Tag Archives: access to information

Girls in ICT Day: Towards a more fair and equal digital future

This year, 22 April marks the 10th anniversary of the International Girls in ICT Day. First Introduced by the International Telecommunication Union, on every fourth Thursday in April it draws attention to the need to bring more girls and young women into tech, ICT and STEM sectors.

Over the past years, libraries in different parts of the world have taken part in the Girls in ICT Day celebrations – for example, in Kenya and Suriname. These activities build on a natural alignment between the goals of the Day, and libraries’ experiences with supporting digital literacy and equitable access to knowledge.

So, what do gender digital divides look like in 2021, and what can libraries do to help?

“Connected Girls, Creating Brighter Futures”

Estimates suggest that less than 35% of positions in the tech industry and related professions are taken by women; including only 24% of leadership positions. More broadly, there are gender inequalities in internet access and device ownership, and social and cultural norms which may still restrict meaningful access and use of ICT for women.

A recent World Wide Web Foundation report offers a more in-depth exploration of these gender digital divides. Drawing on the experiences of women in four countries in the LAC region, Africa and Asia, it highlights that:

–  Data affordability is an important barrier: particularly in rural areas, women were more likely than men to say that costs limited their internet use;

–   Similarly, women in rural areas more frequently cited a lack of digital skills as a reason for not going online;

–   Women were less likely to create content online;

–   And finally, they also expressed more concern about their privacy, and had less trust in how tech companies use their data.

These inequalities can manifest themselves early in life. Focusing on the experiences of girls and young women, another important piece of the puzzle lies in the recently released General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. One of the key overarching principles it sets out to help realise children’s rights in digital environments is non-discrimination. This includes overcoming digital exclusion, particularly the gender-related digital divide.

Girls can, for example, face more restrictions in accessing online environments, be less likely to own a phone; or face disadvantages in developing digital skills. An accompanying explanatory note points out that, while universal personal and individual access to ICT and the internet is the preferred long-term outcome, in situations where children are unlikely to have it, states should work to expand public access offerings.

Naturally, offering this kind of shared and equitable access had long been one of the key priorities for the global library field. Overcoming gender inequalities in access to digital technologies and the internet is certainly an important step to realising the goals emphasised by the Girls in ICT Day (as reflected in the first part of its motto this year – “connected girls”). The next step, however, is going beyond connectivity and empowering more women to pursue education, learning, and careers in STEM.

How can libraries help realise this?

Overcoming gender inequalities in this field certainly requires a comprehensive response from many stakeholders. This includes, for example, making the internet a safer space for girls, creating more opportunities and incentives for young women’s participation in the private tech sector, encouraging them to follow STEM higher education tracks, and more.

As community and lifelong learning centers, libraries have been gaining experience in this field. Both before and during the pandemic, we see examples of libraries encouraging and supporting girls and women to pursue their interest in tech in many different ways. For example:

– In Singapore, the Jurong Regional Library hosted an exhibition exploring the nexus of art and technology by an all-women arts collective – with the National Library Board’s MakeIT space helping artists pick up new digital skills;

– In India, the Technology Empowering Girls program was launched to offer young women learning opportunities to develop both digital and soft skills, to help boost their career opportunities;

–  In Canada, the Vancouver Island Regional Library ran a coding competition for young women and girls;

–  And in several countries, libraries worked together with civil society and tech sector partners to deliver events (e.g. CoderDojo4Divas in Belgium) and clubs and courses (e.g. GirlsWhoCode in the US, UK, India and Canada), which cater specifically to girls or young women.

Inclusive and reflexive practices

Because of the multiple and structural gender digital divides, it is also important to learn from the initiatives aiming to encourage girls and women pursue their interest in IT. What works, and why? What can help overcome the different barriers girls and women may be facing?

For example, a recent article in Hello World talks about a coding club for adults in a public library in Almere, the Netherlands. The club succeeded in engaging women, who made up more than half of the participants. Mindful of the existing gender stereotypes around coding, the founder asked what they found attractive about this offer. The women pointed out that the club being run by a woman was a draw, since it offered positive social proof. Another draw was the fairly low-pressure nature of the club – prioritising fun and engagement, rather than the pressure to get things just right, helped overcome some participants’ hesitation.

