Monthly Archives: September 2020

SDG Success in the Balance: Lessons from the 2020 Goalkeepers Report

As world leaders prepare to participate in the United Nations General Assembly, the Gates Foundation has released its 2020 Goalkeepers Report.

Focusing on a subset of indicators and themes featured in the UN’s 2030 Agenda, it looks to trace progress on key issues linked to the work of the Foundation, in particular health, poverty, education and equality.

These are, of course, also areas which can be determining for overall development – illness, low-education, and the exclusion of whole parts of any population represent a serious drag on progress in any society.

The Report has received widespread attention in the media, especially that focused on development, with its warnings around the risks that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to progress towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For libraries, as institutions committed to promoting progress in the communities they serve, the report is worth reading in order to understand the state of the world now. A number of conclusions in particular stand out – this blog explores just five:

The COVID-19 Pandemic stands to send us backwards in delivering on the 2030 Agenda: the first five years of the SDGs had, at least until the arrival of the pandemic, seen useful progress in fighting poverty and disease around the world. However, as the Report underlines, this progress has stopped in many areas. Indeed, we risk seeing 25 years of progress disappear in the space of 25 weeks when it comes to vaccinations. This needs to serve as a wake-up call for all those working to deliver stronger, fairer, more sustainable societies – we need to be careful to ensure that this set-back is not permanent.

We are facing a set of ‘mutually exacerbating catastrophes’: the Report underlines that the crisis is a complex one. While the immediate challenge is of course to restrict the spread of the virus until a vaccine can be found and deployed, there are already economic, social and educational catastrophes. Indeed, the loss of livelihoods, closure of schools and other steps may in turn create new health challenges outside of COVID-19, not least as concerns other vaccination and public health programmes.

The risks are highest for those already facing marginalisation: the Goalkeepers initiative, from its creation, has focused strongly on the situation of those most at risk of marginalisation. The 2020 edition underlines emerging signs that the pandemic will make inequality worse. For example, reduced demand and rules on distancing have made impossible many of the jobs – often informal – on which people facing poverty, and in particular women, depend. There are also concerns that when children start to return to school, girls will be held back, and of course children living in households without broadband access have been unable to benefit from distance learning in the same way as better connected peers.

In tough times, we cannot necessarily count on more money: the Report makes the stark warning that it is often the countries that need help most that are least able to provide it. Whereas already rich countries can borrow money for stimulus programmes, poorer ones face much higher interest rates, reducing their options. Yet even in richer countries, debts incurred today will need to be paid back tomorrow. Part of the response will, as the Report suggests, need to be a new mobilisation at the international level to get help to where it is needed. But implicit in this also is the need to make best use of the resources and infrastructures that we already have.

Libraries are in a position to help: in many of the areas highlighted by the report, the potential for libraries to contribute to the response is clear. Indeed, the support offered by the Gates Foundation over many years to libraries has made it possible to show what can be done. As pre-existing, familiar institutions around the world (there are 430 000 public and community libraries, one for every 15 000 people in countries for which we have data), working through libraries represents low-hanging fruit.

Graph from Goalkeepers Report showing risk of regression in literacy levels among childrenThe most obvious area where libraries can support progress is on education, where different projections all anticipate a drop in the share of children at the end of primary education able to read and understand a simple text. Clearly schools are at the heart of the response, but libraries can complement this by helping children engage with language from a young age, drawing on well-established expertise, as underlined by UNESCO.

Another potential area is reproductive health. Again, this is an area where health professionals themselves will take the lead, but where information – and access to this – is a key part of the response, as set out in IFLA’s response to a consultation by the UN’s Human Rights Council.

A third area is around financial services to the poor. Clearly, libraries themselves are not in a position to offer loans or protect savings, but can help provide the connectivity necessary for any digital banking services to reach people. The role of libraries in providing public access to the internet is well-recognised, and was even, in 2015, identified as the single most cost-effective way of bringing the next billion online.

