Tag Archives: Internet

World Habitat Day 2018

World Habitat Day

Urbanisation – the growing share of the world’s population living in cities – is a major feature of the world today. From 55% today, over two thirds of all people are expected to live in major built-up areas by 2050.

Yet urbanisation brings its challenges. Congestion, waste management, broken and re-formed social relationships, even loneliness. The United Nations and its members recognised the need to act in 2015 when they created Sustainable Development Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities, as well as when they agreed the whole New Urban Agenda.

The raises the question – how to make cities liveable. And indeed, how to make sure that cities are communities, with – as the word suggests – something in common between their inhabitants? Libraries can help in at least three ways.

 

Common Spaces

A first key contribution is in the space that libraries offer. As people live more and more of their lives online, there are fewer obvious reasons to come together in a single space. Yet this does not mean it is less necessary.

Indeed, the possibility to do things together – even go online – remains attractive. A police station, hospital or school does not offer this, nor – at least for people on low incomes – do private venues.

Libraries fill an important gap here, offering a neutral, welcoming space to all members of the community. Indeed, SDG 11.7 underlines this point, setting the following target: ‘by 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities’. Similar language appears in Paragraph 13(c) of the Quito Declaration that launched the New Urban Agenda.

 

Common Opportunities

A second ingredient of a successful community is a feeling that everyone has their place there. Everyone should be able to access to same services, and have, as far as possible, equal chances of fulfilling their ambitions.

Having access to information – as well as the rights and skills to use it – is a key to this, giving the possibility to learn, find work, and develop both personally and professionally. SDG 11.1 underlines that Member States should, ‘by 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services…’. Again, the Quito Declaration makes the same point.

Once again, libraries help. Internet access on its own can be essential in countries that are less well off. But so too is the support – both formal and informal – provided by dedicated library staff, the access to books subject to copyright, and the fact – as highlighted above – that libraries offer a welcoming space.

 

Common Heritage

The power of a sense of a shared past is also important, especially at times of rapid change. While this may often be overlooked in favour of interventions with more immediate impact – health, policing, renovations, it is a key part of the mix of actions that help build communities.

 Once again, this is an issue recognised by the UN, which, in SDG 11.4, calls on Member States to ‘Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage’. IFLA itself has underlined this point in a statement. Paragraph 125 of the Quito Declaration underlines:  ‘We will support the leveraging of cultural heritage for sustainable urban development and recognize its role in stimulating participation and responsibility’.

This is not just a question of the ancient past. As highlighted in IFLA’s article for World Peace Day, libraries are also helping people to recognise the events of the more recent past – even traumatic ones – and through activities such as community archiving, are helping to bring people together.

 

 

It is not by accident that the SDGs talk about cities and communities. People need both in order to benefit from a sense of wellbeing. Where they are properly supported, libraries make this happen.

Unsafe, Untrue, Unhinged? Libraries, Internet Platforms and Difficult Content

The ongoing discussion over how Internet platforms should deal with Alex Jones has provided a test-case for how Internet platforms should approach the question of ‘fake news’.

Alex Jones – described alternatively as a performance artist and a conspiracy theorist, amongst other things – is known for making unsubstantiated claims.

He (or at least the persona he presents) is firmly right-leaning, in the American context. This of course makes the whole debate more complicated. In polarised times, dismissing Jones as ‘fake news’ only leads to accusations of left-wing bias from his supporters.

Jones also tests the boundaries between extreme speech and dangerous speech.

This is a critical line – extreme speech may be uncomfortable, but is also part of the deal with freedom of expression. Calls for universal suffrage or religious freedom were also considered to be extreme speech for much of history.

This has placed Internet platforms in a difficult position. They are, at their core, profit-making companies – or at least aim to be – and have come across as uncomfortable in having to take these sorts of decisions.

They were never likely to find it easy. In addition to the fundamental difficulty of moderating billions of people, they are bigger – and richer – than Jones, and a familiar target for commentators. Moreover, it seems likely that criticism is not something that matters much to Jones, making him a less interesting objective.

Some moved quickly to ban him once the pressure grew, such as YouTube and Facebook, although of course this was after years of posts. Twitter hesitated, with CEO Jack Dorsey admitting that they really didn’t have a simple response to the fake news issue.