Another example is the work of Libraries Without Borders on their project IdeasBox4Women. When BSF noticed lower attendance among women to their Ideas Box project, which offers access to technology and learning opportunities, they ran a diagnosis and designed an intervention specifically for women and girls.

This includes concrete measures, like setting aside women-only timeslots and organising gender-mixed activities; as well as making sure that women and girls have access to female facilitators. Another key element are activities which raise awareness about local gender inequalities and dynamics. They help draw attention to existing challenges, while fully giving local communities the space to address and act on this awareness in ways which best suit their customs and culture.

These examples show how reflexivity and mindfulness towards women’s needs can help create more inclusive spaces.

As we continue to learn from such initiatives and interventions, libraries and their partners can help create a more fair and equal digital future!

Libraries mean Business : IFLA to celebrate World IP Day on 26 April

In four weeks’ time, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is inviting representatives of governments and civil society to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day, under the theme “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: take your ideas to market”.

IFLA will be taking the opportunity to celebrate the importance of the work done by library professionals to support and accompany small and medium-sized businesses.

Whether they are family businesses, start-ups or otherwise, small and medium-sized enterprises often have limited resources, and do not always have the opportunity to receive professional and strategic advice on how to work with intellectual property.

As a result, access to curated information, resources and services such as coaching, training and guidance provided by library professionals can be crucial for these businesses. This can help them understand how to support the development of a business model related to intellectual property, such as patents, trademarks, trade secrets or copyright.

As OCLC has reported, in the United States alone, public libraries were used 2.8 million times each month to support small businesses.

On World Intellectual Property Day 2021, IFLA and its partner EIFL are therefore pleased to present a webinar on 26th April at 16:00 CET entitled: Libraries mean business.

This webinar will allow us to highlight the work of three library organisations working to support small and medium-sized enterprises in particular on intellectual property issues, through three speakers:

Jeremy O’Hare, Information Expert: Intellectual Property, Business and IP Center, British Library in United-Kingdom.

Tara Radniecki, Head of DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library, Patent and Trademark Resource Center Librarian, University of Nevada, in the United-States of America.

Bernadette Cogan, Divisional Librarian, Central Library Services, Dublin City Council, in Ireland.

If you are interested in this event, join us thanks to the registration link.

The costs of non-access (part 2): why it matters when uses of works are prevented or complicated

In a post last week, we looked at the importance of being able to explain why non-investment in libraries matters.

As highlighted, in difficult budgetary times, governments are faced with the challenge of how to make cuts while causing least pain.

Being able to explain the harm that reducing or freezing library spending can create is therefore an important part of advocacy.

But as set out in another blog, decisions about funding are often just one side of the same coin as decisions about what libraries can do with their funding, notably as regards copyright.

A generous budget with highly restrictive rules on how resources are used can lead to a library having the same impact as one with a much smaller budget, but one where there are much broader possibilities to use works.

So just as we need to be able to talk about the cost of not investing financially in libraries, we should also learn to set out the harm done when library users are not able to use works.

There is a particular need for such arguments when it comes to copyright, given that the argument will often be made that the sorts of exceptions and limitations that allow library users and libraries to carry out such activities come at the cost of sales, or at least licensing revenues.

Such arguments are even used in the case of books that are no longer on sale at all, on the premiss that they may at some time in the future come back into commerce.

Of course, the evidence of such library activities actually causing harm is limited. The European Commission’s impact assessment on the draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market made clear that allowing libraries to preserve works, or library users to carry out text and data mining would not cause any significant damage.

This does not mean that there is no cost to rightholders from such acts. It isn’t possible to prevent a reader from borrowing a book or copying a couple of pages just because she or he could also buy it – this would be to turn against the universalist mission of libraries.

Similarly, there will often be a collective management organisation ready to invent a licensing offer for a new type of use, and so claim that copyright exceptions cost revenue.

To convince decision-makers to legislate in favour of copyright exceptions and limitations, we therefore need to be show that the cost of denying or complicating access is higher. So what arguments can be used?

