Tag Archives: Literacy

What does liability mean? What is an exception? Welcome to the Copyright Glossary

One of the important issues in the library world is copyright and the legal issues that arise from it. A good understanding of these issues is essential to be in a favourable negotiating position and will help shed light on emerging difficulties in current practices.

Below you will find some common copyright terms:

Berne Convention

This is the basis for international copyright law. Agreed in 1886, it has subsequently been updated a number of times. It establishes a number of rights which should apply in all countries (such as protection for the life of the author plus fifty years), and the principle of national treatment (i.e. you should treat authors from other signatory countries in the same way as your own nationals).

Collective Licensing

Collective Licensing refers to schemes where a single organisation will offer permissions to use works from a variety of rightholders. This can be helpful for users who need only go to one place, rather than find creators and other rightholders individually. For example, collective licensing can provide easy solutions for shops wanting to play music, or for broadcasters wanting to clear the rights to use extracts from other films. The organisation in charge of the scheme should then pay out royalties to the individual rightholders.

Collective Management Organisation

Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) represent groups of rights holders which can include creators of copyrighted materials, publishers, or other rightholders such as producers or performers. This organization manages rights on behalf of its members, potentially saving them time and effort in providing permissions and collecting royalties.

Collecting Society

See Collective Management Organisation.

Contract Override

Contract override refers to situations where the terms of a licence – either explicitly or by omission (i.e. because it doesn’t mention something) – cancel out copyright exceptions. This happens because contract law is seen as having priority over other forms of law, and so it is considered that the user has signed away their rights. It can, for example, mean that preservation copying, document supply, or other uses are not allowed. Some countries make it clear that contracts should not override copyright exceptions.

Copyright

Copyright refers to a set of rights given to the creator or creators of a work. It is made up of economic rights (such as to reproduce works) and moral rights (such as the right to be named as an author). Works covered may be in different forms, and there are different approaches to how we define whether a work really is covered by copyright, for example relating to the level of creativity or originality involved. Unlike patents, copyright is intended to protect the expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.

Digital rights management (DRM)

These are access-control technologies to restrict the use of copyrighted works. They act, for example, to prevent copying, sharing, or modifications. They can work both to prevent illicit uses, and uses permitted under exceptions to copyright.

Education Exception

Education exceptions allow beneficiaries to make copies of materials subject to copyright, without seeking authorisation, for education purposes. This can also cover uses of works, such as displaying works in the classroom or as part of an online course, or using them for homework projects.

E-Lending

E-lending is the practice of library lending of digital books. As with physical books, this is only possible for a certain period, after which the eBook disappears from the borrower’s eReader. Digital rights management tools work to prevent the book being shared with others or copied. Often, publishers only make eBooks available to libraries under strict terms (embargoes, limits on the number of loans or period of access). Far from all eBooks are available to libraries.

Extended Collective Licencing

Extended collective licensing (ECL) refers to collective licensing schemes which do not just apply to works by members of a collective management organisation, but to all works or rightholders in a particular category or class. This can make it even easier for users to obtain licences, for example for mass-digitisation and making available of works. Typically, extended Collective licensing schemes require government legislation.

Illustration for Teaching

Illustration for teaching refers to uses of works in the context of education, for example as part of a classroom or online course, or potentially in course-packs or similar materials. Under some interpretations, exceptions for illustration for teaching are the same as those for education in general.

Lending Exception

The possibility to control whether works are lent does not fall under international law. However, some countries have decided to give rightholders a lending right. In turn, many have then created a lending exception for libraries in order to allow them to lend books to users, often subject to payment (see Public Lending Right).

Limitation on Liability

In many cases, it may not be clear if it is legal to make a copy or other uses of works. In these situations, and especially if the costs of copyright infringement are high, libraries and other users may tend to want to limit risk, and so be over-cautious. Similarly, they may prevent users from using works out of fear of the consequences. A limitation on liability means that as long as they have taken precautions, libraries and others do not need to face high costs if they make mistakes, or if their users infringe copyright.

Liability (Primary, Secondary)

We talk about primary liability in situations when someone is accused of directly infringing copyright themselves, for example by making an illegal copy of a book and selling it on. Secondary liability refers to situations when someone can be held partially responsible for an infringement, for example when they have facilitated this. For example, if a library has not told users about what copying is or is not acceptable, it may face secondary liability. Similarly, internet platforms that do not act to remove infringing content once they become aware of it can also be considered secondarily liable.