 

There is much more in the Report, as well as great tools for exploring the data and understanding where your country stands on the indicators selected. There is also strong potential to draw on the key messages highlighted above, both to focus reflection within the library field, and underline how libraries can be part of the solution, if they are properly included in policy planning.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #17: Think about how you can measure success

The test of a great idea is in its delivery.

In order to understand whether a service or programme is working, it’s important to be able to see whether it is meeting its goals.

But also, proof of what you have achieved is also powerful when advocating.

Politicians will meet lots of enthusiastic people with great ideas. But what should work best in changing their minds is evidence.

Libraries can better protect and improve their situation when they can make it clear how they are contributing to their communities.

So for our 17th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, think about how you can measure success.

There are different ways of doing which could fit to your own situation, from stories from individuals to statistics, from the way people feel (did they appreciate what you did?) to life-changes.

Looking through stories on IFLA’s Library Map of the World will give you some great ideas from libraries elsewhere. You can also learn more in our Storytelling Manual.

Thinking about measurement early also pays off, as it means you can collect feedback as you deliver any service or programme.

Share your stories on measuring success in the comments below!

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 3.3 Develop standards, guidelines, and other materials that foster best professional practice.

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box.

Guest Blog: The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto

This is a guest blog by Adam Harangozó, a freelance creative worker.

Our past is crucial in understanding our present. It offers us knowledge and insights that help us to evaluate the world we live in today – the way we live our lives, structure our economies, and relate to each other and to nature. Learning from the past may yet help us correct mistakes and find better ways to live in the future. But for this to happen, there must be equal access to knowledge about the past, allowing for inclusive critical dialogue.

The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto (see below, and online),signed by a large number of professionals and cultural organisations, was born out of the fact that at a time of unprecedented species loss, the possibility for people to study animals that are no longer with us depends entirely on the accessibility of what has been written about them, or collected from them. With the 2nd Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity coming up next year, this is a crucial moment. There has rarely been a more appropriate time to talk about the importance of ensuring we can draw on this knowledge in order to understand how species decline, draw on insights that we can use more broadly in science, and simply raise awareness of what is at stake.

Clearly, loss of species is just one of many issues that ask us to re-evaluate our past. The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and Black Lives Matter all do so. In order to learn to do things differently, we must have free access to our past. There is also a growing readiness to look at what more can be done to make digitised collections available to all. The Passenger Pigeon Manifesto brings these issues together into a clear call for more work to make our heritage accessible for all.

 

Passenger Pigeon Manifesto

A call to public galleries, libraries, archives, and museums to liberate our cultural heritage. Illustrated with the cautionary tales of extinct species and our lack of access to what remains of them.

I.

How many people know about the passenger pigeons? 

Martha, the last passenger pigeon to ever live on Earth, died on 1 September 1914. Less than 50 years before her, wild pigeons, as they were also called, flew in flocks of millions in the USA and Canada. Their numbers were so vast their arrival darkened the sky for hours, and branches of trees broke under the collective impact of their landing. Accounts describing how it felt to witness these birds were already unimaginable to most people at the beginning of the 20th century. Still, they are not a matter of poetry but factual natural history. 

Simon Pokagon, a Native American Pottawatomi author and advocate, as a young man lived in a time when he could still see passenger pigeons “move in one unbroken column for hours across the sky, like some great river(…) from morning until night”. He noted that even though his tribe already named the birds O-me-me-wog, “why European race did not accept that name was, no doubt, because the bird so much resembled the domesticated pigeon; they naturally called it a wild pigeon, as they called us wild men”. Pokagon writes about witnessing a method of hunting passenger pigeons by feeding them whiskey-soaked mast, rendering them flightless. He was shattered by a tragic parallel: his tribe was devastated by the introduction of mass produced alcohol by white men.

Passenger pigeons mentioned in the Indiana State Sentinel newspaper

Passenger pigeons mentioned in the Indiana State Sentinel newspaper. Public Domain. Source: Indiana State Sentinel/Wikimedia Commons https://bit.ly/2FySyuk

II.