Lending: when libraries are not able to lend books, this effectively condemns those who are not able to buy them to exclusion from access to culture. It can also choke off a means for new authors to be discovered by readers. Preventing digital lending will tend to exclude readers who are not able to get to a library, for reasons of disability, health, distance, or – obviously enough – COVID-19 restrictions.

Research (TDM): allowing uses of works for text and data mining improves the quality of the results of mining activities, thereby advancing science. Preventing such uses will have the inverse effect. In particular in the case of machine learning, there is growing awareness that limiting the range of works that can be used for learning can lead to biases and problems.

Education: teachers and learners benefit from being able to use the best suited materials for the context and situation, in order to achieve the best results. When teachers are obliged to take time to find works they can use – or rely on a limited offer – then they are less able to do their jobs. Similarly, a lack of adequate exceptions can restrict the production of open educational resources.

Preservation: this is a core function of libraries, ensuring that the works of yesterday and today are available into the future, recognised in international law. Where it is made more difficult, fewer works can be preserved. Ironically, the imposition of restrictions on preservation copying, motivated by a desire to sustain revenues, can risk reducing the chances of the work itself surviving into the future.

Document Supply: while a traditional activity of libraries using physical works, not all copyright laws allow for digital document supply. This has an obvious impact on those whose research is facilitated by being able to access often unique books held far away. Without this, the scope of research is unnecessarily limited to the works that are available on site, defeating the object of research in the first place.

Access for People with Print Disabilities: the challenge tackled by the Marrakesh Treaty was the book famine – the tiny share of books worldwide which are available in accessible formats. A failure to allow exceptions left the choice (and responsibility) for making such copies available in the hands of rightholders, often themselves unable to make the switch. The failures caused by a lack of reform led to violation of the right of people with print disabilities to education, and to participation in scientific and cultural life.

 

As in our first blog on the costs of non-access, such arguments should be used relatively sparingly. It is important to be positive as well, focusing on how reforms could lead to better services to – and support for – communities. Yet being able to underline costs can be helpful in making it clear that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

As part of your advocacy, you are therefore encouraged to gather stories of problems – of the costs of non-access.

Fostering creation of Open Educational Resources

From 1 to 5 March 2021, libraries take part in Open Education Week alongside educational stakeholders.

In November 2019, UNESCO adopted a recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This recommendation, a result of a consensus among 193 Member States, recognises the importance of supporting the development, sharing and use of openly licenced educational materials to improve access to education for all.

Libraries, as a driving force in educational issues through their missions of access to information and education, have a role to play in fostering the development of OER and thus in advancing this work.

The UNESCO recommendation is divided into five areas of action:

Building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER;
Developing supportive policy for OER;
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER;
Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and
Promoting and reinforcing international cooperation in OER.

These 5 areas of action make it possible to identify areas for action by all educational actors, including libraries. They include two levels of action, at the structural level and at the practical level. Libraries can engage in both.

At the structural, or policy level, libraries can work to influence the development of favourable open educational resource policies (many of which will be supportive of wider library missions). Crucially, the Recommendation represents an acknowledgement from countries that education is key and should be open to everyone without regard to their wealth, where they are born, the colour of their skins, their gender, their religion, age or abilities. Knowledge must be open and freely accessible. This is a powerful message.

At the practical level, libraries can also contribute to building a stronger Open Educational Resource chain. This chain involves the creation, access, re-use, adaptation and distribution of OERs, but also the development of institutional policies needed to structure these resources, including national and international platforms.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Identify the different actors that can play a role in the development of open educational resources, including the library team, the educational team, teachers, researchers.
  • Mobilise these actors through different actions: presentation of the objectives of the development of open educational resources, why it is important to tackle these issues of openness and the benefits this can bring to the library, the university and users in general.
  • Create opportunities to raise awareness of these issues or develop resources: webinars, meetings, design workshops,
  • Create opportunities to start creating OERs together: design templates, provide workshops to take the time to focus on the creation of OER but also how to re-use and distribute them.
  • Identify resources or professionals working on the same topic and contact them to exchange practices. Become part of a network or set up a discussion group to exchange good practices or existing structural elements that will enable you to move forward.
  • Identify internal or external platforms that could bring together your institution’s resources in order to facilitate their discovery by users.
  • Draw on the potential of open educational resources to fulfil the primary mission of libraries and knowledge dissemination centres: to build a sustainable means of providing quality open educational resources.
  • Bear in mind the reputational dividends: the constitution of quality open educational resources (materials or courses) by recognised organisations can give considerable visibility to the institution, especially if we consider the impact on the visibility of open access items.
  • Invite external professionals to raise awareness on this issue within your institution: working with an external contact person allows you to combine neutrality but also a national or international perspective.

