006 to September 2008.

Of interest to libraries, the section entitled “Telecommunications on the Free(Market) Way“, by Marita Moll and Leslie Regan Shade.

Geist at Concordia

Published September 23rd, 2008 in copyright | No Comments »

Michael Geist was speaking at Concordia University last week. His “Why Copyright?” speech covered the history and fallout of bill c-61. It also gives an overview of why copyright has become such a huge issue for a many Canadians in 2008.

Digital wish list for the elections

Published September 18th, 2008 in elections, internet rights, net neutrality, telecommunications policy | No Comments »

There is a great series on CBC’s Spark during the elections caled Canada’s Digital Wish List.

We’re asking people who work in technology and innovation to tell us what they think Canada needs to do now in order to be considered a major innovator in the future.

The first item on the list is given by Heather Creech, Director of Knowledge Communications at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD). She wishes for a strong vision and national policy for our access to the Internet. She decries how Canada is no longer a leader in broadband access. She believes that the Internet infrastructure should be looked at as seriously as roads and health care. This infrastructure includes not only lines and cables, but also the content, the software, and the engineers that make the whole system work.

She definitely is dead on, but with the campaign being centered mostly on how low the shots can go, I’m skeptical about seeing such serious issues discussed by our leaders.

Canadian librarian, Sherrill Cheda

Published September 2nd, 2008 in advocacy, culture, progressive librarians | No Comments »

There have been a number of recent articles about Canadian librarian, Sherrill Cheda, who died June 7th, 2008. Cheda was a librarian at Seneca College, a columnist for Chatelaine, executive director of the Canadian Periodical Publishers Association, helped found the New Feminists in the early ’70s, and was also one of the co-founders of Emergency Librarian. See here, here and here for obits. Yesterday, Section 15 also had a great article about her.