Marrakesh Treaty

This is the 2013 WIPO agreement that commits all states parties (members) to introduce measures to allow people with print disabilities, those who support them, and institutions such as libraries to make copies of works in accessible formats (braille, DAISY, audiobooks) for people who would otherwise not be able to access them. It is then also possible to share these copies, including across borders. The Treaty includes some possibilities to restrict these rights. IFLA does not recommend using such possibilities.

Open Education Repositories

This refers to platforms which give access to teaching, learning or research materials (Open Educational Resources – OER) which are either in the public domain or under an open licence allowing their use, adaptation, distribution free of charge. This term was adopted in 2002 by UNESCO.

Orphan Works

An orphan work is a work protected by copyright but for which the rights holders are not identifiable or cannot be contacted. Unless there are exceptions in place, this makes it very difficult for those who hold them to do anything with them.

Out-of-Commerce Works

Out-of-commerce works are works that are still protected by copyright but are no longer commercially available. This can be because the authors and publishers have decided neither to publish new editions nor to sell copies through the customary channels of commerce. Sometimes, such works are referred to as being ‘out-of-print’. In some understandings, out-of-commerce works also include works that were never-in-commerce (i.e. not produced to be published).

Preservation Exceptions

Preservation exceptions allow beneficiaries to make copies of materials subject to copyright, without seeking authorisation, for the purpose of preservation. For example, it can include digitisation, taking copies on microfilm, photocopying or other forms, depending on the specific terms of the law.

Press Publishers’ Right:

The right of press publishers is the subject of Article 15 of the European Copyright Directive. This was introduced following efforts from publishers to obtain a share of incomes from online news-aggregators such as GoogleNews by forcing them to pay to display even sort snippets of text. The Article risks leaving aggregators with two options: using the contents of press publishers for remuneration or no longer indexing them (reducing the visibility of publishers). Google has said it will not pay compensation in Germany and France and has left it up to publishers to choose whether they want free indexing or not.

Public Domain

The public domain includes all works which are not subject to economic rights under copyright. The public domain is not always explicitly defined in law. Some countries try to oblige payments for use of public domain works.

Public Lending Right

Public Lending Right refers both to the right some countries give rightholders to decide whether works are lent or not, and to the payment they can be entitled to receive when this is the case.

Remunerated Exceptions

There is an ongoing debate about whether exceptions to copyright should be subject to remuneration or not. Given that exceptions, according to international law, should not cause unreasonable prejudice to the legitimate interests of rightholders, some argue that it therefore makes no sense to make enjoying exceptions conditional on making payments. Others suggest that there should nonetheless be payment.

Reproduction Right

The right of reproduction is a legal provision giving copyright holders the exclusive right to produce copies of works. In order to make a copy, anyone else needs to seek authorisation from the copyright holder, unless an exception exists.

Retracted Works

Retraction takes place when an author or publisher removes a previously published work from an academic publication, usually on the basis that it is considered not to have followed good scientific practice. Retracted works are generally removed from online collections.

Research Exception

Research exceptions allow beneficiaries to make copies of materials subject to copyright, without seeking authorisation, for the purpose of research. They can also cover other uses of works, such as analysis. For example, research exceptions allow students to copy parts of books or articles to read them, and can also support text and data mining.

Reversion Right:

This refers to the right of authors who have signed away their rights to publishers to recover these after a defined time, or if their work is no longer on sale. Versions of this possibility are included in laws around the world, but are not standardised.

Safe Harbour

Safe harbour refers in general to situations where, by complying with certain criteria, actors can avoid liability for copyright infringement. This is often used to describe limitations on the liability of internet platforms, which do not face liability if they act to remove infringing content when notified (it is assumed that prior to notification, they do not know whether the content they host is legal or not). Safe harbour can also benefit other actors, such as scientific repositories, allowing them to enable content sharing without the cost of having to review everything uploaded by users.

There are currently various efforts to restrict possibilities to benefit from safe harbour provisions. For example, Article 17 of the EU’s Copyright Directive looks to suggest that platforms such as YouTube can be held immediately responsible for infringing content appearing, even if it has been uploaded by a user.

Scientific Repositories

This refers to a platform hosting research papers (not just in the sciences), facilitating open access to these. They often hold ‘pre-print’ versions, rather than the final ‘version of record’, with publishers retaining the right to distribute the final version. In many cases, researchers themselves are responsible for uploading papers, bringing the risk that the wrong version may be uploaded.