The history of the passenger pigeons is accompanied by a ubiquitous disbelief. When the sight of millions was an integral part of the ecosystem and the everyday life of modern America, many did not believe a species of such numbers could go extinct. When their disappearance became an undeniable experience, people said they simply moved to South America. Today, chasing dreams of resurrection in the face of anthropogenic extinctions shows the still continuing failure to understand the finality of their death and come to terms with our responsibility. 

Deep under all this, there is a tragic lack of self-reflection on what we, humans, are capable of. Many might try to dismiss this is as being only a matter of older times and societies long since transcended. Yet, there is no need to dig deep. Don’t forget about the widespread denial of climate change. Don’t forget about the anti-narratives to the Black Lives Matter movement claiming systematic racism does not exist, denying any connections to colonialism.

In order to improve, our definition of what it means to be human must include recognising the horrors we are capable of in societies of past and present. The systematic oppression of others and the massacre of billions of animals were done by human beings. Us. We can become better only if we realise that besides all the wonders, this is us too and it can happen again if we don’t change the ways we live together.

 

Thylacine at Beaumaris Zoo, 1936

Thylacine at Beaumaris Zoo, 1936. Public Domain. Source: Ben Sheppard from Tasmanian Archives/Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/35wsHhu

III.

A photo of one of the last thylacines, a species which became extinct when Benjamin died on 7 September 1936. Our imagination tries to grasp it through animals we know: it’s some kind of a tiger or a wolf. But it’s none of that, not even remotely related. What colours did it have? What did it sound like?

How do we feel when we look at photographs of animals long gone? Melancholy, the repressed fear of death, sorrow but also empathy, the desire to act – these are very important feelings. Black and white conveys a sadness of final loss that no colors can. Photography, no matter how deceptive it can be, is able to wash away cynicism and induce profoundly human emotions – ones we should feel when we think about injustice – human and non-human –, extinction or the climate crisis.

Looking at history provides a mental space where we can observe humanity and wonder about the whys and what ifs without the immediate frustration of the present. Exactly this removedness is what allows us to recognise and reflect on mistakes and right decisions.

We are supposed to learn from history, yet we don’t have access to it. Historical photographs of extinct animals are among the most important artefacts to teach and inform about human impact on nature. But where to look when one wants to see all that is left of these beings? Where can we access all the extant photos of the thylacine or the passenger pigeon? History books use photos to help us relate to narratives and see a shared reality. But how can we look through our own communities’ photographic heritage, share it with each other and use it for research and education?

Historical photos are kept by archives, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions. Preservation, which is the goal of cultural institutions, means ensuring not only the existence of but the access to historical materials. It is the opposite of owning: it’s sustainable sharing. Similarly, conservation is not capturing and caging but ensuring the conditions and freedom to live.

Even though most of our tangible cultural heritage has not been digitised yet, a process greatly hindered by the lack of resources for professionals, we could already have much to look at online. In reality, a significant portion of already digitised historical photos is not available freely to the public – despite being in the public domain. We might be able to see thumbnails or medium sized previews scattered throughout numerous online catalogs but most of the time we don’t get to see them in full quality and detail. In general, they are hidden, the memory of their existence slowly going extinct.

The knowledge and efforts of these institutions are crucial in tending our cultural landscape but they cannot become prisons to our history. Instead of claiming ownership, their task is to provide unrestricted access and free use. Cultural heritage should not be accessible only for those who can afford paying for it.

 

V.

Acknowledging the importance of access to information and cultural heritage, and the vital role of public institutions, we call on galleries, libraries, archives, museums, zoos and historical societies all over the world:

1.) Cultural institutions should reflect on and rethink their roles in relation to access. While the current policy landscape, lack of infrastructure and the serious budget cuts do not support openness, cultural institutions cannot lose sight of their essential role in building bridges to culture. Preservation must mean ensuring our cultural heritage is always easily accessible to anyone. Without free, public access, these items will only be objects to be forgotten and rediscovered again and again, known only by exclusive communities.

