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.

The Progressive Librarians Guild decries the distortion and abuse of research and science by corporate greed exemplified by Elsevier and Merck, and calls upon librarians to educate the public and researchers about all instances of collusion of academic and scholarly publishing with profit-making business entities in palming- off corporate propaganda through deceptive publishing practices, which debase scholarship and science, conspire against the public interest, and pollute the well of genuine scholarly information and communication.

On another note, in 2007, a coalition called PRISM (Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine) started a website whose goal it was to “advocate for policies that ensure the quality, integrity, and economic viability of peer-reviewed journals.” This group was established by the Executive Council of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). On the AAP Board of Directors sits an Elsevier representative.

This group has nothing to do with the current Elsevier scandal (the coalition was created to lobby against government mandated Open Access policies), but perhaps Elsevier should go back and read some of the principles (see how often the word integrity is used) and goals of this coalition, which was created to tout the importance of private sector publishing:

PRISM seeks to educate all stakeholders about the importance of maintaining the integrity of published information, and sustaining the incentives for all publishers to invest in the system of independent publishing that continues to sustain the public’s trust in scientific and medical research.

We each have a unique library with a plethora of rare, independent and hard-to-find, and sometimes out of print, local & international publications books about justice, identity, diaspora, diy, politics & political thought, economics, community, biography, sexuality, sex & gender, and much more. In our database, we have combined the titles and publication information for our four libraries.

The catalogue contains books, zines, DVDs, videocassettes, reports and kits. It’s even possible to rate and review the items in the catalogue.

1. Does your university (or library) network administrator shape traffic (i.e. slow down or block traffic from certain sites or for certain applications – for example MySpace, Facebook, YouTube or streaming video or P2P traffic)
2. How does this affect you?

At Concordia University, for example, Facebook is blocked (but not on the wireless network) and traffic is throttled at certain times of the day in order to “manage the network”. (I think the idea is to limit the amount of video streaming that occurs, you know that web 2.0, user generated world that we live in? Apparently a University is not the appropriate place for living and learning in the 21st century.)

This has obvious consequences on the library. For Facebook, it means that if we want to advertise there or keep in contact with University groups that have pages there, we have to work from home (not with the VPN, of course) or we have to work on a laptop using the wireless network (when it’s working. The connection in the library at Concordia is not very reliable).

As for traffic throttling at Concordia, it affects library databases that have streaming video, such as Theatre in Video. (Notice the warning we’ve put up)

Other possibilities include how it can affect teaching and research. See this great post by a professor at the University of Ottawa: The University Shouldn’t Shape My Traffic

So please forward this post around, and contact me with your experiences. (danielle dot dennie at concordia dot ca)

UPDATE: I’ve just found out the University has reversed its decision on banning Facebook. What welcome news!

The damage that these cuts will cause are compounded by a scientific culture that is already “becoming too conservative and constrained by social pressure and the demands of rapid and easily measured returns.” There is a great article in PhysicsWorld called “In search of the black swans” that looks at the stiffling culture of result-focused science. Here are a few good sections:

(…) modern science is in danger of losing its creativity unless we can find a systematic way to build a more risk-embracing culture.

The voices making this argument vary widely. For example, the physicist Geoffrey West, who is currently president of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico, US, points out that in the years following the Second World War, US industry created a steady stream of paradigm-changing innovations, including the transistor and the laser, and it happened because places such as Bell Labs fostered a culture of enormously free innovation. “They brought together serious scientists — physicists, engineers and mathematicians — from across disciplines”, says West, “and created a culture of free thinking without which it’s hard to imagine how these ideas could have come about.”

Unfortunately, today’s academic and corporate cultures seem to be moving in the opposite direction, with practices that stifle risk-taking mavericks who have a broad view of science. At universities and funding agencies, for example, tenure and grant committees take decisions based on narrow criteria (focusing on publication lists, citations and impact factors) or on specific plans for near-term results, all of which inherently favour those working in established fields with well-accepted paradigms. In recent years, tightening business practices and efforts to improve efficiency have also driven corporations in a similar direction. “That may be fine in the accounting department,” says West, “but it’s squeezing the life out of innovation.”

(…)

The result, he suggests, is that science is becoming less a “bottom-up” enterprise of free-wheeling exploration — energized by the kind of thinking that led Einstein to relativity — and more a “top-down” process strongly constrained by social conformity, with scientific funding following along fashionable lines.

Some Internet service providers (ISPs) use traffic management techniques to influence or alter the flow of Internet traffic on their networks. The use of certain practices has raised concerns in Canada and other jurisdictions. On November 20, 2008, the CRTC initiated a proceeding to examine Internet traffic management practices and consider whether such practices are appropriate.

They are looking for comments on:

• Impact on User Experience
• Impact on Innovation
• Approaches to Internet Traffic Management
• The role of the CRTC in traffic management practices
• ISP notifications

A full transcript of the discussion threads will be placed on the public record of the hearings. Comments will be accepted up to April 30.

• 172 books (6%) had significant African or African American content.
• 40 books (1.3%) had significant American Indian content.

Thanks to Mitali for the link.