Technological Protection Measures

Technological protection measures (TPM) are any digital management tools used to restrict what users can do with digital materials. See also Digital Rights Management.

Term

Term refers to the length of time for which works enjoy protection. This is usually measured in a certain number of years from the death of the author – a minimum of fifty under international law, but seventy in the European Union and United States. There are different term lengths for different types of work and right.

Text and Data Mining

Text and data mining (TDM) refers to the use of automated analysis of data sets in order to identify trends or correlations. It promises both to accelerate scientific research, as well as providing a basis for machine learning. Given that TDM can involve taking a copy of works to be analysed, some see it as requiring a copyright exception or authorisation. Others suggest that given that data itself should not be subject to copyright, there is no need for an exception. Among countries where legislation has happened, some have limited exceptions to certain purposes, while others offer broader possibilities

Unpublished Works

When a work hasn’t been formally published or otherwise divulged to the public, it is described as unpublished. Archives, for example, are often unpublished works. They can be subject to different rules to published works, and in some countries still enjoy eternal copyright protection.

Upload Filters

Upload filters, also called web filters, refer to tools that check content uploaded to an internet platform in order to identify (potential) copyright infringement. They are controversial in that they effectively treat users’ as guilty until proven innocent of copyright infringement. There is no evidence, furthermore, that such filters can systematically recognise when the re-use of a copyrighted work is legitimate because of an exception or limitation. There is a lot of discussion about upload filters due to Article 17 of the EU’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which risks obliging all platforms to use such filters.

Works

This is the term used to apply to materials which may be subject to copyright. It covers books, articles, other publications, visual art, audio and audio-visual creations and more. There are sometimes efforts to have vaguer things such as tastes, ‘themes’ or even smells classed as ‘works’, and so to gain them copyright protection.

 

Buy, Borrow or Both? What the Boersenverein’s Survey of eLending Does and Doesn’t Tell Us

Last year, the German book industry organisation – the Boersenverein – published research commissioned from GfK on library eLending, including comparative analysis between physical and eBook buyers and borrowers as regards their age, situation, and habits.

This has been promoted by the Boersenverein as evidence that library eLending harms publishing, and that there is no need to expand the offer of eBooks in libraries. It has started to be used internationally as well as a counter-argument to library efforts to improve eLending terms and offers.

But is this really what the evidence presented says? This blog looks at the data, both from the fuller German and shorter English editions.

 

Who Borrows?

The study aims to provide extensive figures about the people who borrow physical books and eBooks, providing a breakdown between people who only borrow one type, and those who borrow both.

This finds that less than 10% of library users only borrow eBooks – an estimated 900 000 according to the analysis. Three quarters only borrow physical books and the rest – around 1.2 million – combine.

Library use for borrowing physical books is most common among people with higher incomes, and with more education (although a higher share of people with only a high-school education use libraries than those with a university education).

There is a similar story for eBooks (although obviously we are talking about small numbers), except in that use of eLending is highest among the richest and the poorest income groups, with only those in the middle borrowing less.

Finally, the study looks in particular at age groups, finding that borrowers both of physical and eBooks tend to be younger than buyers. 29% of physical book borrowers and 27% of eBook borrowers are under 30, while the figures for buyers are 20% in both categories. The trend is reversed for the over-60s.

The analysis leaps to the conclusion that that library users can pay for books, and implies that they shouldn’t be borrowing. Yet this does not hold water. There has been extensive research into the role of library lending in helping people discover new books, and indeed trying a book out before they choose to buy, while the results of the analysis imply that younger borrowers turn into older buyers.

Put simply, the only thing that the survey really shows is that book buying and borrowing go together – something that has been known for a long time.

 

Borrow or Buy?

The research then looks into the behaviour of physical and eBook borrowers in Germany. The headline identified by the Boersenverein is the suggestion that 43% of users of library eLending have reduced or stopped altogether their buying of eBooks since they could start borrowing.

This would be a strong argument, except for the fact that in the following question – what would users of the library eLending offer do if this were to disappear, a full 48% would either buy fewer eBooks, or buy none at all. The analysis does not break down between the share of people who would completely stop buying, and those who had never bought.

These results are certainly confusing, but what they don’t represent is an argument for trying to restrict or harm library eLending. Indeed, it seems that restricting or preventing library eLending would also have a net negative effect on sales of other media.

