A fond farewell and a brief introduction

With classes completed and papers submitted, FLIF co-chairs Richard and Masha are graduating and leaving the FLIF fold. Congratulations to both of you, and many thanks for a wonderful two years of service in Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom! New co-chairs Brianna, Julie, and Madelaine have some mighty big shoes to fill and we look forward to continuing the fine work you've done.

In addition to existing partnerships, we hope to broaden our horizons with a greater focus on issues in international librarianship. Stay tuned for more information!

Brianna, Julie, and Madelaine,
FLIF Co-chairs 2009-2010

Progressives head to the Alberta Library Conference

The Alberta Library Conference happens later this week. The conference theme is “Cultivating our Future: Seeds for Success,” and the program includes a variety of sessions/themes that relate to issues of intellectual freedom and social responsibility. The environment, alternative materials, and services to diverse communities and excluded populations: all of these will receive some attention at this year’s conference.

Here are some of the sessions that, we think, bring together libraries and the library and information profession with outreach movements, social change, and IFSR issues. And if you need a reminder of what those issues are, please see the post linked here.

Friday
Session B1 Thinking Critically About Sustainable Development
Presenter: Keith Seel

B7 Connecting with New Canadians: Growing Library Services and Programs for Culturally Diverse Populations
Presenters: Shannon Vossepoel and Tamara Van Horne

B11 Dollars and Sense: The Marriage of Economic Success and the Nonprofit/Voluntary Sector
Presenters: Karen Lynch and Russ Dahms

C6 Perspectives on Aboriginal Publishing: A Look at the Aboriginal Publishing Industry from an Aboriginal Viewpoint
Presenters: Larry Loyie and Constance Brissenden

Saturday
F5 Public Libraries as Community Places
Presenter: Francine May

F9 Growing a Prison Library: The Greater Edmonton Library Association Experience
Presenters: Kirsten Wurmann, Valla McLean, Liz Dennett, Allison Sivak

F11 Lorne McRae Intellectual Freedom Lecture
Presenter: FLIF (Masha, Richard, Tara, and Madelaine will be heading to Jasper to share our student perspectives and discuss some of our current and future projects. We’re honoured to have the opportunity.).

G3 Libraries as LEEDers
Presenter: Gerry Meek

G6 Gender Expression: an Interpretation of the CLA’s 2008 Statement on Diversity and Inclusion
Presenter: Moyra Lang

G10 Open Access: What’s In It for My Library?
Presenters: Andrew Waller and Heather Morrison

H3 Sustainable Library Design: Attitudes for the Future
Presenter: Carmel Gatt

H8 Serving Socially Excluded Populations through Community Development Librarianship
Presenter" Amelia Martin

H9 Growing Your Library’s Resource Landscape
Presenter: Leeanne Morrow

H10 Advocating an Alberta Feed to CLA’s Annual Survey on Challenges in Canadian Libraries
Presenter: Toni Samek

We recommend that you try to catch these sessions if you can. Too bad so many of them overlap :( If there’s an ALC session that belongs on this list that we missed, please let us know by emailing flifblog @ gmail.com (without the spaces).

All the best to the presenters, their guests, and all conference-goers. See you in Jasper!

FLIF receives UofA Senate recognition

FLIF is pleased to inform you that our student group has been nominated for the University of Alberta Senate's Beyond These Halls community service recognition program.

This Senate distinction recognizes the community service efforts of all groups and individuals that are nominated, but they also select certain individuals/groups to acknowledge at a celebration event. We have recently been informed that the Senate has selected FLIF as one of the groups to be specifically recognized at this ceremony.

Group members, supporters, and guests may join the festivities, and any FLIF committee members and anyone from the School or community wanting to attend are welcome.

The celebration event is:
Wednesday, March 25th
Timms Centre for the Arts
4-5:30pm
The Senate office has requested RSVPs to senate.office@ualberta.ca.

We want everyone to know that it is the commitment of our members and FLIF supporters that make us a strong student group, one able to give back to our community. It is nice to have the efforts of past and present FLIF committee members and efforts recognized in this fashion, and our thanks go out to everyone for their encouragement. Finally, we feel that the partnerships we’ve forged with the UofA CLA Student Chapter and the members of GELA's advocacy and outreach subcommittees have created unique opportunities for FLIF. We hope that these groups and their members will share this distinction with us, as their excellent contributions make us the group we are today.

Masha and Richard
FLIF Co-chairs, 2008/09

Banned books cafe and Journal story

I just got in from the Banned Books Cafe at EPL. This was another great event celebrating Freedom to Read Week. Members of the audience read from banned or challenged books, including some of our FLIF members. Thanks to Caroline and Ray for their efforts organizing this event, and for inviting us to join them. Thanks as well to EPL for hosting, and continuing to remind our community about the freedom to read.

Also, a story from today's Edmonton Journal was brought to my attention. It discusses Amin Amir, a Somali-born artist cartoonist now living in Edmonton. His political cartoons are read internationally, and their content would cause him no end of troubles in Somalia. It is in part because of the intellectual freedoms we enjoy here in Canada that Mr. Amir is able to continue his work. (Link here)

FtRW is here

In support of Freedom to Read Week, the UofA CLA Student Chapter and Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom (FLIF) are participating in this annual information campaign.

Members of our respective groups can be found in the HUB Mall pedway between 9am to 3pm each day this week.

Come learn more about Freedom to Read Week and intellectual freedom, buy some of our swag (we have buttons!), or simply check out the controversial material we’ll have on display.

With a minimum donation of $2, you're eligible to enter our raffle for an iPod Shuffle. All proceeds from the buttons and raffle will be donated to the Women’s Prison and Bissell Centre Projects sponsored by the Greater Edmonton Library Association. (For more information on these projects, please visit GELA's advocacy and outreach webpage.)

See you there!

Here's a quick shot of today's setup (with apologies for the poor image quality).

Other FtRW resources

Looking for some good resources on banned and challenged books? Want to know more about censorship? Here are a few items you might check out.

Sandra Bernstein's "When the Censor Comes"

The CLA/Freedom to Read challenged books and magazines list (pdf)

The 2007 results of the CLA first annual Survey of Challenged Publications (pdf)

ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books of the 20th Century (with explanations)

ALA's list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000) (pdf)

In 1986, the ALA sought to clarify the language around book challenges and book banning. Regarding a challenge:

* Expression of Concern. An inquiry that has judgmental overtones.
* Oral Complaint. An oral challenge to the presence and/or appropriateness of the material in question.
* Written Complaint. A formal, written complaint filed with the institution (library, school, etc.), challenging the presence and/or appropriateness of specific material.
* Public Attack. A publicly disseminated statement challenging the value of the material, presented to the media and/or others outside the institutional organization in order to gain public support for further action.
* Censorship. A change in the access status of material, based on the content of the work and made by a governing authority or its representatives. Such changes include exclusion, restriction, removal, or age/grade level changes.
(copied from here)

More than just the freedom to read

With Freedom to Read Week upon us, we want to remind everyone that intellectual freedom and social responsibility go hand-in-hand. LIS professionals engage with a variety of issues in their personal and professional lives, and here are just some of the past and present topics related to intellectual freedom and social responsibility. These can be found in our society and beyond, and it is important that we be mindful of these issues as we celebrate this event.

Academic freedom
Alternative press, media and publishing
Book censorship and challenges
Burning books
Collection development and management
Community development and outreach
Confidentiality and privacy (eg. FOIPP, PIPEDA)
Copyright, copyleft, and fair use
Destruction or looting of libraries and cultural properties/artefacts
Democracy and citizenship
Diversity and cultural awareness
Environment and sustainability
Free speech in the workplace
GLBTQ, gender, and identity
Hate speech and revisionism
Homelessness and poverty
Human rights
Information access and dissemination
Intellectual freedom
Internet access
Internet filtering and monitoring
Labels and rating systems
Legislation regarding freedom to access information
Library funding (especially for public and school libraries)
Licensing of media and other technology
Literacy and reading
Media
Neutrality
Non-traditional materials and materials in other languages
Open access
Open source
Outsourcing and privatization
Public spaces/forums in libraries
RFID
Social networking
Social responsibility
Surveillance and mass registration
Technology and the digital divide
Unions

IBBY/PEN Canada Banned books event

I've been meaning to post this. Thanks to Becky for the reminder...