Discover the document of SPARC Europe on Open Education in European Libraries of High Education.

 

Alice Kibombo, wikimedian in residence at the African Library & Information Associations and Institutions

In 2020, AfLIA welcomed Alice Kibombo of the Wikimedia Community User Group – Uganda as a Wikimedian in residence. IFLA is delighted to see this initiative coming to life and therefore invited Ms Kibombo to share project’ insights with the international library community.

Could you tell us about your background and how you came to Wikimedia projects?

I am a practising librarian as well as an active volunteer/editor based in Uganda. I regularly contribute to both English and Luganda Wikipedia, Wikidata and WikiSource.

Coming into Wikimedia projects? Let’s see… as much as I would like the narration to be a bit more romantic, I am what would be classified as an accidental Wikipedian. I was contributing individually until my boss sent someone to the library because she just did not know what to make of what they wanted. It turns out, he was active with the Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda and they were looking for a library to partner with and host them for a number of activities. Gradually, a number of Wiki-related projects such as WikiLovesWomen in 2017 came in and provided me with the opportunity to get involved with the administrative side of things and the rest is current affairs (see what I am responding to now…)

Since then I have contributed a number of articles and been the beneficiary of various regional training, learning days and scholarships which to a large degree prepared me for my current assignment.

Which Wikimedia projects will be considered and why are they relevant to libraries?

Our primary project of focus is Wikipedia – the encyclopaedia project of Wikimedia. As often stated, libraries and Wikipedia have an overlapping mission which is to provide reliable information through verifiable references and doing proper research to bring quality, accurate information to the world. Wikipedia is as good as its sources and when it comes to libraries, not only do we have the best sources but the experts on these sources. Let’s just say that we should consider Wikipedia as an extension of the work we do albeit in the free knowledge movement.

In addition, library resources, in a number of forms, are relatively invisible on the web and while Wikipedia emphasises quality resources, some of what’s accessed are relatively sub-par because of the sources.

To be addressed in the course will be Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and WikiSource will be addressed in the near future as Wikidata deals with linked data which is the “thing” right now.

As a Wikimedian in residence at AfLIA, what are your goals and next steps to get started?

This I believe is a turning point for all parties – mind you, it has not been attempted before on the continent, well not on such a scale and it is a testament to the benefits of a partnership. There are both personal and institutional goals but both AfLIA and the Wikimedia Foundation (and loudly, I, in the background) agree on some aspects :

We have talked a lot about being able to represent our facts and tell our stories thus the focus on local languages and CCC (Cultural Context Content). The course (which is an adaptation of the will be conducted in English, French and Portuguese but the skills and content therein are very much translatable to a local context. Call it decolonising our realities.

In terms of training/ skills/ empowerment which is really the bulk of the work, this is already underway –  we recently had the honour of “wrapping up” with the pilot cohort who as a group gave us very valuable insights which we were able to incorporate into the material for the main cohort. We are hosting the first main cohort between February 1 st and April 24th and if the number of responses is the only indicator of success, then I can say it has been received positively or our networks served us well or both.

Through a pre-course survey, 54% of respondents reported that they were not aware of any Wikimedia community in their locale. Keep in mind that a number of African wiki communities also reported limitations in their ability to initiate GLAM-related initiatives since they had no access to the network that is the librarian community in Africa. This, therefore, provides the project with the opportunity to nurture relationships between these two communities and hope that the results will be worthwhile.

At this point I need to mention that I do not work alone, I see myself merely as a liaison between this particular outreach of the Wikimedia Foundation and AfLIA’s step in fulfilling its core objectives. We do have all these interesting projects lined up and which you will be hearing about in the near future.

How could the library community support these projects?

