Monthly Archives: November 2020

Z. Blace & Kristian Benić: building Wikiprojects at the Rijeka City Library (Croatia)

The Rijeka City Library started to engage in Wikimedia activities within the library led by  Z. Blace and Kristian Benić. IFLA is delighted to travel to Croatia to have a dive in this project.

1. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, could you please tell us more about yourself and your collaborators?

Z: Z. Blace (~Zblace) – artist and cultural worker, active in advocating open and free digital commons with communities and institutions, cross-pollinating queer/commoning

Z. Blace, Telekomunmunist International satellite event of Transmediale in Berlin, 2016/02/26 photo by Alp Klanten

perspectives and embodied experiences across different networks and contexts… and now first Wikimedian in Residence in Croatia.

K: Kristian Benić, head of marketing and projects at Rijeka City Library, which includes all sort of activities, but most importantly for this context being the editor of our two online media projects Magazin GKR https://gkr.hr/Magazin and Brickzine https://brickzine.hr that also have printed editions periodically, as a magazine for children and parents.

2. Could you explain to us how and why this position was born within the Rijeka City Library (Croatia)?

K: Rijeka City Library is for many years seen in Croatia as one of the most progressive, innovative and fast membership growing, although at the same time it has huge infrastructural challenges. This was the first library in Croatia that established a maker-space with 3D printers GKR Lab https://gkr.hr/Lab, has one of the most effective digital communication strategies online, newsletter and generally openness to ordinary people who can write about books and more. We really want to be in the first row of the big everyday changes and at the same time empower communities that we serve. Library is not just a service, it is an active community stakeholder and can serve as a platform for progressive ideas.

Z: I was interested in GKR work before (was interviewed by their Magazine for doing an exhibition a few years ago) and also in the city as a super interesting non-capital and ofte

Photo of Kristian Benić lecture about history of geek culture in Yugoslavia, by Lucija Jančec, CC BY-SA 4.0

n border-case city that is the 2020 European Capital of Culture. I suggested that we try doing something and for them to test the format of having artist-in-residence as a wikimedian and organizer. In the pandemic they remained flexible enough to test this, though it was hard to operate so we submitted this as a rapid grant proposal to Wikimedia Foundation. We are remote, but learning things online on the fly and it is an interesting challenge to navigate the Wikimedia world where (almost) nothing is hidden/deleted, but many things are non-obvious.

3. Have you heard of a similar job in the library or GLAM sector in Croatia before? If not, what do you think about the creation of such a position could mean?

K : I am also not aware of activities with Wikimedia in Croatia. That is a little bit strange because concepts like one Wikipedia develops is perfect for all sorts of librarian activities. Wikipedia changed the role and meaning of printed encyclopedias which used to be one of the most important parts of traditional libraries.

Z: In short this is an exception and first step. I reached out to WMF to ask and indeed it seems that this is a first WiR position in Croatia, so fairly late, but also not too surprising considering the terrible reputation Croatian instance of Wikipedia has for about a decade. GLAM sector in Croatia is not really univocal or even coordinated around policies like digital commons, so I hope to advance that in both the city of Rijeka, Croatia and the region. Think my experience as a new media practitioner and cultural networker is good for a start as WiR now on the smallest WMF experimental grant, but in future different types, scales, resources, plans and capacities should be developed once basic understanding exists.

4. What is the development strategy on Wikimedia projects within your institution? Or do you have to create your roadmap?

K: For our library all of this is really new. With Z. we are actually learning about potentials and searching for the best options in the future. But the general idea is to form some kind of local community which is interested in creating high quality content for Wikipedia/Wikimedia and to empower a few librarians for educational activities, try some new event formats…

Z: We are in the learning, roadmap building phase so hope to have the first version of ‘strategy’ by the end of this harsh year (that will include reflecting on #Rijeka2020 and 20 years Wikipedia anniversary). We try to establish basis for Croatian GLAM coordination with Multimedia Institute that did pioneering work on CreativeCommons, but also establish new actions like our crossover of established #WikiLovesLibraries and #WikiLovesMonuments with ~OkGsG and ~GK_Ivan_Vidali remote libraries that operate as cultural centers). We also did #femWikiRAINBOW as an intervention into CEE Spring translation event, than few small local workshops (#1, #2, #3), presentations and follow-up with education, outreach and networking to individuals, groups, NGOs, institutions before the end of 2020.
All this only makes sense if there are ripple and multiplier effects that go in directions of different communities and stakeholders. Only in sinergy significant changes can happen.