Banned Together
Alberta's finest read the censors' favourites

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Freedom to Read Week, some of Canada's best authors will gather in Edmonton to read from outrageously entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking books for young readers.

Research has shown that one third of books that have been challenged in Canadian schools don't make it back onto the library shelves. Responding to a recent rise in censorship, our province's top creators of books for grownups are joining with their kidlit counterparts to send a powerfully subversive message: no one should stand between a growing reader and a good book.

Greg Hollingshead, Myrna Kostash, Linda Goyette, Todd Babiak, Jocelyne Verret, Caterina Edwards, Marina Endicott, Gwen Molnar, Marty Chan, Kuot Alith and Theresa Saffa will read from children's and young adult books that have been challenged.

You might hear excerpts from Kevin Major's Hold Fast, which was banned for containing foul language, mild sexual content and - egad! - bad grammar; Dennis Lee's Lizzy's Lion, which is apparently too violent and promotes cannibalism; Gwen Molnar's I Said to Sam, which according to one principal had words like "exotic" and "elaborate" which were far too difficult for grade two students.

The event, a joint initiative of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and PEN Canada, will be held at 7 pm on February 26, at the Grant MacEwan Conference Theatre (5-142 10700 - 104 Avenue). Admission is free of charge.

For more information or to schedule interviews, please contact Merle Harris (IBBY Canada - Alberta Chair) at merle@merleharris.com or (780) 444-7214.

What: a celebration of Freedom to Read Week
When: Thursday, February 26, 7 to 9.30 pm
Where: Grant MacEwan Conference Theatre (5-142 10700 - 104 Avenue), Edmonton

Banned Books Café at EPL

Once again the Edmonton Public Library will be hosting a Banned Books Café during Freedom to Read Week.

Details:
Banned Books Café
At 7 pm on Thursday, February 26, 2009
Stanley A. Milner branch (downtown)
Free admission

"Celebrate your freedom to read, view and listen during Freedom to Read Week! Come to the Centre for Reading & the Arts, Stanley A. Milner Library to hear readings from challenged books and to participate in discussions about censorship and your freedom to read."

EPL also has a freedom to read website for teens:
http://www.epl.ca/freedom/

A little bit of FLIF history

For those that are curious about the venerable origins of FLIF, here's a link to a 2004 article from School Libraries in Canada. It's an inspiration to read about the inaugural year: documentaries! craft fairs! free books! CJSR appearances! Take a look and leave some comments about what crafty and creative activities you think FLIF should get involved in.

Concordia/GELA Freedom To Reed Week Event

Celebrate Canadian Freedom to Read Week!

Concordia University College Library and the Greater Edmonton Library Association
present...

Toni Samek
Those Free Little Words:
Freestyle Talk about
Canada’s Freedom to Read Week

Friday, February 27, 2009

Come out in support of Canada’s Freedom to Read week by attending this public lecture by award-winning scholar Toni Samek from the U of A’s School of Library and Information Studies. Toni is the author of Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility in American Librarianship, 1967-1974 (2001) and Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-first century guide (2007). Enjoy a further opportunity to engage in discussion at a wine and cheese reception and the Concordia Library Gallery.

Presentation at 2:00 pm in the Concordia Auditorium
Wine and cheese reception in the Library Gallery from 3:00 – 5:00 pm

GELA Members: $10.00
Non-Members: $20.00

To register or for more information, email myrna.dean@concordia.ab.ca

This is the result of big-box chains

Were you planning to attend Canada's annual book fair/publisher's trade show? Well, it's likely you won't be going.

This recent CBC report indicates that both the national BookExpo and the Toronto Book Fair have been canceled.

These shows, normally targeted at large and small booksellers, have been cancelled after three of four major publishing houses withdrew from the show. The article cites Canada's largest bookstore chain as the reason behind the withdrawals, since there are fewer and fewer independent booksellers to target.

This G&M report confirms the cancellation, but make no mention of the rationale other than the aforementioned withdrawal of certain publishers.

Freedom To Read Week: An Excerpt from Toni Samek

The Canadian Library Association (CLA) University of Alberta Student Chapter and the Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom (FLIF) have started planning and preparations to recognize Freedom to Read Week (FtRW) on campus during the week of February 22 - February 28, 2009.

We're hoping to use this blog as a place to collect and discuss background information and highlights related to this commemoration. We encourage our members to contribute content and links as we gear up for FtRW events.

Below is an excerpt from Toni Samek's guest editorial in Feliciter (Vol. 52 No.1 2006). It provides a helpful anchor for Freedom to Read Week activities in that it looks beyond classic challenges to library resources and considers the broad threats to intellectual freedom.

"Librarians’ development and articulation of the broad concept of intellectual freedom has been an important and necessary step in the evolution of librarianship into the 21st century. In 2006, our understanding of intellectual freedom transcends struggles over classic challenges to library resources as well as more recent controversies around open Internet access policies. We grapple continuously with intellectual freedom issues on countless fronts at local, national and international levels. These issues include commercialization of public space, copyright and access to information, cultural destruction, digital preservation and obligations to memory, imposed technologies, anti-terrorism legislation, privacy, privatization, self-censorship and information suppression, social exclusion, limits to the international exchange of ideas, transborder data flow, implications of World Trade Organization agreements such as GATS, freedom of inquiry, and access of citizens to government information" (18).

Could any of these examples be incorporated into our promo materials or posters?

- Masha

It's your economy too.

The economy. Library issue? IFSR issue? When you consider that the economic downturn hits everybody (and usually harder on the underprivileged), and that library budgets experience cuts while library usage increases, then I say yes, the bad news is a library issue.

As more and more major governments near and far pledge stimulus packages for their struggling economies, it makes sense to ask what stimulus is in the first place. That's why I like this brief article from the Globe. The reminder is that stimulus means spending, not saving; by putting money back into the economy, rather that cutting taxes, we encourage others to do the same.

Geeks wanted

Do you have tech skills and a social conscience? Instead of money, are you willing to donate your time and design, programming, coding, artistic, or other abilities to help NGOs and other organizations with their technical needs?

Reddit.com has created the Feed a Need project, which asks those with a bit of time and energy to help non-profits with some of their IT projects and problems.

Not only can you do good, but there's a chance for some schwag and other cool treats.

ars technica article

Pew "Future of the Internet" report

The third annual Pew "Future of the Internet" report was released today. These annual reports summarize perspectives and offer points of view about advances in technology and the future of the Net from various Internet gurus, activists, and others. The full report is online here.

Of particular interest for IF and SR advocates within LIS are the sections on:

• social tolerance


• intellectual property and copyright


• privacy, transparency, integrity and forgiveness

Have a look, and share this with anyone you think might be interested.

Access to government information

Some legal wrangling about whether access to government information is a right or a privilege is happening in the Supreme Court of Canada. The Ontario Criminal Lawyer's Association (the other CLA?) is challenging that province's FOIPP Act.

Some media groups have voiced their support for the challenge.

For more info, some articles: Globe, Toronto Star, Canada.com.

Oh, it's been a while.

This one came to me through the PLG listserv.

A lengthy New York Times article on Google, censorship, the appropriateness of content (eg, on YouTube), and international laws and perspectives.

Tuesday Vote-day!

Today is voting day here in Canada, and we're encouraging everyone to go to the polls. Go vote. Now!

Not yet registered? You can register at your local polling stating.
To find your local polling station, use this tool from Elections Canada. The tool will also give you a list of candidates in your riding.

To register at your polling station, you can do a couple things:

• provide valid ID that shows your name and address


• on one document, such as a driver's licence


• on two documents, both with your name and at least one with your address, such as a health card AND a utility bill


• swear an oath, and have a registered voter vouch for you also under oath

More information on registration can be found here.

Finally, of all the Edmonton-Strathcona candidates we contacted using the CLA's election widget, only Green Party candidate Jane Thrall got back to us in time for election day. She noted that the Greens do not have a specific library policy, but that she herself is library supporter. Ms. Thrall responded to many of those CLA questions, so the rest of her points are directly quoted below.