And others, such as Google, have not banned him, but rather down-graded Jones’ ‘news’ to make it far less visible among the other information sources out there.

 

These are all questions that are relevant for libraries. Our institutions are strong defenders of freedom of access to information and freedom of expression, but acknowledge that this is not an absolute freedom, not least when it leads to limitations on the rights of others.

For example, in its statement on the Right to Be Forgotten, IFLA underlines that there is a balance to be found between the right of access to information, and the right of individuals to ensure that information that is untrue or unfairly damaging is not given prominent in Internet searches.

Crucially, these sorts of decisions are a question of professional judgement. What may work in one context does not necessarily in another. Moreover, and as the current discussion underlines, extreme views are a key part of public political debate, and there is an obligation to record them for posterity.

The sorts of decisions Internet platforms are trying to take now are not far removed from the decisions made regularly in libraries. The way they do it is crucial. Restrictions – as the word implies – restrict the scope of debate that can make up the historical record.

While mimicking the work of libraries in helping people to find the information they need, they risk pre-empting thes individual decisions taken by librarians and users individuals. They do this in a way that is not necessarily transparent or sensitive to the situations of different users either, encouraging suspicion. They cannot be asked, or challenged about this. And of course are trying to do so at a scale never attempted before.

Jack Dorsey’s hesitation is perhaps welcome – an admission that easy solutions are mistaken. The need for libraries, and the skills and values of librarians, is as strong as ever.

What’s On Online? Current Issues for Libraries in Internet Governance and Policy

The core mission of libraries is to provide people with access to information. With flows of information increasingly taking place online, our institutions have a major interest in the way the Internet works.

In December of this year, the world will celebrate 50/50 – the point at which the share of the world’s population with Internet accesses passes 50%. This will be a success to celebrate, but also a reminder of how many people remain unconnected.

Moreover, serious concerns remain about the way in which the actions of governments and private actors can affect this access, and whether people themselves are equipped to make best use of the possibilities.

In short, if people do not have access, or if this access is subject to restrictions, then the mission of libraries cannot be achieved. This blog lists a few of the issues currently on the agenda.

 

Delivering Access – New Tools?

As highlighted in the introduction, the celebrations around giving half of the world’s population access to the Internet will be clouded by the fact that the other half remain offline. While the unconnected are concentrated in developing countries, there are still minorities in richer countries who are cut off.

New technologies and techniques are emerging for getting people online. Major Internet companies have their own projects for giving access, through satellites, balloons and other tools. While Facebook, for example, has apparently given up on its plans to use drones, it is now investing in satellites.

One technology is TV White Space (TVWS), promoted by its supporters as a particularly smart means of bringing Internet to remote areas. It works by using frequencies which currently are not being used for television, and dedicating them to WiFi. A number of projects using this approach are at work in the United States and Colombia.

There are also efforts by cities and wider communities to set up new networks. Sometimes these are run by local governments who recognise the value of faster connectivity (‘municipal broadband’). Sometimes, it’s residents themselves who come together to establish ‘community networks’.

In both cases, they bypass traditional Internet Service Providers (ISPs), often accused of doing too little to invest in higher speeds.

However, such projects need favourable regulation to work. With radio spectrum usually ‘owned’ by government, there are ongoing questions about who can access this for TVWS projects. There are also stories of restrictions on use of telegraph poles being used to prevent municipal fibre projects.

In addition, there have been some signs of renewed interest in Universal Service and Access Funds (USAFs). These collect funds from taxes on telecommunications providers in order to support connections to poorly served areas and populations.

However, they are frequently under-used, and can be subject to the same risks of corruption and bureaucracy as other parts of government. A recent report from the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) underlines how, if properly deployed, they could make the difference for women in Africa for example.

Libraries are both beneficiaries of better connectivity, and potentially drivers of new projects. To do this, they will need the right regulations and financial support to be able to give their users – and their communities – effective access to information.

 

Delivering Content – New Threats?

Yet not all connections are equal. Even when the cables are laid, or the masts turned on, what a user can see online will depend on the rules and practices in place.

The role of government is a key concern. Governments continue to engage in complete or partial shutdowns, as well as in focused censorship.