 

Wikimedia workshop in Rijeka with Z Blace, Kristian Benić, CC BY 4.0

5. How do you think Wikimedia projects support the work and objectives of libraries?

K: As I said, Wikimedia projects seem perfect for libraries and librarians because they have skills and approaches that can be really useful in the post-factual world. At the same time libraries are some kind of open spaces which have a role to empower communities, they are used by all sorts of different groups so they can be really helpful in removing some fog around Wikimedia.

 

Z: Libraries are super important as cultural (infra)structures that both preserve and bring coherence in the super complex and problematic times. Kristian used the post-factual world example, but I would also add post-social (here post-socialist and pseudo-capitalist). Much of the shared ‘norms’ have either collapsed (like a sense of communal good and responsibility) or have been reducing (like middle-class life quality and public services).

We live in “a small country for a great vacation” that from soft-socialism fell into most wild privatization and corruption of (post)war mess. WikiMedia as a site of participative co-editing and co-curating, sometimes even co-production that can help re-socialize knowledge work.

It is not easy to judge for the moment as Wikimedia projects are so many and it is not super easy to get an overview and even more to be clear how to make the most of them and where to focus (they have different internal dynamics or state of adoption and even dormancy)…
Taking part in Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network – WREN  makes it a bit easier as I know who to ask for advice (at least when I can formulate questions). Hope that young librarians in Croatia will have use Wikimedia support to work with both as WiRs in 2021.

 

Library Stat of the Week #43: Not everyone counted as having internet access has the speed or device needed to use it

This week and next, the Internet Governance Forum is taking place, fittingly enough, online.

This is an opportunity to return to data about connectivity in order to provide more background on the role of libraries in helping people get the most of the internet.

The Forum itself has a strong focus on the internet as a driver of inclusion. Clearly, the most immediate way of looking at this is by counting the number of people or households which do have access.

However, simply having a connection is not always enough. When this is not fast enough (for example, where it is still a dial-up connection), or where the household does not have a computer, there is less potential to realise the full potential of the internet.

Clearly, during the pandemic, this has been a major issue, with low speeds or data caps, and a lack of (enough) computers making it more difficult for people to learn, work, or apply for support.

Libraries have long provided a valuable complement to home access, offering higher connection speeds and the necessary hardware to use the internet, even in countries which are nearing 100% connectivity officially.

To get a better idea of the numbers, we look this week at Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development data about internet access, and in particular the differences in the shares of people counted as having internet access, and those with broadband access (i.e. higher speed internet) and computers (the devices to use it).

Graph 1: When Access Doesn't Mean Access...

Graph 1 looks at the share of households in the overall population which count as being officially connected, but which in reality lack the key conditions to use the internet – a good quality connection and a computer.

In this graph, a longer bar indicates a higher share of households in the categories set out (connected to the internet, but not with a computer, or connected but without broadband)

In the median country, about 1 in 40 households are connected but do not have a computer, although in a number of countries, this share is much higher, reaching over 1 in 5 households in Turkey, Chile and Korea.

Meanwhile, about 1 in 100 households are connected to the internet, but do not have a broadband, but this rises to around 1 in 14 in France and Brazil.

 

Do these numbers stand throughout the population, or does the challenge of inadequate home internet access affect some groups more than others?

To start, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the degree to which coming from a richer or poorer household affects the likelihood of having a good internet connection and a computer.

C:\Users\stephen\Downloads\LSOTW43Graph2b.pngGraph 2b: Inequalities in Internet, Broadband, Computer Access

 

Graphs 2a and 2b do this, showing the gaps in the share of households in the top and bottom income quartiles (i.e. the richest and poorest quarters) which have internet access, broadband, or a computer.

In these graphs, each dot represents the difference in the share of richer and of poorer households having access.

These show big gaps, in particular in computer access, with a difference of over 50 percentage points between rich and poor in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Hungary, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovenia. Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden tend to have the lowest inequalities here.

Graph 3: Households with Internet Access, but Without Broadband

Graph 3 repeats the analysis in Graph 1, but focusing on people with ‘slow’ connections (i.e. connected but without broadband). It breaks out the figures for poorer and richer households, in order to establish whether people in poorer households are more likely to be stuck with such ‘slow’ connections than richer people.

This does appear to be the case in almost all countries. For example, in Germany, Poland, France and Brazil, over 4% of all poorer households are stuck with slower connections. This represents 5% of all those people in poorer households classed as connected in Germany, around 10% in France and Poland, and nearly 17% in Brazil.

Graph 4: Households with Connections, but Without a Computer

Graph 4 does the same, but looking at households which are connected, but which do not have computers. It is even clearer here that richer households are less likely to find themselves in the situation of being connected, but not having a device, than poorer households.

In Korea, Chile, Costa Rica and Brazil, over 25% of poorer households are in this situation of ‘device-less connectivity’. In effect, 2/3 of poorer Korean households which are officially connected to the internet do not have devices, while the figure is around 50% in Costa Rica and Brazil, and over 1/3 in Chile.