• Libraries, along with Universities, are the keepers of public knowledge. Assuch, we have a duty to ensure that they remain open, public, and protected from the attacks of those interested only in maintaining a monopoly on knowledge (read: copyright lawsuits)


• Libraries should be free to the public. Some jurisdictions in Canada now charge substantial annual fees to obtain library cards (e.g. in Edmonton, it is $12, which is a lot of money when you are on a shoestring). Libraries greatly benefit lower income Canadians, as they prevent knowledge from being the domain of the wealthy, and these are exactly the people least able to afford escalating fees.


• The Green Party of Canada recognizes that the creators of knowledge need some form of legal protection to ensure that they can profit from their works, but at the same time, we must not allow the pendulum to swing entirely to their side, as this would decimate the library system, and no municipal government would want to take the legal risk of being responsible for such institutions.


• The Green Party recognizes that many of society's problems can be solved through increased literacy and education, and libraries are crucial to this.


• Libraries often are the only public places that offer free access to the internet, access that is becoming more and more essential in modern life.


• Libraries are one of the few remaining "public meeting places" that are physically embodied, rather than some message board on an arbitrary website. As such, they take an essential role in the crossroads of our society.


• Net Neutrality is an issue that will continue to increase in importance. The government of Canada must ensure that corporate interests to not interfere with the ability of Canadians to communicate over the Internet. The companies that have argued that they must "throttle" internet traffic (Bell, Rogers, Telus) base their arguments around the fact that internet traffic is increasing more rapidly that the Internet's ability to carry it. The Government of Canada has a critical role to play here, encouraging the development of more advanced network infrastructure (communication lines, etc). Canada was an early leader in early days of the net, but government lethargy and inaction has had a definite impact, with Canada's "connectivity" ranking steadily dropping relative to other nations in the developed world.

Thanks for your comments!

It's still election time, with one week to go until Canadians head to the polling stations to choose a new government.

The Canadian Library Association has created this handy widget that will allow you to easily identify the major party candidates in your riding. Also, it will automatically generate an email for you, asking the candidate(s) to respond to issues of particular concern to libraries and librarians. Provide some basic information, then simply select the candidates to whom you wish to send the message, and submit.

Wondering what our four local major party candidates would say, FLIF sent a message using this widget. Here is the full-text of message sent:

As a student interest group that is actively involved within our library community, FLIF (the Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom) is writing to you today to find out your position on key issues that the library community is currently facing:

1. The Canadian Library Association (CLA), as well as many Canadians, continues to have growing concerns regarding proposed amendments to the Copyright Act. If elected, will you support the need to introduce copyright legislation that would ensure users’ rights are recognized in balance with the rights of creators and rights holders?

2. Literacy continues to be a top priority for libraries and educational institutions. If elected, will you support the need to implement of a national literacy strategy?

3. The Library Book Rate, a Canada Post service since 1939, provides a reduced rate for mailing library books between libraries and from libraries to their users. If elected, what would you be willing to do to ensure that a reduced rate of postage for library materials is maintained in order to support one million Canadians?

4. Industry Canada’s Community Access Program (CAP) provides Canadians with affordable public access to the Internet and the skills they need to use it effectively. If elected, what would you be willing to do to ensure that CAP stays alive, in order to help Canadians, wherever they live, take advantage of emerging opportunities in the new global knowledge-based economy?

5. Network (Net) Neutrality is the principle that all information or services sent over high-speed internet access should be treated equally, with no degradation or prioritization or privileges based on content, source, ownership or destination of information or service. In 2008, Net Neutrality became a very important issue in Canada. Where do you stand on addressing Net Neutrality?

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon at flifblog@gmail.com. You can visit us online at flifblog.blogspot.com

Let's see if we get any responses.

Naomi Klein on the Colbert Report

Author and activist Naomi Klein recently appeared on the Colbert Report to promote her book The Shock Doctrine. She discusses the financial crisis in the States, and the role of government in society.

Video for Canadian viewers here.
(US viewers can see the video on the show's site.)

In a time of political and economic uncertainty, it's good to have a prominent Canadian participating in mainstream discussion. Besides, Naomi is a big fan of librarians and information professionals.

Catching the public's eye

One of our local independent newspapers, Vue Weekly, has recently published a piece on book challenges and censorship.

We don't know what prompted author Carolyn Nikodym to write on this topic, but having these issues in the public eye is a good thing, so we'll take it. In case you missed, here's the link.

Banned Books Week

It's late September, and the ALA's Banned Books Week is here!

Similar to the CLA's Freedom to Read Week, this ALA event is used to provide information about book challenges, bans, and the practice of censorship.

For the 2007 year, And Tango Makes Three (J. Richardson and P. Parnell) wound up being the most challenged book. The full list, along with information on previously challenged and banned books, can be found on this page of the ALA website.

While outright bans seem to occur less and less, the fact that books continue to be challenged in our schools and libraries reminds us of the work still to be done in promoting intellectual freedom.

This year Banned Books Week runs from Sept. 27 - Oct. 4.

Librarians and faculty strike at UWindsor

The Faculty Association at the University of Windsor has declared a strike, affecting the work of academic staff, including librarians. The main issues appear to be working conditions and fair wages. G&M article. Information from the perspective of the Association can be found here, and you can find out what the university thinks here.

Needless to say, this affects the university at all levels, particularly students seeking a quality education. It also affects the personal and professional lives of those who are now on the picket lines exercising their right to strike.

Democratic voice [updated]

During the 2006 election, the Green Party of Canada was a national party, and ran candidates across the entire country in all 308 ridings. During the election campaign, the Green Party leader was refused the opportunity to participate in the official leader debates. Despite this, over 600,000 individual Canadians voted for this party, approximately 4.5% of the popular vote.

How can a party with national representation be refused the right to participate in the federal election debates? How is it that a political voice speaking for more than half a million Canadian citizens is stifled by backroom deals and political machinations? And why is is that we're about to see this happen AGAIN?!?

This FLIF member thinks it's wrong that a major party leader has been blocked from the debates. As a librarian, I support freedom of expression and democratic values. As a citizen, I have the right to hear from someone who could be speaking on my behalf in Parliament.

There is a grassroots push happening to protest for Green Party leader Elizabeth May's participation in the upcoming leader debates. The online petition is available at http://demanddemocraticdebates.ca, and only takes a few seconds to submit.

UPDATE: Those of you who have been following this story know that both the opposing parties and the media committee have reversed their decisions. Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been invited to join the televised leader debates. It's a good day. However, I still wonder why this was an issue at all.

Elections

It's election time in Canada again. Over the next six weeks we'll likely be bombarded with a lot of campaign spin on the issues the politicians want you to discuss. Whatever your affiliation and political leaning, no matter where you stand on the issues, we remind everyone to be media savvy, to go beyond the rhetoric, and to be critical about what the various parties are saying.

And get involved! Ask questions. Talk to friends and family. Email your candidates. Attend local debates. Press our representatives on the issues YOU want discussed during this election.

As of this posting, elections Canada has yet to update it's website with new voter information, so we can't yet provide you with official resources. Future FLIFblog posts will include more information on voting in our election on Oct. 14th.

----
Also, it's virtually impossible to ignore the election going on in the superpower next door. One of our colleagues recently shared a resource for those individuals holding dual citizenship who want to vote the the American election. If you hold US citizenship but are living abroad, you still have a right to vote in that election. Visit http://www.votefromabroad.org/ for more information, and to find out where to register.

Newness

Hello again. After a summer-long hiatus, FLIF is back. A lot has happened in our neck of the woods since the last post.

The senior class graduated, sending a new group of talented, engaged young librarians to make their mark on the world. Unfortunately, this means we lost some veteran FLIF members, including our executive. We thank all of them for their efforts.

On the flip side, the new academic year is underway, and FLIF is under new management. We are happy to give a big welcome to the new students who have just embarked on their library studies, and to welcome back our returning members. We have some new things planned for this year, and hope to see you all at the meetings and events.

We want to continue examining IF and SR issues. We want to discuss and engage with the questions and outcomes faced by LIS professionals. We want to strengthen ties to our community. While we work to meet these goals, we want you to be encouraged to do the same.