2.) Physical preservation is not enough. Digital preservation of copies and metadata is essential but due to the erosion of storage, files can get damaged easily. To ensure the longevity of digital items, the existence of the highest possible number of copies is required: this can be achieved by sharing through free access.

3.) Beyond preservation and providing access, institutions need to communicate the existence and content of their collections, our cultural heritage. Even with unlimited access, not knowing about the existence and context of historical materials is almost the same as if they didn’t exist. Approachability and good communication is crucial in reaching people who otherwise have less access to knowledge.

4.) Publicly funded institutions must not be transformed by the market logic of neoliberalism. The role of archives, museums and other cultural institutions, is more and more challenged by capitalism. They need to redefine themselves in ways that allow cultural commodities to be archived, described and shared in the frameworks of open access and open science. The remedy to budget-cuts and marketisation requires wide-scale, public dialogue and collaboration. Involving people from outside of academia has great potential: NGOs, volunteers, open-source enthusiasts, online and offline communities and passionate individuals are a vast resource and should be encouraged to participate. Akin to citizen scientists, there can be citizen archivists.

5.) Liberate and upload all digitised photographs and artworks that are in the public domain or whose copyrights are owned by public institutions. Remove all restrictions on access, quality and reuse while applying cultural and ethical considerations (“open by default, closed by exception”). Prioritize adapting principles and values recommended by the OpenGLAM initiative in the upcoming ‘Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage’.

6.) All collections should be searchable and accessible in an international, digital photo repository. Instead of spending on developing various new platforms for each institution, the ideal candidate for an independent, central imagebase that provides the widest possible reach is Wikimedia Commons. Using Commons would provide an immediate opportunity to release cultural heritage while still allowing the long-term development of digital archives for institutional purposes. Operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Commons is a community managed, open and free multilanguage platform. It provides access to millions of people by sharing images under open licences. Wikipedias of all languages are using Commons to illustrate their articles, and the photos appear on news sites, blogs, and research articles all over the world. Wikimedia is open to collaboration with GLAMs and many institutions are already active on the site including the Digital Public Library of America and the Cultureel Erfgoed. By using Commons, institutions will also benefit: the platform runs on a free and flexible software where photos can be described and categorised using structured data. Utilising the participation of a large and diverse community in catalogising, tagging, publicising and even researching can save time and cut costs. At the same time, institutions will still retain the physical copies and will be able to use the digital photos on their own platforms as well. The images on Commons will also cite their original holding institutions, granting further visibility to their collections and efforts.

Today we are so far ahead in forgetting our past that we came very close to repeating it. Providing free, universal access to culture and knowledge is one of the steps we must take to prevent this.

Passenger Pigeon profile view with shadow

Passenger Pigeon profile view with shadow. Public Domain. Source: J.G. Hubbard from Wisconsin Historical Society/Wikimedia Commons, https://bit.ly/3it0Xhx

A list of signatories is available on the Manifesto website: https://ppmanifesto.hcommons.org/

Library Stat of the Week #35: Where there are more libraries offering internet access, being out of work is less likely to mean that people are also offline

Over the past weeks, we have looked at data around digital divides, and to what extent these cross over with other potential divides in society – rich and poor, women and men, old and young, and those with higher or lower formal qualifications.

It is valuable to look at this because the results help understand to what extent the internet can act as a bridge across divides, or rather deepen them further.

Ideally, access to the web should help those who are disadvantaged find new opportunities and information in order to improve their own lives, as well as those of the people around them.

However, where access is lacking, the fortunate – those who can use the internet – can get ahead, while those without drop further and further behind. This has been abundantly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, with children lacking internet access unable to take part in education in the same way as their better connected peers.

It is also the case for those facing unemployment. People seeking work can do so much more easily with access to the internet, both to find openings, and to develop skills or access support.