AccessNow’s monitoring of shutdowns shows that these are depressingly frequent, with everything from national security to school exams offering an excuse. The collateral damage caused by these moves – to businesses, to medicine, to citizens’ daily communications, is significant.

Censorship continues to be a problem. At the end of April, the anniversary of Turkey’s ban of Wikipedia was marked. Freedom House’s 2017 Freedom on the Internet report showed record levels of online censorship and blocking. Steps in Tunisia, for example, to oblige bloggers to ‘register’ are also worrying.

Meanwhile, concerns about ‘fake news’ have served as an excuse for some governments to take dramatic action against both writers and websites. Cambodia, Azerbaijan and Vietnam provide some recent examples. In parallel, as Freedom House (mentioned above) underlines, governments are also more than ready to share disinformation themselves using the same tools.

Yet it would be a mistake to focus only on government. As technology advances, and with it the possiblity to use data to make new connections and offer new services, the risk to personal information grows.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal, as well as other cases of dubious practice by major Internet firms, have shown what can be done with personal data. Data ethics has become a new area for discussion, closely linked to the explosion in the volumes of information collected online (including by the Internet of things).

The entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union offers a response, but much will depend on how effectively people take up the new possibilities it creates. Similar rules appear to be spreading to California and Brazil, and data protection is an increasingly high-profile issue in trade discusisons.

Furthermore, net neutrality remains on the agenda. In the United States, the resistance to moves by the government to allow companies to discriminate continues at federal level. Individual states are passing their own laws to guarantee equal access to all content as far as possible.

Elsewhere, the news is better, with India underlining its support for net neutrality, and steps in some countries at least to do away with zero-rating offerings (i.e. allowing users to access some services without this counting towards their data caps).

An additional issue arises where private companies are pressured to take steps that governments themselves cannot.

As highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, platforms are not independent. They can be pressured, for example, to block certain types of content (‘fake news’, explicit content, extreme content), or apply rulings such as the European Union’s right to be forgotten principle.

In doing so, they take on similar powers to governments or courts, but with less oversight or control. Moreover, when governments pass laws that only create incentives to block content, there is no guarantee that legal content will be defended. Laws such as FOSTA and SESTA in the United States and anti fake-news laws in Germany and France risk doing just this.

For libraries, this is an issue of growing importance. The content to which libraires give access is increasingly online, rather than on-the-shelf. And libraries are committed to broader access to information as a driver of development.

While there is a case for acting against specific content that genuinely poses a threat, indiscriminate restrictions imposed by governments or companies, including the chilling effect that surveillance and data-collection can create, are bad news for libraries.

 

Delivering Skills – New Focus?  

A final area of focus is on individuals themselves. Even where there is connectivity, and the connection is not subject to unjusitified restricitons, citizens themselves need the skills and confidence to get online.

As Pew Internet Centre research showed recently, a falling share of people see the Internet as only having brought benefits for society. Other surveys suggest growing levels of distrust and concern about about the risks encountered on the Internet.

There is a risk, when faced with such worries, that governments will feel empowered to take more restrictive stances (i.e. banning non-mainstream content). As a result, the need to give citizens themselves the confidence to deal with what they find online themselves is growing.

Digital skills training, however, remains minimal in many cases. This can be down to a lack of equipment, a lack of capacity among teaching staff, or simply a failure to update teaching. Moreover, digital skills cannot only be a task for formal education.

Meaningful digital skills training, as highlighted in IFLA’s statement on digital literacy, needs to be about more than just coding (important, but for now unlikely to be relevant to everyone in their future lives), and focus on a broader range of competences.

This should include, notably, an updated version of media and information literacy, adapted to a digital age. It may well also require a renewed focus on some of the ‘soft skills’ which are also important in the offline world.

A number of countries are adopting more holistic curricula, and the OECD is already incorporating concepts such as ‘problem solving in a digital environment’ into its own work. But we are likely to see more moves among governments to develop more comprehensive packages of skills and training in coming years.

Libraries are natural partners for delivering such skills, at least when they are suffficiently equipped and staffed. As welcoming places open to all of the community, regardless of age, they can complement the work of formal education.

With a focus, also, on providing the information (and information literacy) to meet real life needs, they can play a real role in shaping digital skills training for all.