Bandwidth throttling hits House of Commons

Concerns about bandwidth throttling in Canada won't go away. The issue has been in the news for a couple of weeks now, after it became known that some of our biggest ISPs are shaping Internet traffic, slowing the legitimate flow of information. When asked about the issue in the House of Commons, Industry Minister Prentice didn't have much to say about throttling and Net neutrality, preferring to leave the matter in the hands of consumers and big business.

Naturally, Internet law guru Michael Geist is watching this story unfold, and he can explain the issues much better than this FLIFer. Go check out his blog.

The Campaign for Democratic Media is organizing online, through both their website and a Facebook group. More information can be found here.

Neutrality.ca are also raising awareness and have an online petition, if you're interested.

Cubans blocked from popular blog

Ahh, blogs. Some exist solely as platforms for personal rants. Some help change the world.

This Guardian story highlights an interesting case in Cuba, where the communist country's most popular blogger has recently been censored by the government.

Until today the blog had been widely available, or at least available to those lucky few who could afford and find net access. While still available to the rest of the world, Cuban citizens can no longer access Generación Y. The Guardian story notes that the blog was something of a "litmus test" for dissent in the country.

CLA Award Shortlists!

In the past two weeks, the CLA has announced a number of shortlists for various awards:

2008 Book of the Year Award for Children Shortlist

2008 Book of the Year Award for Young Adult Shortlist

2008 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award Shortlist

Thoughts?

Ryerson and Facebook

By now, many of you have probably heard of the controversy surrounding Ryerson University's case against student Chris Avenir for his administration of a Facebook study group. If not, read on!

U of A's Gateway has a very informative article explaining the background and circumstances of the case:

"Chris Avenir, a chemical engineering student, joined to help himself and others study for upcoming test and assignments. The group, called “The Dungeon / Mastering Chemistry Solutions,” eventually gained 146 members.

After a university administrator discovered it, however, Avenir’s professor gave him an F in the course, charged him with academic misconduct, and recommended that he be expelled..."

This case provokes a range of interesting questions: What constitutes cheating and how is it differentiated from studying? Should the activity of regular in-person study groups be approached in the same manner as online study groups? What is the dominion of the university and it's student code of conduct over online activity? Where are the limitations? Do students have any measure of academic freedom?

Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail has written a fairly entertaining, but thoughtful analysis of the situation.

Free University Courses and Podcasts Online...

In the area of freeing the intellect, there are a number of very interesting free online University courses--ranging from podcasted lectures to full out text-based reading and inquiry--being offered by a number of universities in the United States, United Kingdom, and abroad.

• Openculture has an extensive list of podcast lectures last updated in 2007. Some of these lectures require iTunes to function properly and undoubtedly contain a measure of DRM, but others can be downloaded as simple mp3s and loaded onto the system or player of the user's choice.
• Education-Portal has a list of ten universities with the "best" free online courses. The programs listed offer varying levels of course content and educational support material in a number of different subject areas.

So far it has been difficult to locate Canadian content in the free university course realm.

• McGill's COOL (COurses OnLine) has audio lectures and slides from various undergraduate science classes posted online, although it is not clear whether these are intended for students or if they are open to the general public.
• North Vancouver's Capilano College is also listed as a member of MIT's OpenCourseWare consortium.
  

If you know of any Canadian universities currently offering free courses online, please leave a comment!

Hosting Company "GoDaddy" shuts down domain name service to controversial Ratemycop.com website...

From Kevin Poulsen at Wired:

"A new web service that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community is scrambling to restore service Tuesday, after hosting company GoDaddy unceremonious pulled-the-plug on the site in the wake of outrage from criticism-leery cops.

Visitors to RateMyCop.com on Tuesday were redirected to a GoDaddy page reading, 'Oops!!!', which urged the site owner to contact GoDaddy to find out why the company pulled the plug.

RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he'd been shut down for 'suspicious activity.'

When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. 'How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,000 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?'

This is not the first incident in which the GoDaddy company has come under fire for taking down websites that post controversial information and the Ratemycop website is still down at the time of posting.

Kentucky Lawmaker proposes the criminalization of anonymous internet posting...

Ars Technica's Ryan Paul writes:

"Kentucky lawmaker Tim Couch has proposed a bill that would criminalize anonymous Internet posting. Web site and forum operators would be forced to collect and publicly disclose identifying information about all of the visitors who post content on their sites. Failing to do so would lead to a fine of $500 for the first offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.

The bill, which extends Chapter 369 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes, would mandate collection of the complete name, mailing address, and e-mail address of all visitors who post Internet content. Web sites would have to display names next to all relevant content and establish procedures that enable anyone to obtain the rest of the information. The bill stipulates that mailing address and e-mail address only have to be supplied to supplicants in cases where someone has posted "false or defamatory" information."

This kind of legislation seems to be intended to increase accountability in online conduct, especially in areas such as cyber-bullying. The cost to freedom of speech and subsequently to intellectual freedom, however, would be very high indeed. It is not difficult to imagine how the application of this bill would increase individual self-censorship and compromise the privacy of many, whether proven cyberbullies or not. Here we might as well note that on many social networking sites, cyberbullying is already carried out by people who post under their own names! From a political standpoint, it is difficult to imagine how this bill would fit into the admittedly messy and delightfully chaotic framework of healthy democratic discourse. The implications for any kind of online reference service offered by Kentucky libraries are also problematic, at best. As a fellow observer remarked, "This bill would pretty much grind the Internet to a halt, at least in Kentucky."

In fairness, Couch seems to recognize that this bill would likely not stand against the 1st Amendment and has little chance of actually passing. When interviewed by The Herald-Leader, Couch claimed that he was more hoping that the bill would raise awareness about cyberbullying and the posting of other "unkind comments" on the web. But if a half-hearted attempt at raising awareness is truly his motivation, then why go to the expense and trouble of threatening privacy, intellectual freedom, and democratic discourse with the levers of government?

Possible filtering in Royal Oaks, Michigan and more...

Royal Oak's elected officials want pornography-blocking filters added to library computers after the arrest of a homeless man on charges of viewing child pornography at the public library.

City commissioners stopped short of ordering the library to install filters, but they voted March 3 to have the city library board tackle a question faced by nearly every library: Should First Amendment rights to uncensored information trump a need to block obscenity from public computers?

The Detroit Free Press article provides an interesting snapshot of the debate on web-filtering and varying approaches to access as the situation evolves in Michigan. Although many of the librarians interviewed in this article seem opposed or cautious and yet accepting of filtering, there does not seem to be a clear alternative on offer for resolving this issue.

Meanwhile, the staff of Gwinnett County Libraries will now be able to use software to capture the browsing histories of patrons after a change to the library system's Internet safety policy:

"The responses include counseling users on appropriate Internet usage for less serious situations, ordering users to stop viewing obscene materials, or calling police and capturing the computer's browsing history as possible evidence in the case of child pornography."

This policy also raises the age at which patrons can use unfiltered computers to 18.
These changes were effected after a woman complained that another patron was viewing pornographic materials and staff informed her that they were unable to respond.

Many thanks

Freedom to Read Week is over, and it was a great event! Not only did we promote intellectual freedom and the rejection of censorship, but we helped spread the word to the greater university community. There was a lot of interaction with and some great questions and comments from those who visited the FLIF table in HUB.

Kudos to GELA for joining us, and a special thank you on their behalf to those who donated to the book drive. It's ongoing, so see this post for more information.
The UofA CLA Student Chapter partnered with us for this, and we appreciate all of their help. The buttons were particularly fabulous!
As always, LISSA and the students, faculty and staff of SLIS have been great.

Now we have to make it even bigger and better next year.

Freedom to Watch?

Sometimes we focus a lot on books and other printed materials, but librarians also deal with a lot of video and other multimedia. Recent developments regarding tax credits for film productions here in Canada are worth noting, as the potential for censorship on the part of government is disturbing.

"Tories plan to withhold funding for 'offensive' productions" from the Globe and Mail.
"Artists call Tory plan to vet films 'censorship'" from CBC Arts.
"Evangelist takes credit for film crackdown" from the Globe and Mail.