The experience with the pilot cohort brought to the fore a number of issues – we knew they existed, we just did not know the depth to which they ran. First, there was a huge disconnect between the librarians’ community in Africa and Wikipedia! 54% of a group of information professionals not knowing about their potential partners in the Free Knowledge movement begs a lot of questions!

With that in mind, we are training librarians from over 30 countries in Africa so we constantly encourage institutional buy-in for them to realise the benefits of such training for their staff. From personal experience, you would be surprised outright negativity we have to deal with and I do commend the librarians who have made an individual effort to be part of this project

With the situation presented by COVID-19, the library community has not been spared the reality of being increasingly distributed and virtual and now more than ever, driven by heterogeneous interests in both training and content. I would therefore encourage information institutions to engage with the librarians we are training on thematic contribution where possible. Depending on the nature or mission of the institution, some may focus on image release, others on community engagement, others on content generation.

The project would benefit greatly from the shared expertise of librarians who have also experienced Wikipedians. A good number work in isolation so if and when they read this, perhaps they should contact us.

Lastly, this presents an opportunity for the community to engage in alternative pathways to individual development mainly by supporting the human resource they have. Institutions and individuals that may not for example offer space could offer publicity or actively encourage their staff to participate in programs such as these, offer access to hard-to-access resources eg those behind paywalls or historical collections to support thematic engagement

Would you like to add anything?

Lots and lots and some more – it’s hard to choose without writing a whole dissertation. Since I have and cannot fully exhaust whatever it is on this here forum, a lot is happening

You can also keep yourself updated by visiting the project page and following us on social media.

To us, the Free Knowledge movement is not the last frontier as much as it is a new frontier.  I like to think with this project that and this project is mutually beneficial.

 

A quick word about an exceptional exception (you should get to know or start to consider using)

As part of the fair use and fair dealing week, IFLA is delighted to welcome Eric Chin, from the General Counsel at the National Library Board of Singapore, to share his views on the importance of making the best use of the flexibilities provided by the fair use and fair dealing provisions.

 

  1. Your mission as a librarian is to enable teaching, learning and research.  How much you can achieve depends on the extent to which libraries can collect, preserve, give access, present and exhibit library materials.  This in turn depends a lot on copyright laws that govern how library materials can be used.

 

  1. For example,  one of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is the right to make a copy.  This impacts your day to day work ranging from the request by a teacher to make a copy of a photograph for a lesson, to whether the much used book that is deteriorating and is out of print (but still in copyright) can be digitised to preserve the content from being totally lost, to whether a video in an obsolete format (but still in copyright) can be migrated to a new digital format;  and to whether the non-profit museum down the road can make a copy of part of a map for an exhibition.

 

  1. Before we go further, it must be said that there is nothing wrong about the principle that copyright owners have exclusive rights for a period of time as just reward for endeavours and ability and it is beneficial to society because, among other things, it does create incentives for the production of more library materials.  It is not often said but it is not unfair to say that copyright is partly the lifeblood of a librarian’s job!  The question is about how this is balanced against what rights or exceptions there are to also ensure that exclusive rights do not act as unintended and undue barriers to progress in science, in the preservation of heritage and culture and the dissemination of knowledge.

 

  1. So copyright laws typically include a set of provisions that act as exceptions that will  allow for your mission as a librarian.  I say “typically” because copyright law is territorial in nature and each country has its own set of copyright laws. This means the scope of exceptions can vary (very) widely from country to country.  To see where you stand in the wide spectrum of copyright laws, it is useful to look at this study covering 191 countries: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_35/sccr_35_6.pdf (the Study on Exceptions).

 

  1. Starting by knowing where you stand allows you to consider if you need to advocate for copyright exceptions that fellow librarians in other parts of the world can already use but you simply cannot.  What you cannot do will have a negative impact on the amount of teaching, learning and research that can be done in your own country. In an ideal world for librarians,  all countries will learn from one another and all will level up until all countries share the most useful exceptions in common. However,  it must sometimes start with ground up advocacy to the right powers that be in our countries, which is partly in our own hands.