 

What lessons from this for libraries? Next week, we will combine some of this data with information about libraries offering internet access. What is does indicate, already, is that there is not only a significant issue in terms of inequality in internet access, but that even where households are officially connected, we need to look hard at whether they have the speed and devices to make this meaningful.

This is of course not to mention the more human aspects – skills, confidence, support – which may also hold people back from using the internet fully as well!

As highlighted in the introduction, libraries have a role not only in providing connectivity for the unconnected, but also a solution when this home connectivity is not good enough. As this post shows, in many countries, addressing this need is a real issue.

 

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.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #24: Think of an advocate for libraries

A big focus of IFLA’s Strategy is building the ability of libraries to advocate.

Wherever decisions are being made about library budgets, or the laws that affect them, there is space for advocacy.

By building understanding of, support for, and commitment to libraries, you can shape these decisions.

Yet sometimes, your message can be even more powerful when it doesn’t come from you.

It can be expected that librarians will support libraries, but you may get more attention when someone else does it.

So for our 24th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, think of an advocate for libraries.

Ideally, it should be someone who is well known, or who has great advocacy skills, or ideally both. This can help at all levels, from the local to the global.

Finding an advocate can also help bring others to support libraries, prove that people outside of the profession care, and strengthen partnerships.

Let us know who the most effective advocate for libraries from outside of the library field is, in the chat below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 1.1 Show the power of libraries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals .

You can view all of our ideas using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box.

Cables, Masts, Data Centres… and Libraries: The Components of a Comprehensive Internet Infrastructure

Infrastructure is what enables things to happen. Typically, we think of it as things like bridges, power networks or pipes, that allow people to travel around, and to receive electricity and running water – physical connections going from one place to the next.

Policies for infrastructure are therefore often seen as mainly being about construction, maintenance and rules about use.

Similarly, internet infrastructure tends to be thought of in terms of cables, masts and data centres – the hard structures and buildings that mean that content can be brought to our devices. Policies here focus on the laying of new cables or roll-out of new technologies, or steps to facilitate use of resources such as spectrum.

However, we can also think about infrastructure – and the policies that go with it – from the perspective of whether they are reaching their goal.

In the case of the internet, this goal, as has been recognised by the WSIS process and beyond, is to get everyone online. If this is not the case, infrastructure risks being a driver of inequality, rather than equality, with those left unconnected risking being left even further behind.

If we are to do this, we therefore need to think of infrastructure as including every actor that enables people to get online – in particular, libraries.

 

The Last Mile

An obvious way in which libraries help deliver the goal of an internet infrastructure that reaches everyone is by giving people opportunities to get online that they may not have otherwise.

At a basic level, this is about providing internet access to people who have no connection or device at home, through library terminals or WiFi.

However, there can be many other reasons why someone with both of these may still need library access to be able to make full use of the internet – slow speeds or data caps, the wrong type of device, or other restrictions.

Libraries can be both a stepping stone to the internet, and an ongoing alternative for others.

In both cases, they help ensure that the rest of the internet infrastructure – the cables, masts and data centres – can be used by the widest possible number of people.

 

Confidence and Collections

We can, however, look further still. Because the objective of investment in infrastructure is so that it can be used. A road network without any drivers with licences, or a waterpipe without water may require less maintenance, but arguably is not doing its job.

An internet infrastructure, in turn, is not effective if there are neither users with the skills and confidence to use it, or content or services that they can use.

In both cases, clearly, libraries can help.

Regarding skills, while some libraries have dedicated programmes for building digital skills, others simply provide an environment where users can feel comfortable going online, knowing that there is someone around to help if needed.

Regarding content, libraries can both help provide relevant content by digitising collections (something that is particularly important in the case of less widely-used languages), but also by ensuring that users have access to copyrighted content that would be too expensive to buy.

 

Any Comprehensive Plan for Internet Infrastructure Includes Libraries

With a difficult economic situation likely to last for some time, governments will need to ensure that all spending is effective as possible. Providing services that benefit some, but not others – especially when these risk exacerbating existing divides – is less excusable than ever.

Libraries provide a response to this, not only in covering the ‘last mile’ (be this a physical distance, or linked to other potential barriers), but also in providing the skills and content that turns connectivity into development for all.

With this year’s Internet Governance Forum focused on ‘internet for human resilience and solidarity’, the case is stronger than ever for including libraries in any consideration of comprehensive internet infrastructure policies.

 

Find out more about IFLA’s participation in the 2020 Internet Governance Forum in our news story. This blog draws on ideas shared by Stephen Abram.