We will watch how this develops with interest.

Freedom to read according to UofA Express News

The University of Alberta's ExpressNews has posted an article about Freedom to Read week. The reporter mentions the Canadian Library Association's Survey of Challenged materials in Canadian Libraries (see previous post for more details) and talks to UofA's own Dr Toni Samek and Dr. Alvin Schrader. There is also a link to a video created by School of Library and Information Science student Tanya Driechel, who looks at literacy and information access issues in marginalized populations (such as those in developing countries). 

Mid-week update

Mid-week, and the FLIF table in HUB has been hopping. There have been a lot of questions about why we're there and what we're doing. Our display is rearranged daily and continues to draw the interest of passers-by. If you're in the area, be sure to come by and say hello, to share your thoughts, or just to check out some of our challenged/banned books. If you're only able to visit us on the web, leave a comment or send us an email.

Also, the CLA has recently released the results of the latest Survey of Challenged Materials in Canadian Libraries (2007). See the press release online here, and follow the links on the page to the downloadable .pdf of the survey results.

Stay tuned for more information.

What's been challenged

Curious to know what books have been banned or challenged? Here are some lists:

1. Freedom to Read has compiled a list of challenged books in Canada.  It includes reasons why the books were banned and what the outcome was. Some of the books in the list include a book on colour psychology, the popular novel "Snow Falling on Cedars", an award winning French novel based on the author's experiences in World War II, and the classis "To Kill a Mockingbird.
2. The American Library Association's list of the most challenged books of 2006 (hey, it takes time to compile these lists). It includes the "Gossip Girls" series (now a TV series) and Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eyes"
3. You can also check out this old post from Bookslut which lists some challeneged books and why they have been challenged. It includes the children's book "And Tango Makes Three", another Toni Morrison book ("The Beloved"), and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. 

Censored news

Books and movies aren't the only things that maybe challenged or censored. Here are the top 25 censored news stories of 2006-2007 according to Project Censored, a media research group out of Sonoma State University that strives to highlight censorship in the news.

This years list includes:

• #25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?
  
• #20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
  
• #16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
  
• #12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
  
• #5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
  
• #2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
  

Fight for your right to read

Here's a great article about freedom to read: Canadians fighting for their right to read. It talks about challenged books and challenges may be resolved in some public library (note that this is not about the Edmonton Public Library and the EPL may handle cases a bit differently).

Book donations for the Bissell Centre and Women's Prison (updated)

Through out Freedom to Read Week, FLIF (partnered with the Greater Edmonton Library Association) will be collecting donations of gently used books at our table in the HUB. The books will be donated to the Bissell Centre, a non-profit organization that helps people with low incomes.

Help make a difference by bringing in a few books!

Update:
Thanks for the comment, Kirsten. The book drive will benefit both the Bissell Centre AND the library at the Edmonton Institution for Women. More on the book drive and contact information can be found on the GELA book drive webpage.

Honouring Freedom to Read Week with art

Students from the Forest Heights Collegiate Institute created sculpted works of art using discarded books and they are being displayed in the Forest Heights Community Library (Kitchener, ON). See here for the full story.

Freedom to Read Week

This week is Freedom to Read Week, a week long event created to encourage us to think about intellectual freedom (which is guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and censorship. For more information, visit the Freedom to Read web-site.

From the web-site:

"Canadians often take our freedom to read for granted, but it's a right that regularly comes under fire," says Emily Sinkins, Chair of the Freedom of Expression Committee. "Whenever books are removed from school library shelves or journalists are silenced by the threat of legal action, we're reminded how important it is to fight for the free exchange of ideas between writers and readers."

During Freedom to Read Week, the BPC urges Canadians to use their right to choose what they read and to celebrate Canadians who fight to protect that right from would-be censors.

For more information, look for the Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom table in the Hub this week. Come and see some of the books that have been challenged and learn more about the importance of intellectual freedom.

You can also check out the Facebook event page from Freedom to Read Week.

Freedom to Read Week: Countdown

Freedom to Read Week 2008 is just over a month away, and FLIF is gearing up for our on-campus activities. Stay tuned to what's going on. This banner is clickable:

Poor people and libraries

An interesting (albeit brief) look at some issues relating to libraries and their treatment of poor people: Are public libraries criminalizing poor people?

Copyright Legislation in Canada

The above link is a nice overview of the proposed copyright legislation by its most vocal critic, Michael Geist. For more information, visit the Fair Copyright for Canada group on Facebook.

Banned books resource

Forbidden Library is a nice web site for people interested in banned and challenged books. The about page states:

The books listed on my site were all challenged on some grounds by groups who wished to impose restrictions on them. Some were removed from reading lists, some were removed from school or public libraries, some were burned in bonfires. I do not claim that all of the books in my list are for the same age group, nor do I believe they are all equally suitable for academic reading lists. I merely report documented challenges to books, and in some cases poke fun at the rationale used by those who object to the works mentioned.

Canada needs to get with the program

The Business & Human Rights in Vancouver blog reports that a recent Amnesty International report is critical of the Canadian government and its performance in the international arena: read the report for more details.

40 years and counting

Today is the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom's 40th anniversary. From their web site:

Established December 1, 1967, the Office for Intellectual Freedom is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the Association’s basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. The goal of the office is to educate librarians and the general public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom in libraries.

Happy Anniversary, OIF!

Censoring Web 2.0

Here's something interesting:

With the continued rise of Web 2.0 and user-generated content, filtering/blocking access to that material by repressive regimes has become another hotspot on the censorship battleground. The Global Voices Advocacy group have a story about it here.

The group have also created an interactive Google map that points to the countries where this form censorship exists and the Web 2.0 sites that are blocked in those countries. The map also indicates locations where citizens and activist groups are speaking out against filtering/blocking user-generated content.

Toni Samek honoured

As our peers from the BCLAIFC blog have already noticed, our own Dr. Toni Samek has been honoured with the first annual Library Journal Teaching Award.

Toni brings her passion and expertise concerning issues of IF and SR to the classroom on a daily basis, and we thank her for doing so. Congratulations, Toni!

Interview with Toni Samek

We read banned books, and other stuff too… (the British Columbia Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee blog) has just posted an interesting interview with SLIS' Toni Samek. She talks about critical librarianship, inellectual freedom, and some current issues facing librarians.

CBC censors itself

In an interesting case of self-censorship, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) removed an actively promoted documentary from its broadcast schedule shortly before it was to be shown on their news channel.

The documentary is an examination of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been persecuted and repressed in China. Though the CBC has previously aired the documentary late at night, they bowed to pressure from Chinese officials to remove the documentary from the broadcast rotation.

As a quick reminder, the CBC is a Crown corporation funded by public money and responsible only to Canadian citizens and our government.

See the Globe and Mail article here and the CBC Arts article here.

Pakistan reaches crisis point

From Article 19:


PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release - 5 November 2007
Pakistan: Media Clampdown as Musharraf Bans Criticism

ARTICLE 19 is alarmed by the grave attacks on freedom of expression and human rights in Pakistan, including the arrest of hundreds of journalists, judges, lawyers and human rights activists, and the temporary closure of private broadcasters.

Pakistans media has increasingly been shaping public opinion through critical reporting on key events such as the Red Mosque siege. said Dr Agnhs Callamard, Executive Director, ARTICLE 19. It is therefore no surprise that Musharraf has taken these drastic actions to control the media in flagrant abuse of the right to freedom of expression and an illegitimate attempt to cling onto power.
On Saturday 3 November, President General Musharraf gave a televised address in which he declared a period of emergency rule and suspended elections scheduled for January 2008. Most private television news channels were taken off air and reports allege that as many as 1,500 media workers, lawyers and human rights activists have either been taken into detention or are being held under house arrest. A new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), adopted the same day, punishes, among other things, any criticism of the head of State, members of the armed services and any other senior member of government with a possible three-year jail term and 10 million Rp. (US$167,000) fine.