 

The Internet’s potential to accelerate development is high, but not inevitable. As this blog indicates, there is a regular stream of questions, of doubts. How to make full use of all possibiities to get more people connected? How to avoid overreacting to ‘fake news’ and concern about certain content? How to give people the confidence they need to use the Internet effectively?

All are questions with a real importance for libraries, and to which libraries can help provide solutions.

The Robots are Coming? Libraries and Artificial Intelligence

RobotArtificial intelligence (AI) systematically tops popular lists of the most important emerging technologies. With a mix of fear and excitement, commentators seem to agree that it will shape the future, although not always on how.

To borrow a definition, AI is ‘programming computers to do things, which, if done by humans, would be said to require “intelligence’ (MIT Press Essential Knowledge Book on Machine Learning, cited by Chris Bourg).

To do this, it draws on analysis of (often large amounts of) data in order to find connections and draw conclusions. In this way , it can search for information, detect medical conditions, interpret from one language to another, or write books, for example.

Just as previous information-related technological revolutions have marked libraries – printing, electricity, the Internet – it’s worth asking how AI might do so. This blog runs through a number of the dimensions already highlighted by others.

It covers both those that directly impact libraries, and those affecting the broader information – and social – environment in which libraries work. Finally, it asks what scope there is for libraries to bring their resources – and values – to bear to shape this new world.

 

Robot Librarians, Robot Books?

Perhaps the most regularly voiced concern is that AI will accelerate the evolution in the way people look for information, at the expense of librarians.

Search engines have already gone a long way to replicating the traditional role of libraries in helping find basic information – capitals, dates etc. As AI becomes smarter, the argument goes, it becomes better at some of the more nuanced, smarter searching that librarians have long performed for users.

It is true that computers can ‘read’ literature far faster and more comprehensively than any individual can. Nonetheless, it remains the case that a search is only as good as the search terms put in. A good librarian, through working with a user, can provide a much better tailored service, potentially using up time freed up by using AI.

Moreover, of course, it opens up some truly exciting possibilities to do more with works already in collections (as long as they are digitised, open access, and ideally have the right metadata to be used across institutions). In effect, it can make libraries, and librarians, more valuable, rather than less, as Catherine Nicole Coleman underlines.

A second, and quite different issue, relates to the materials libraries stock. With AI already capable of writing novels, newspaper articles and research papers, there is a question as to the copyright status of these works.

As the monkey selfie case has underlined (more or less, and at least in the case of US law), it appears for now that only human beings can claim copyright. Potentially, the programmer behind the AI could claim an interest, but as highlighted above, may not be able to explain the process that led to the work in question.

Legal clarity on this point will become more and more pressing as time goes on, and AI-generated works take a larger and larger part in the record of works produced.

 

AI and the Library Environment

Clearly most discussion of AI doesn’t look at libraries, but on the impact on society as a whole. However, as institutions implanted within societies – and with a mission to serve them – libraries will need to take account of, and even deal with, the consequences.

A first issue is what AI will do to our lives and jobs. On the positive side, it does seem likely to free up time and effort for other activities. Given the impact of ‘attention scarcity’ on reading habits, this may be a positive.

Nonetheless, it also seems set to destroy many jobs, and create further divides in the labour market between high- and low-skilled jobs, a point highlighted by Ben Johnson. While it is comforting to think that things like creativity or entrepreneurship are still only possible for humans, there will still need to be support for individuals in realising this.

A second question concerns information itself. As highlighted in the IFLA FAIFE blog on data ethics, there is uncertainty as to how algorithms and artificial intelligence comes up with its answers. When searching for, or making use of, information, it may not be possible to explain how this happens.

While there never was a perfect search, it was at least possible to analyse the process followed. The risk now is that there is a black box, with little possibility to explain the results.

The one thing we do know is that there is a risk of bias and discrimination. Given that AI feeds on data about the present, it is liable simply to repeat this present into the future. Moreover, commercially-run AI brings with it risks of prioritisation (in the case of search in particular), or of course use of personal data (in general), with all the implications this brings for privacy and Intellectual Freedom.

In short, AI seems to be making two key functions of libraries in their work with communities – support for personal development, and information literacy – as important as ever, if not necessarily easier.