People who are retired can also risk being cut off without internet access, for example limiting contact with friends and family, governments services, and eHealth possibilities. Older people may also feel less confident online, and feel the need for additional support.

In both cases, libraries can provide a great way to ensure that everyone can get online and make the most of the internet.

This blog therefore looks at digital divides between those in work on the one hand, and those who are unemployed or retired on the other. Once again, data on internet use comes from the OECD’s database on ICT Access and Usage by Households and Individuals, while data on libraries offering internet access comes from IFLA’s Library Map of the World.

Graph 1: Employment-Related Digital Divides

Graph 1 looks at the state of the employment-related digital divide, for countries for which data is available. In almost all countries, a greater share of people in employment have used the internet in the last three months than those who are unemployed.

Only Denmark, Luxembourg and Switzerland buck the trend. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, Korea, Slovenia and Slovakia, the gap is over 20 percentage points.

Meanwhile, in no country are retired people more likely to use the internet than people in work, with the gap reaching over 40 points in Chile, Lithuania, Portugal and the Slovak Republic.

Graph 2a: Employment-Related Digital Divides and Internet Access in Public Libraries (All Countries)

Graph 2a crosses these figures with those for the number of public or community libraries offering internet access. Each dot represents a country, with the number of public or community libraries offering internet access on the horizontal (X) axis, and the gap in shares of the population using the internet (employed minus unemployed (blue dots) or retired (red dots)) on the vertical (Y) axis.

As with previous weeks, putting together the figures for all countries suggests that there is a positive correlation between the number of libraries offering internet access per 100 000 people, and the size of the digital divide – clearly not an encouraging result!

However, as we have seen in previous weeks, it is worth breaking out the results for Central and Eastern Europe, given the particular history of these countries

Graph 2b: Employment-Related Digital Divides and Internet Access in Public Libraries (without Central and Eastern Europe)

Graph 2b – using data from countries outside of Central and Eastern Europe – therefore shows a very different picture, in line with what we have seen in previous weeks. Where there are more libraries offering internet access, the digital divide faced by people who are out of work or retired, compared to their in-work peers, tends to be smaller.

Indeed, it appears that for every additional public library per 100 000 people offering access, the digital divide for the retired falls by 1 percentage point, and that for the unemployed falls by 0.55 percentage points.

Graph 2c: Employment-Related Digital Divides and Internet Access in Public Libraries (Central and Eastern Europe)

Graph 2c repeats the analysis for countries in Central and Eastern Europe for which we have data, again indicating that where there are more libraries offering internet access, divides are smaller.

 

As always, the analysis carried out here cannot show causality – only correlation. However, it supports the argument that it is in societies with more libraries offering internet access that people who most need to access the internet face smaller barriers to doing so.

With COVID-19 risking exacerbating divides in societies, this is a powerful point to make in underlining why maintaining and broadening internet access through libraries matters more than ever.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Restitution with a Catch? The Copyright Perspective on the Sarr-Savoy Report

The Sarr-Savoy report on the restitution of African cultural heritage, published in November 2018, proposes to recontextualise the presence of African artefacts in French heritage collections.

The objective of this report is to develop, in view of the role of the French state in colonisation, recommendations to update relevant laws around restitutions, as well as to encourage bilateral agreements with countries following requests for restitution.

Among its recommendations, the report suggests that collections which are returned should be subject to digitisation beforehand, with the digitised files then made available for use under free and open access to everyone.

This recommendation is easy to miss in the report, as the paragraphs which concern it are discreet. Nonetheless, it raises questions on two essential questions:

Who owns the physical and digital collections and who has the right to choose the policy of digitisation and openness of these artefacts?

This blog looks at the report’s approach, and presents some of the concerns expressed by this, in particular through a letter drafted by Mathilde Parvis and Andrea Wallace.

First of all, the suggestion to digitise and make collections accessible may seem an interesting initiative in the context of outreach by heritage institutions. For a number of years now, it has been clear that giving access to digital collections is a key mission for cultural institutions, as the report mentions briefly.