A statement issued today by the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, reversed Musharrafs election suspension, promising that elections will go ahead as scheduled. Attorney-General Malik Abdul Qayyum further clarified: [T]here will be no delay in the election and by 15 November these assemblies will be dissolved and the election will be held within the next 60 days. This backtracking can be largely attributed to those within the country, especially the legal profession, who have strongly protested Musharrafs actions. Key Western allies including the United States and members of the European Union have also exerted pressure on Musharraf by strongly urging the holding of democratic elections as scheduled and the restoration of civilian rule.

ARTICLE 19 calls on all the Pakistani authorities, and Musharraf in particular, to release of all those held in detention or under house arrest for the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression and to oppose the government, to repeal the 3 November Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) immediately and to respect the right of the media to inform the public on matters of interest, including through criticism of any authorities. We also call on Western governments to use their influence to bring about these results and to press for a return to civilian rule through democratic elections.

File-sharing promotes music sales

As the recording industry continues to pursue file-sharing individuals in the US, a new study commissioned by Industry Canada/Industrie Canada reveals that file-sharing in this country may actually be promoting music sales, rather than hurting them. Despite the continued arguments by the RIAA and other groups, the study shows that Canadians who download music via peer-to-peer (P2P) software are more likely to purchase music on new CDs than individuals who do not use P2P programs.
Questions regarding copyright and the legitimacy of P2P file-sharing, electronic distribution (iTunes, Amazon), and the like continue to fly. Meanwhile, recent experiments by bands such as Radiohead and comments such as those made by Trent Reznor suggest that artists are exploring new music distribution models because the industry itself won't adapt to the new reality.

FLIF on del.icio.us

Just wanted you all to know that FLIF now has a del.icio.us account, where we will be bookmarking web sites and web resources of interested. We already have a few bookmarks up and will be adding more as we find them.

If you forget where to find us on del.icio.us, we've added a handy link list on the right-hand side of the screen to let you know where else you can find us online.

If you know of some interesting web sites, blogs, resources, or even other del.icio.us accounts that may be of interest to us, email us: FLIFblog @ gmail dot com

ISP actively blocking subscribers from torrent network

An informal experiment by staff of the Associated Press indicates that at least one ISP is actively blocking user access to the popular BitTorrent protocols used for filesharing. This is a challenge to Internet neutrality and freedom to access.

Whatever your opinion on the legality and copyright issues of this technology, this means of data transmission and filesharing has been embraced by many companies and open source projects. Universally blocking subscribers from using this protocol clearly ignores the fact that torrents and other P2P programs do have legitimate uses.

So, unless the ISP in question is looking at the content of the files themselves (a violation of user privacy), then they are indiscriminately blocking access with no clear justification for such behaviour.

Read the ars technica article here.

UPDATE: posted 25 October 2007

The ISP in question has claimed that it is not acitvely blocking torrent traffic, but simply "delaying" such traffic to reduce lag time for more important data packets.

Here is a related Globe and Mail article.

Authors, Exiled

Did you know that there is a subject heading for exiled authors? There is. Next time you are looking for a good read, search for "Authors, Exiled". Subheadings include everythign from Language to Psychology to specific countries. The search works in both the EPL and the UofA online catalogues.

Little Sister Bookstore legal papers in SFU Library's Special Collection

BCLA's Intellectual Freedom Committee reports that the legal papers from the Little Sister's Bookstore have been acquired by the Special Collection at the SFU Library.

Little Sister's have been involved in court battles relating to censorship of gay and lesbian materials by the Canada Border Services. They alledged that Canada Border Services had been unfairly delaying (or worse) gay and lesbian books destined to the bookstore since they first censored the bookstores materials back in the mid 8o's. In January (2007) the Supreme Court ruled that they were not elligiable for advanced costs which they had intended to use to take the Canada Border Services to court. Without the money, they had to admit defeat and drop their plans to fight against discrimination. Xtra.ca explains it further in this article.

School Library Journal censorship links

School libraries are often at the crux of censorship scandals because of the delicate position in which they find themselves. Not only do they have to contend with curriculum demands and limited funding, they also have to be wary of The Parent. Many of the banned and challenged books today get on the list because of librarians and teachers attempting to strike a balance between intellectual freedom and parental concern about controversial books. Do you put The Higher Power of Lucky on your shelf or do you risk the wrath of the 5th grader's parents?
This link is the School Library Journal's round-up of censorship issues.

US Banned Books Week link round-up

As mentioned in the previous post, this week is Banned Books week in the US. I've gathered a few links of interest for you folks, starting with a bunch of links from Jassamyn West of Librarian.net. One such link is to the write up about Banned Books Week from the Amnesty International USA site, where they highlight a few writers who have been persecuted for having an opinion.

If you want something a little more leasurely to peruse, Hatcher Graduate Library has a great set of pictures on Flikr highlighting some banned or challenged books, including the Harry Potter books, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the controversial kids book And Tango makes three, and how could I not include a young fan being read Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. FYI, if you are in the neighborhood, each picture links you straight to the book in their catalogue for easy access.

Also on Flickr is the ALA's Banned Books Week group, which has lots of great pictures of banned or challenged books, displays, etc. And, of course, we can't forget ALA's Banned Books Week page, where they have tones of info and resources relating to celebrating our rights to read what we want.

US celebrates Banned Books week

This week is Banned Books week. There's lots of great stuff going on and lots of great links to send you to, but I thought that I would start with everyone's favorite library cartoon hero, Dewey:

Right to Know Week

September 28th to October 5th is Right to Know Week in Canada. For the Albertan link, please visit www.oipc.ab.ca.

Library holds and privacy issues

Here's an interesting story about privacy issues relating to how libraries make holds available for their patrons to pick up. According to the article, the public library in question leaves the holds out on shelves where patrons can retrieve them, much in the same way that the UofA's Rutherford Library or the Edmonton Public Library does. The problem is that instead of using the first four letters in the patrons name and/or the last four digit in their library card number, private information is in full view (for example, people passing by can see the full name of the person who put the book on hold). And, while it is true that most people have nothing to hide, I think that I would be hesitant to put anything of a sensitive nature on hold. The examples that Mr. Jaffa (the patron who pointed out the issue) pointed out are good ones - I wouldn't want anyone to know if I needed resources on divorce or cancer. Those are private issues and the library ought to try and keep them private.

Censored art

Everything you ever wanted to know about censored art - the banning, the bleeping, and the out right media blackouts. This website will fascinate you and make you want to rent a banned movie or get down to that banned music: Censorart.com.

By the way, did you know that in 1918 Manitoba banned comedy films? Were comedies that risque back then :)

Freedom of Expression Project, revisited

We've already posted the link to the Freedom of Expression Project, but I wanted to mention it again because it's a great website and they have tonnes of interesting and thought provoking news items. You can subscibe to the RSS feed (heck, you can even choose which subset of feeds oyu want - informaton and debate, drivers of change, etc.). You can check out their handy glossary, which has definitions for everything from "blog" to media democracy. They even have a great list of web resources.

Privacy vs. security

An interesting article on the privacy vs. security issue: Who's making decisions on privacy vs. security?

Woman refuses to return sex ed book

Critic of sex education book refuses to return library copies

Another great example of how force censorship can just make an item all the more popular. After writing a letter to a newspaper, the book in question became more popular. So what's going to happen now that the story made the news and is circulating far and wide.

... hmm, I wonder if my local library has that book.

Whistleblowing and librarianship

From the FAIFE-L listserv:

An interesting article discussing the issues relating to librarians and whistleblowing: Documents, Leaks and the Boundaries of Expression: Government Whistleblowing in an Over-Classificed Age. This article is particularly pertinent to anyone interested in working in a sector that might have confidential or controversial documents.

It's a new school year

Yep, summer is over. I no longer have to work my tail off and commute 2-3 hours day, so I have time to think about doing shocking things ... like up dating this blog. Did you miss us? Have you forgotten about us or given up on us? I certainly hope not. It's a new school year, so we are all full of enthusiasm and energy. Plus, there's a whole load of newbies coming into their first year, so hopefully we'll get a few new posters too.

Please note, I have added yet another list of links to the right side of your screen: Blogs. Yes, blogs. There are plenty out there, so I thought that we should share some of our favorites. I've added a few to get the ball rolling, but there will be more (and, feel free to let us know if there are any great blogs that you think we might like to add to our list).