 

Library-Shaped AI?

Yet libraries are not powerless. Our community’s skills and values, as well as our institutions’ collections, have the potential to impact the development of AI. And by getting involved, we also have a chance to underline the importance of libraries to one of the most significant technological developments of today.

The most immediate contribution comes through library collections. Artificial intelligence works by looking at existing materials and drawing new connections and conclusions. Libraries, collectively, contain the richest imaginable resource for the development of AI. Indeed, the GoogleBooks project, for all its critics, made a major contribution to getting AI to where it is today.

The implication of this is, of course, that digitisation projects (at a quality that allows for machine reading), open access, and linked data are more important than ever. So too are efforts to ensure that copyright law does not drag down efforts to advance AI.

Linked to the use of library collections should be the application of library values. As highlighted above, AI (and big data in general) comes with risks of bias and discrimination.

By opening up whole library collections (in particular from a wider variety of sources), libraries can help provide greater balance in the material with which AI works. Moreover, by cooperating with programmers, there is an opportunity also to identify and combat biases that could lead to unbalanced results. Chris Bourg underlines this opportunity – and the challenges it implies, in her blog.

 

It remains relatively early days for artificial intelligence. But there are already a number of areas where libraries will need to be active. It is worth exploring further the library angle on these, in order not just to be ready for, but to shape the changes AI will bring.

 

Further reading

Bourg, Chris (2017), What happens to libraries and librarians when machines can read all the books, blog, 16 March 2017

Coleman, Catherine Nicole (2017), Artificial intelligence and the library of the future, revisited, blog, 3 November 2017

International Telecommunications Union, AI for Good

Jacknis, Norman (2017), The AI-Enhanced Library, blog, 21 June 2017

Johnson, Ben (2018), Libraries in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, InfoToday, January/February

Mulgan, Geoff (2018), AI for Good: Is It for Real?, nesta blog, 23 July 2018

Snow, Jackie (2017), Bias already exists in search engine results and it’s only going to get worse, MIT Technology Review, 26 February 2018

Tay, Aaron (2017), How libraries might change when AI, machine learning, open data, block chain & other technologies are the norm, blog, 9 April 2017

Making Libraries Heard at the Continental Scale

By Mandiaye Ndiaye, IFLA International Leaders Programme associate

The beautiful town of Sharm El Sheikh is hosting, from 4-6 December, with the support of the Egyptian National Telecommunications Regulation Authority, the 6th African Internet Governance Forum (AIGF). The general theme this year is ‘Making for an inclusive digital transformation in Africa’.

The AIGF provides a multistakeholder, multi-lingual, democratic and transparent space for exchange on Internet governance at a continental scale. It brings together representatives of governments, the private sector, of civil society of international organisations and of universities, as well as specialists and the other various actors in the Internet ecosystem. While the global Internet Governance Forum is organised by the United Nations, the secretariat of the African Internet Governance Forum is co-hosted by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNESCA) and the African Union (AU).

As a reminder, the African Internet Governance Forum was launched in Nairobi, during the global IGF in 2011. This in turn has gone through a number of phases, through the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) process, and regional meetings held between 2002 and 2005.

The Forum offers a number of spaces for exchange and building strategies, such as the Dynamic Coalition for Public Access in Libraries (DC-PAL), which opens the possibility to tackle questions of Internet governance relative to public access, and promotes a discussion on how existing technical expertise, networks and infrastructure in the form of libraries can contribute to achieving the objectives and the spirit of the WSIS process. In developing countries, public libraries are well placed to increase the number of people who are connecting – and so who benefit from the potential of the Internet – at minimum cost and with optimal results.

With delegates from IFLA, Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) and the African Library and Information Association (AfLIA), the voice of libraries and their users will be heard. The Dynamic Coalition, at AIGF 2017, will focus on the subject of ‘From Access to Autonomy: Public Libraries Meet the Challenge of Connecting the Next Billion.

IFLA is represented at this 6th African IGF by two associates of the IFLA International Leaders Programme – Mahmoud Khalifa of Egypt, and Mandiaye Ndiaye of Senegal, who will take part alongside other delegates in making libraries heard, and who will present a common project on Public Access to the Internet through Libraries’.

We’ll share more information as we go along!