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Archive for May, 2008


Net Neutrality Bill C-552

Published May 29th, 2008 in net neutrality | No Comments »

Charlie Angus (NDP MP) has presented a private member’s bill on Net Neutrality. Bill C-552 is actually an amendment to the Telecommunications Act.

This enactment amends the Telecommunications Act to prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions. This enactment also prohibits network operators from preventing a user from attaching any device to their network and requires network operators to make information about the user’s access to the Internet available to the user.

The CBC writes that the Liberals have not yet given indication that they will support the Bill, preferring to let the CRTC intervene in cases of Net Neutrality infractions.

Line 36.2a in the Bill says network managers will still have the right “manage the flow of network traffic in a reasonable manner in order to relieve congestion;”. I’m not a legal expert, but what does “reasonable manner” mean. How will ISPs interpret that. Hopefully the CRTC will address this when it looks at the Bell throttling case.

EPA library reopenings a farce

Published May 27th, 2008 in environment libraries | No Comments »

PEER has reported that although the EPA libraries have been ordered to reopen their libraries, they are being placed in ridiculously small spaces with few resources. According to the news report pertaining to the Chicago EPA library::

  • The re-opened library will be in a vacant reception area on the 16th floor of a federal building;
  • The re-opened library will occupy less than one-tenth the area of the closed library and will be only slightly larger than the typical men’s restroom in that same building;
  • No provision is made to restore the unique Great Lakes ecological collection or to recover any of the other holdings from the former library.

Net Neutrality Rally

Published May 27th, 2008 in net neutrality | No Comments »

From 11h30 to 13h30 today, there will be a Net Neutrality Rally on Parliament Hill. (See CBC article). There will be some great speakers, like Charlie Angus (NDP MP) and Phillipa Lawson (CIPPIC). Ottawa-Gatineau WiFi will be providing roaming WiFi, so hopefully we’ll get some live bloggers?

To keep up to date on Net Neutrality info, Michael Geist has been writing a great blog on Neutrality.ca. Also consider joining the SaveOurNet coalition.

Donations for Chinese Libraries Requested

Published May 22nd, 2008 in book exchange, public libraries, social responsibilities | No Comments »

The Chinese America Library Association (CALA) is collecting donations to assist those devastated by the recent earthquake in Sichuan Province.

In addition to the thousands of lives lost, at least 21 libraries in the province were severely damaged or destroyed.

To make a donation please go to http://www.cala-web.org/forms/earthquakedonation.htm

Michael Dowling
Director- International Relations Office
Chapter Relations Office
American Library Association
50 East Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611
[email protected]
ph +1 312-280-3200
fax +1 312-280-4392
www.ala.org

(via CLA mailing list)

Economic inequality, social exclusion, and libraries

Published May 1st, 2008 in social justice, social responsibilities | 2 Comments »

For those of you not on the CLA listserv, there was an announcement of the publication of “The Community-Led Libraries Toolkit” (pdf), put together through a project called the “Working Together Project” led by four public libraries (Vancouver, Regina, Toronto, and Halifax). The toolkit:

offers eight Tools for use by library staff as they work out in community spaces with socially excluded individuals. The Toolkit is based in the Project’s real-life experiences and the lessons shared are based on some of our challenges and successes.

Also published recently are two new reports (here and here) by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on the growing economic inequalities in Canada.

NAL: another government library at risk

Published May 1st, 2008 in advocacy, agricultural libraries, budget cuts | No Comments »

As though the American government didn’t learn from the EPA library closure fiasco and outrage, according to Library Journal, the National Agricultural Library FY09 budget proposal includes a $3 million reduction. An excellent letter of concern was sent by the United States Agricultural Information Network to Washington. Here is a portion of the letter:

The President’s FY 2009 Budget Estimate includes $18 million for the USDA National Agricultural Library, a $4 million reduction from the FY 2008 Budget estimate, and $6 million less than the FY 2007 actual budget for the Library.

Significant changes proposed by ARS include redirecting $993,000 in AWIC funds to support NAL participation in a new digital portal for veterinary medicine; eliminating funding for the National Agricultural Law Center, the nation’s leading source for agricultural and food law research and information, which complements and works with NAL, which does not cover these areas; and most importantly, reducing funding for non-digital content/document delivery/Special Collections by $3,000,000.

As a national library, the print collection is core to researchers and the agricultural history of the nation. It is this reduction of $3,000,000 for the print collections that is of immediate concern. In FY 2007, NAL document delivery services filled 29,000 requests from the NAL collection for materials which were available in print-only-not available electronically. In FY 20009, such requests for print-only materials would not be filled.

The ramifications of the proposed reductions or redirections of NAL funding include not only the inability for NAL to fill requests for materials available only in print, but the complete cessation of book and journal purchases, and the inability to catalog and make available print materials already acquired. In addition, cancellation of the receipt of free publications from the U.S. and other countries would have a major impact. In recent years the USDA required all USDA-authored publications to be delivered to the NAL; but what good is this if there no money to catalog them and make them findable?