 

  1. Looking at the range of exceptions in each country in the Study on Exceptions, you will see a fair few countries that do not list what is called “fair dealing” or “fair use” (collectively Fair Use) among the exceptions. Fair Use is a general exception that anyone can use and is not a specific exception available only to libraries but libraries can benefit greatly from it.  Each country will of course have an argument to make for its own copyright traditions and doctrine that their society may be comfortable with, but in my own view,  countries that do not have this exception may be missing out on an exceptional exception.

 

  1. Most library specific exceptions are generally prescriptive in nature with fixed criteria that must be met in an unchanging way in order to become applicable and this oftentimes can make it challenging for us especially in the fast changing digital era. On the other hand,  Fair Use is special because it is normally stated in a flexible way.  Certain broad factors (that are also usually not exhaustive) are set out as matters to be considered in a fair use analysis such as whether there is transformative use (i.e. use of the original library material or part of it in a beneficial way to society that is different from the intended use of the original) and whether the amount of the original library material used is appropriate in the circumstances including bearing in mind whether it would unfairly eat into or destroy the livelihood of the owner of the copyright.  Those who have had the benefit of using Fair Use will know that these broad factors for fair use analysis are such that the law in Fair Use can automatically adjust to new, evolving and challenging situations that you will face in your daily work.

 

  1. Around the world, in countries that have the Fair Use exception, it has been crucial in allowing for the use of library materials (including copying to an appropriate extent only) for research or study, criticism or review, reporting of news, to support teaching and learning,  to publicise library programmes, to create exhibitions, to preserve at risk items, to enabling use for those who are disabled and to making a record of ephemeral but culturally significant matters posted on the internet.

 

  1. This short piece cannot hope to set out all the details of what the best practices and exemplars are for Fair Use that gets the balance right between your mission and the rights of creators and publishers,  but urges you, as a librarian, to see where you stand in the spectrum of copyright laws that may be available across the world to support your mission.  As it is Fair Use Week,  and if you are one of those that does not have the benefit of Fair Use or actually do have the benefit of such an exception but have not used it,  go find out about it through the lawyer or other experts supporting your library and see how it can be fairly used.  If you then think it is useful, consider how you can advocate for it to be introduced or used as part of your workplan in the not too distant future.

 

  1. In the meantime,  it is Fair Use week and time to use those research skills to discover and read more about an exceptional exception that is not a fair weathered friend to librarians!

 

Eric Chin

General Counsel (and would be librarian and archivist)

National Library Board, Singapore

 

Note:  The views set out here are personal and do not represent the official view of any organisation I am associated with.

 

How HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) supports Libraries in pandemic times

By Sara R. Benson, Copyright Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Check out Sara’s podcast titled Copyright Chat at https://go.illinois.edu/copyrightchat

It’s Fair Use/Fair Dealing week and that means it is once again time to let folks know about exciting developments with the HathiTrust Digital Library. Last year on Fair Use Week I highlighted the ability of researchers to engage with copyright protected materials for text and data mining through the HathiTrust Research Data Capsule. This year, I would like to make readers aware of the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service or ETAS.

What is the ETAS? It is a portal allowing affiliated libraries to permit their patrons to access in copyright works remotely. Why is the ETAS available? COVID 19 has caused many libraries, such as my own (the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Library) to temporarily limit physical access to library materials. Almost half of our collection, however, has been digitized and is available in the HathiTrust corpus. Normally, users can only perform searches for how many times a given term appears in copyright protected works in the HathiTrust corpus. However, due to COVID 19, the ETAS allows users to view (but not download) entire copyright protected works remotely. Libraries participating must have the physical book in their collection and agree not to lend out the physical book. Thus, the book is being lent remotely on a one-to-one ratio to the Library’s physical collection on the basis of fair use. This type of lending is made possible because it is non-commercial, educational in purpose and justified due to the emergency nature of the pandemic virus. As noted by April Hathcock in a public statement created by copyright specialists and available at https://tinyurl.com/tvnty3a, “fair use is made for just these kinds of contingencies.”

So, as you celebrate Fair Use/Fair Dealing week this year, note that the pandemic has brought with it many challenges, but Fair Use has enabled libraries to keep lending their works digitally so that researchers and the public can continue to create, thrive, and produce . . . even during a crisis.