However, there are questions about whether this should be subject to the decision of the French state, or be a pre-condition for restitution. The term ‘restitution’, as defined in the report, is strongly connected to the question of legitimate ownership of the object. This cannot be brushed aside when it comes to digital collections.

Arguably, the legitimate ownership by African governments of returned items should give them the right to take decisions regarding the appropriate policy to be put in place on digital collections. Can it be appropriate for the government of a former colonial power to set out such demands in a restitution agreement when talking about heritage that arguably should never have been in its possession in the first place?

Indeed, as Mathilde Parvis and Andrea Wallace’s response perfectly underlines: it should rather be up to the communities to make decisions concerning the artefacts of their heritage. Indeed, suggesting or imposing in bilateral agreements a policy of digitisation and open access to collections appears to be at odds with the principle of recognition of spoliation.

Moreover, the report’s proposals concerning free and open access to and use of images does not seem to match the policy around images in French collections. Indeed, French policy on openGLAM is not based on a centralized ministerial incentive but on the will of cities and organisations independently of each other (whereas German GLAM institutions are far more organised and supported).

The request made to African governments regarding the opening of access to digital collections of collections seems, therefore, to be antithetical with the policy it applies to the digital collections of France’s own institutions.

Clearly, openness is to be welcomed in general as the best way of giving the biggest number of people possible the opportunity to engage with heritage, where other concerns (privacy or indigenous rights for example) do not stand in the way. Nonetheless, in these conditions, it risks being seen as an imposition, not a virtue.

Therefore, Parvis and Wallace’s reply defines several ways to reframe the recommendations of the Sarr-Savoy report, such as:

– Clearly define the scope of Open Access – commercial, non-commercial, public domain, possibility of reuse.
– Clearly define who owns the digital image reproductions.
– Carry out research on the conformity of these recommendations concerning the laws of African countries.
– Do not separate digital reproductions from returned objects because the reproductions are also subject to cultural appropriation.

With plans now underway to reform France’s Heritage Code, we will follow closely how this debate is reflected in any proposed amendments.

Lessons from the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2020

Last week the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the 13th edition of its Global Innovation Index (GII). This looks to bring together different indicators that can help governments and others understand how different countries are doing in promoting innovation, which is taken to be a key source of growth and progress towards wider development goals.

The index takes a wide perspective on innovation – not just specific activities such as patenting, but also evaluations of the innovation environment (institutions governing innovation, human capital, infrastructures, sources of finance and opportunities to sell innovative products, and businesses’ own behaviour), and a wider range of measures of outputs and their dissemination and use, including online.

The report as a whole – and the measures that underpin it – are worth exploring for anyone interested in how something as broad as innovation can be defined and measured. This is particularly true for the library field, given the role of our institutions in supporting and promoting basic research in particular, through their work with faculty in universities and other research centres.

It is also, clearly, a crucial moment to think about the way that innovation is encouraged and managed, given the impacts of COVID-19 on economies. The report includes various perspectives on funding, as well as insightful commentary on what the pandemic may mean more broadly.

This blog, as a starter, identifies five key points made in the GII 2020, which may be of particular relevance.

 

Spending on research and development is likely to fall – we will need to ensure what money is there is spent effectively: the most prominent graph in the report highlights that the first three months of 2019 have already seen a drop in spending on research and innovation, likely as companies became aware of the potential costs of the pandemic. Governments too are likely to look to reduce spending also in the coming months – and indeed, the latest proposal for the European Union’s Multi-year Financial Framework already (mistakenly, in the view of libraries) plans to do this.

Clearly, any decision to cut spending on innovation cannot be taken lightly. But where this is the case, it will be necessary to think hard about how to maximise efficiency. A clear way of doing this is through promoting openness in science, which has the potential to make research both faster and fairer. A wider analysis of the way research is shared can also help identify where money is being removed from the system unnecessarily, reducing that actually spent on creating and applying new ideas.