Hope you all had a great summer, and (for all you students) hope that your up-coming year is absolutely fabulous and filled with intellectual freedom goodness.

Freedom of Expression Project

http://www.freedomofexpression.org.uk/resources/exploring+challenges+and+opp

Where do you draw the line?

This incident raises an interesting question concerning the thin line between freedom of expression and defamation or hate speech.
From FAIFE-L:

On 4 January 1994, the newspaper Le quotidien de Paris published an article by the Austrian historian and journalist Paul Giniewski (1926–), entitled “The obscurity of error” concerning the papal encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993; The Splendour of Truth). In it,Giniewski wrote that “...Many Christians have recognized that scriptural anti-Judaism and the doctrine of ‘fulfilment’ of the Old Covenant in the New lead to anti-Semitism and prepared the ground in which the idea and implementation of Auschwitz took seed”. On 18 March 1994, the Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l’identité française et chrétienne (AGRIF; General Alliance against Racism and for Respect for the French and Christian Identity) brought proceedings against the newspaper, its director, and Giniewski on charges of racially defamatory statements against the Christian community. Giniewski was convicted before domestic courts. On 31 January 2006, however, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said that it did not accept the argument of the domestic courts that Giniewski’s words amounted to accusing Catholics and Christians in general of being responsible for the Nazi massacres, and that Christians were therefore victims of defamation on account of their religious beliefs. The ECHR considered that Giniewski had sought to develop an argument about a specific doctrine and its possible links with the origins of the Holocaust. In so doing, he had made a serious contribution to a wide-ranging and ongoing debate. The article in question did not contain attacks on religious beliefs as such, but a view which Giniewski expressed as a journalist and historian. As in the Chauvy case (2004), the Court declared that “it is an integral part of freedom of expression to seek historical truth”, and that “it is not its role to arbitrate” the underlying historical issues. Giniewski’s article did not incite to disrespect or hatred nor did it cast doubt in any way on clearly established historical facts. The Court ruled unanimously that Giniewski’s freedom of expression had been violated.[Source: ECHR, Case of Giniewski v. France: Judgement (Strasbourg 31 January2006).]

The Open Library

A new project wherein users will be able to input structured data in a wiki format and thus open access all over the world.

http://demo.openlibrary.org/about

Phoning it in

From FAIFE-L:
Telus Cleanses Image on YouTube
Take-down of pro-union films angers Internet speech advocates
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/07/02/TelusImage/By Bryan Zandberg Published: July 2, 2007
"Earlier this month, Telus ordered YouTube to take down at least 23 videos posted to the site. Each short movie was potentially embarrassing to the telecom's public image since they documented instances of the company's rocky labour relations. Telus claimed their presence on YouTube, a user-generated website, was an act of copyright infringement.YouTube's owners complied and took the videos off-line, but that set off alarm bells among union activists, who argue much of the footage never belonged to Telus in the first place."

London Public Library to install Internet filters on computers in adult section

In response to LPL's proposed installation of Internet filters in the adult section of the library, Prof. Toni Samek, PhD. has written this letter, available at www.librarianactivist.org :
17 June 2007
Dear London Public Library Board,
By way of introduction, I am an Associate Professor at the School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alberta, where I have taught since 1994. I am the author of the books Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility in American Librarianship, 1967-1974 (McFarland Publishing, 2001) and Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-first century guide (CHANDOS – Oxford – Publishing, 2007). I convene the Canadian Library Association’s Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom. I am a member of the Canadian Association of University Teacher’s Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee. I serve on the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee. I am a founding member and first convenor of the Association for Library and Information Science Education’s Information Ethics Special Interest Group. Given my background, I am writing to this letter in order to express my deep concern over the London Public Library’s movement to place a filter on some of the library’s adult Internet access stations. Please accept this statement as an informed request that you please reconsider this disturbing pending curtailment of freedoms in your community.
From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and its human rights stance (as reflected in its myriad of statements, resolutions, and urgent press releases, including its Internet Manifesto), on down to the Canadian Library Association (CLA), intellectual freedom is the first core value of librarianship. It is encoded into the CLA Code of Ethics (1976), which first directs Canadian librarians to uphold the CLA Statement on Intellectual Freedom (1974). It is part and parcel of what librarians stand for, including those who live and labour under the Ontario Library Association (OLA) banner.
As professional librarians worldwide know all too well, Internet filters are notoriously semantically, technically, and ideologically flawed. All filters (and their creators and purveyors) both provide a false sense of security and are not favourable to minority groups and disenfranchised individuals (women, GLBTQ populations, radical thinkers, dissenters, suspect communities, women, the girl-child, and so on). The library must not condone this misleading form of technology with its embedded targeting. If you want your library to remain welcoming to all, then you will have a clear conscience with open Internet access. To move from this solid democratic ground, is to erode the role and standing of your library in your community – and by extension in the broader community.
The Canadian library community and its sister communities are watching this development closely. Because what you propose is not a small step down. It is the tip of a very slippery slope. What does the future hold for your collection, your meeting room use, and your sponsorships? Is your library one of the last bastions of public space in your community? How many other spaces in London exist where people are really supported in being true to themselves, no matter what their religion, thought, age, association, dissent, race, philosophy, gender, disability, sexual orientation, nation of origin, citizenship, class, ideology, and so on?
I would be more than pleased to work with your library staff in order to provide some professional development in the area of intellectual freedom and the paramount need for it in library rhetoric and practice at a time when the global community is threatened evermore by just the opposite. Indeed, Amnesty International has just released a warning that the Internet “could change beyond all recognition” unless action is taken against the erosion of online freedoms. This is termed a “virus of repression.” [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6724531.stm] I urge you not to participate in the growing negative global campaign against the free flow of information. The free flow of information is a key condition for education. London Public Library should be as proactive as possible about providing current, quality, multilingual and multi-format sustained education for Internet use – and for as diverse a range of community members as possible. In the long run, those hands that work for lifelong education hold far more hands than those of censors.
Finally, I would like to point out that the CLA’s Statement on Intellectual Freedom directly references and supports the Canadian Charter. What more needs to be said?
Sincerely,Dr. Toni SamekSt. Albert, Alberta

What Cambodia doesn't want its people to know

Not everyone is going green these days...

From FAIFE-L:

(SEAPA/IFEX) - The Cambodian government has banned a report by a London-based environmental watchdog that accuses Prime Minister Hun Sen andtop government officials, as well as their relatives and cronies, ofplundering the country's forests through illegal logging.On 5 June 2007, government officials seized copies of the report and accused Global Witness, the organisation which produced it, of overstepping itspurview and attempting "to incite political problems". Despite Information Minister Khieu Kanharith's claim that "the suppression and confiscation of the report does not concern the freedom to publish and disseminated information, which the government strongly supports", Global Witness Director Simon Taylor has decried the government action as "senseless censorship." "Attempts to suppress this report will not make the facts that it presents disappear. We would very much like to know the legal basis for this decision," Taylor said in a statement."The reaction to this report raises a serious question for Cambodia's international donors," he added. The 95-page Global Witness report, "Cambodia's Family Trees: Illegal Loggingand the Stripping of Public Assets", is still accessible on the Internet. Released ahead of the 19-20 June annual meeting of Cambodia's international donors to discuss future aid to the country, it also accuses these donors of apathy regarding the problem. This is not the first time that the government has confiscated a report by the organisation, which has been monitoring Cambodia's forests for 12 years. In 2005, customs officers at Phnom Penh International Airport seized 2,000copies of "Taking a Cut", which contained similar accusations of corruption and illegal logging in the country (see IFEX alert of 22 July 2005).The government dropped the group as the country's independent forest monitors in 2003 and banished it in September 2005 after Hun Sen declared it "finished".

Cultural genocide 1992, article

The Independent (London) [Foreign News, p. 15]
August 21, 2000, Monday

Sarajeva - Heritage reduced to ashes as Serbs tried to wipe Muslims from history

THE ACRID smell of burning still wafts up as Lejla Gazic carefully unwraps a package containing charred fragments of yellowing paper. The burnt scraps, detailing housing construction in the Ottoman era, are some of the few extant records to survive the Serb bombardment of Sarajevo's Oriental Institute in May 1992.