 

There is a positive trend towards international cooperation between researchers which should be encouraged: the report notes that despite the many stories of countries failing to coordinate around border controls or purchases of vaccines, the scientific community has proven itself readier to work across borders in order to share ideas, data and results. It underlines how much of a positive this is, echoing existing findings by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that cross-border collaborations tend to lead to higher impact research.

Support for research cooperation is a key focus for many academic libraries. Clearly encouraging openness (not only of publications, but also of science in general) will help with this by reducing (or removing) copyright-related barriers to collaboration. So too will progress towards an international legal instrument on copyright limitations and exceptions at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Yet libraries are also, through work around linked data and developing and updating standards, facilitating the sharing and use of information across borders to advance innovation.

 

Steps to remove red-tape have been welcome and can continue to contribute to supporting innovation: another positive underlined by the report is the effort made by many governments to simplify processes around innovation. These have focused in particular on financing, as well as on some rules around testing. Clearly it will be important in the longer term to assess which of these changes should be made permanent – rules are usually there for a reason – but this will allow for a re-evaluation.

Once again, the value of simplifying rules and processes around innovation will be positive for libraries. For example, in discussions around the copyright rules that should apply to text and data mining, it is clear that research is facilitated when there is no need to seek additional permissions, or buy additional licences in order to carry out mining – the right to read should be the right to mine. Similarly, the complexity that libraries face in giving access to digital resources, each subject to their own set of contract terms, could be easily removed by simply underlining that such terms should not be enforceable when they override copyright limitations and exceptions.

 

Countries with more flexible copyright regimes tend to top the tables for their regions: Once again, it is countries with flexible rules around copyright – namely fair use or fair dealing – which top the tables in five out of the seven regions highlighted by WIPO. The United States in North America, India in Southern and Central Asia, Singapore in South-East and Eastern Asia and Oceania, Israel in North Africa and Western Asia, and South Africa in Sub-Saharan Africa all have such rules.

The only exceptions are in Europe (Switzerland) and Latin America and the Caribbean (Chile). Nonetheless, both have recently updated their copyright laws to favour access to information in support of innovation. This provides a helpful argument in favour of greater flexibility as a means of supporting more innovation.

 

Innovation will be essential for the recovery from COVID-19: an overall point – and one that could be expected from a report with this title – is that innovation is likely to be essential for any future recovery from COVID-19. This was already the case before of course, with limits on the world’s resources meaning that ‘doing better’ has to replace ‘doing more’ as a driver of growth. Faced with COVID-19, we need to innovate both in order to find ways of carrying on with lives and services, and to create new opportunities for work and earning.

As a key part of the innovation infrastructure of any country – in particular the basic research that makes major breakthroughs possible – libraries will certainly be able to agree with the importance of a focus on encouraging the development and spread of new ideas. It is only to be hoped that governments, when taking decisions about the future, will do the same.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #16: Review your risk-management plans

Libraries provide services to their communities that are as varied as they are essential.

This can be particularly true during times of crisis, when people need information – and comfort – more than ever.

But of course to be able to provide services, libraries themselves need to be ready to deal with the unexpected.

It is therefore valuable to have plans for how to deal with risks – for example something that libraries rely on no longer being available.

COVID-19 of course has forced many libraries to find ways to work when they cannot rely on in-person contacts, or even have staff together in person.

There are already great resources at the national level in many countries, while IFLA is working to provide more useful information and ideas through our renewed Risk Register.

So for our 16th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, review your risk-management plan.

Clearly, carrying out a full review will take more than 10 minutes.

But you can look again at the plans you have in place, and think quickly about what may be missing. In particular faced with COVID-19, almost all libraries will have experience that you can use.

You may not have a single document, or indeed anything formally written down. In this case, it could be a great moment to think about how you could prepare one.

We’d love to hear which resources have been most useful for you in the comments below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 2.3 Develop standards, guidelines, and other materials that foster best professional practice.

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box.