Once the institute's collection filled 18 steel cases. Now these scorched remnants of a nation's history, together with a few handfuls of books and other records, barely fill the shelves of a single metal filing cabinet.

The institute's staff such as Ms Gazic are working with their colleagues abroad, as they catalogue and classify the few surviving records, and try to rebuild the institute's collection. "Less than 1 per cent of our collections has survived. We are preparing four books, cataloguing what is left. Archivists in Germany have catalogued some of our lost manuscripts, so now we have a record of the memory of our lost manuscripts," said Ms Gazic.

The reconstruction of the archives started after the war. But Ms Gazic and her colleagues know that however much can be reconstructed, an irreplaceable part of Europe's heritage is gone for ever. The destruction of the Oriental Institute was one of the most shocking acts of the Bosnian war that lasted from spring 1992 to December 1995. Bosnian Serb gunners deliberately targeted the building, which housed the largest collection of Ottoman, Islamic and Jewish manuscripts in south-east Europe. It was an attempt to wipe out not just Bosnia's Muslim population, but the very idea of the nation itself.

Incendiary shells were used to ensure the institute's collection was burnt as rapidly as possible. In those flames perished a priceless part of Europe's heritage, including 5,263 bound manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Adzamijski, Bosnian Slavic written in Arabic; 7,000 Ottoman documents that catalogued centuries of Bosnian history as well as many thousands of other records and books, and works of poetry and literature.

Institute officials say the manuscripts were not moved to a safe place because nobody could then imagine they would be targeted. "It was the beginning of the war. Nobody could imagine that archives and books would be burnt. You can imagine that people might fight each other for some reason but not that they would burn someone's heritage. The cases fell right through to the second floor. When we opened them, there were ashes inside," said Ms Gazic.

The destruction of the institute's collection is a loss not just for Bosnia but for Europe and the world. Bosnia was at the northern end of the Ottoman empire - which lasted from the early 14th century to the 1920s - in contact with Venice and Dubrovnik.

Three months later, in August 1992, the gunners targeted the National and University Library, and once again the air over Sarajevo filled with charred fragments. Dr Kemal Bakarsic, librarian of the National Museum, said then: "All over the city, sheets of burning paper, fragile pages of grey ashes, floated down like a dirty black snow. Catching a page, you could feel its heat, and for a moment read a fragment of text in a strange kind of black and grey negative, until, as the heat dissipated, the page melted to dust in your hand."

This attempt to re-engineer the country's history still continues in Republika Srpska, that part of Bosnia under Serbian control, said Dr Enes Kujundzic, director of the National Library. In towns such as Banja Luka and Visegrad, the centuries old mosques and medresas (Islamic schools) have been dynamited.

The sites of the former Ottoman buildings have been levelled, and grass and trees planted over them, in a maniacal attempt physically to rewrite the Ottoman past into a Serb present.

"Bosanski Brod has been renamed Srpski Brod, Foca is now called Srbinje. All the Bosnian place names have been turned into Serbian ones. Now the Serbs have some doubts about what they did here, as every normal human being would. This is their means of justifying it," said Dr Kujundzic.

Cultural genocide 1992

From the FAIFE listserv, mid-May:

On this day 15 years ago: Burning books

Fifteen years ago this day, on 17 May 1992 gunners of the Serb-led Yugoslav army bombarding the Bosnian capital shelled and burned down the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo (Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu), destroying six centuries of records of Bosnia's history and intellectual life. The resulting blaze consumed the Institute's entire collection, including 5,263 manuscript codices dating back to medieval times and more than 300,000 archival documents, as well as the Oriental Institute's research library and catalogues.

Three months later, on 26-27 August 1992, Gen. Mladic's gunners loosed a concentrated barrage of incendiary shells on the National and University Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina, turning some 1.5 million books to ashes and charcoal -- the single largest act of deliberate book-burning in modern history.

The ashes have cooled long ago, but the damage to culture remains. Adam Lebor reported in 2000 on the efforts of Bosnian scholars to defy those who sought to rob them of their culture and history.

[PHOTO]: Ferman (rescript of the Ottoman sultan), dated 23 December 1832, authorizing the reconstruction of the Old Orthodox church in Mostar. The original decree, part of the judicial records of the Ottoman kadi's court in Mostar, was among the 300,000+ archival documents destroyed on 17 May 1992, when the Sarajevo Oriental Institute was bombarded and burned by
Serb forces.

[PHOTOS]: Views of the burned-out Oriental Institute, which occupied the upper two floors of this Austro-Hungarian-era building in the center of Sarajevo. The photo of the interior, taken in late May 1992, shows the top floor open to the sky with the remains of thousands of burned books, manuscripts and historical documents carpeting the floor.

Know your stuff to increase patron access to information

Free access blocked by unawareness and librarians - many African scientists not aware of free access to online scientific journals

Is Starbucks anti-God or just telling it like it is?

Starbucks has been critized for printing "anti-God" and "anti-Christian" messages on their cups as part of their "The way I see it" series. Despite boycott threats, Starbucks has no plans to remove the messages. For the full story and to read the actual messages, see here.

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression appalled at attack on journalist in Mississauga, Canada

From the FAIFE-L listserv.

It's chilling to realize that freedom of speech can result in violent attacks, even in a country like Canada where that right is protected in our Charter.


(Toronto, April 19, 2007) CJFE is appalled and shocked by the news that journalist Jawaad Faizi was attacked in Mississauga, Ontario on the evening of April 17. Faizi works for the Mississauga-based newspaper, The Pakistan Post.

Jawaad Faizi describes being attacked by two men in his car outside the home of his Editor, Amir Arain. Two men, one armed with a cricket bat, smashed the car windows and hit Faizi inside the car. When they saw Faizi call 911 on his cell phone, they fled the scene. Paramedics and police, and his editor arrived soon afterwards.

According to Jawaad Faizi, the two men threatened him and said that he should cease writing against Islam, and against the Pakistan-based religious organisation, Idara Minhaj-ul-Quran, and its leader, Cleric Allama Tahir-Ul-Qadri. Allama Tahir-Ul-Qadri is a frequent visitor to Canada.

Both Arain and Faizi have received telephoned threats previous to this attack, and, in fact, on Monday, April 16, they filed a complaint with the police, and had also informed police about other threats they received in January. Police say that they cannot comment on the status of the investigation, but because of the nature of the attack this will probably be sent to the Criminal Investigation Unit and the Diversity Relations Unit.

"That this attack happened here in Canada is of great concern to us," said CJFE Executive Director Anne Game. "We call on the police to treat this matter extremely seriously and ensure that a full investigation into the attack is initiated immediately."

The attack, which sent Jawaad Faizi to hospital for treatment of injuries to his left arm, has caused him to miss two days of work. And on Wednesday, he received a call from the Vice-Principal of the school his three children attend, asking him to keep them at home, as they may pose a security risk.

Faizi states that he would be able to identify his attackers, which may put him at even greater risk of further attacks. In a phone interview with CJFE, Jawaad said "I had so many problems back home [in Lahore, Pakistan] as a journalist, but I'm shocked that this is happening here."

CJFE is very concerned about the nature of this attack and the potential chill on journalists writing about faith-based issues. This is a cautionary tale for us, and points to the need for vigilance in the protection of press freedom not just in other countries, but in Canada as well.

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) is an association of more than 300 journalists, editors, publishers, producers, students and others who work to promote and defend free expression and press freedom in Canada and around the world.

MORE INFORMATION:
e-mail: cjfe@cjfe.org, Internet: http://www.cjfe.org

FLIF updates

Apologies for the unintentional and long hiatus.

I have a few updates to pass on. With the end of the year came graduation, which means that we have lost our fabulous co-chairs, Tanya and Dai. Fortunatly, they are being succeeded by the equally fabulous Camilla and Melanie.

I'm still trying to keep the blog updated semi regularly (cough, save for the latest hiatus), but I expect that it will be a bit lax over the summer (sigh, I just don't get to play on my computer as much as I like to what with a real job and all). As always, if you have any links or news items that you think we should post, please feel free to fire them off to flifblog at gmail dot com

Hope spring is being good to all of you so far!