The study also looks at levels of contentment with the offer of eBooks for lending, and the timeliness of their availability. It finds that 75% of users are happy with the variety on offer and 68% with the speed at which they are available. This is arguably a testimony to the efforts of libraries to provide books – often at very high prices or on restrictive terms. It does not explore whether a wider range of books, available more quickly, could help attract more people into reading.

Finally, the analysis uses the answers to direct questions to suggest that people who borrow books in general, if given a choice, will borrow rather than buying. It also suggests that borrowers in general do not feel like they are in a situation where they can’t afford to buy. Clearly, the questions are leading – will people openly admit to being too poor to buy? What would they have said if they believed that authors should be paid?. Moreover, this doesn’t fit with the evidence that borrowers are in fact more likely to buy books than the rest of the population.

 

Conclusions

Overall, the study is relatively transparent in its objectives from the beginning, and so already needs to be taken with some scepticism. There are also oddities – the whole study assumes that over 10 million people are borrowing from libraries, but German Library Association figures show that only 7.35 million have library cards.

It makes a lot of noise about one or two results, while ignoring others, and makes some big – and unfounded – assumptions that have rightly been challenged by the German Library Association (DBV) in its own response.

It gives no attention to the question of the costs to libraries of acquiring and lending eBooks, although it is to be hoped that there would be consensus that freeing up libraries to expand collections and offer services is desirable.

Fundamentally, the parallels between book buying and book borrowing tendencies across income groups and levels of education – and the fact that book borrowers are also more enthusiastic buyers – only seems to underline that libraries and bookshops can work in synergy.

However, as the DBV points out, this only brings out an uncomfortable truth – one that the study overlooks – that reading (either though buying or borrowing) is less common among those with low incomes and low education.

The real conclusion, perhaps, is the need to do more to reach out to groups who may need support with literacy. Indeed, with 6.2 million adults in Germany struggling to understand texts, there is a real need to focus on whatever works in helping build reading skills, something that a properly supported library system, freed from unnecessary restrictions, is well placed to help with.

Library Stat of the Week #4: Around the world, having more public libraries tends to be associated with higher literacy rates

A core function of libraries is the support they provide for literacy.

Traditionally, this has been through providing access to materials. Many librarians have brought their passion for books to their jobs, and encourage others to do the same.

In some cases, libraries are involved in more formal efforts to build literacy, in particular among people outside of the formal education system.

Clearly the capacity of libraries to promote literacy depends on how far they are able to reach people. If there is only one library covering a large area and/or population, this job may be harder.

Early analysis of figures from Library Map of the World allow us to take a first look at the correlation between numbers of libraries and adult literacy rates (taken from the World Bank).

They show that there is a correlation between these. The smaller the population individual public libraries need to cover, the higher the literacy rates of the country.

Graph comparing the average number of people served by each public library in a country and the adult literacy rate

Based on figures forcountries where both sets of numbers are available (numbers of public libraries per head and adult literacy in the past three years), it appears that for every 50000 people the average public library needs to serve, adult literacy falls by 0.4 percentage points.

Clearly it is necessary to be cautious in interpreting these figures, which cover only 32 countries. Moreover, correlation does not mean causality.

Finally, it may well be the case that below a certain threshold of people served per library, the connection disappears. However, it remains clear that countries with higher adult literacy are, in general, characterised by denser coverage of libraries.

 

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.

 

Engage through the Page: Libraries and Books Help Young People become Full Citizens

The climate marches that have marked the news in so many parts of the world over the last few months are, to a large extent, thanks to the mobilisation of young people.

The logic behind this is simple – this is the generation that will face the consequences of inaction today. But is it also reassuring to see a response to the cliché of younger people being disaffected or uninterested in global issues.

This is because democracy depends on people not only having opinions, but being ready to stand up and debate these in public. And as the climate marches have shown, the process of becoming a confident, informed, engaged citizen can start young.

This blog – on the first day of International School Library Month – looks at how libraries contribute to this.

 

Wider Horizons – School Libraries and Citizenship

School libraries – or other libraries providing school library services in some countries – have a mission not only to support teachers by helping develop literacy and a love of reading, but also to go further.

As set out in the IFLA-UNESCO School Libraries Manifesto, which turns 20 this year, they should also be gateways to the wider world, helping young people discover and engage with diverse ideas, experiences and opinions.

Just as any other library, in effect, school libraries provide a platform for young people to access information about the world, to build their awareness and sensitivity, and to exercise their intellectual freedom as an essential foundation of effective and responsible citizenship and participation in a democracy.

There are many great examples of this at work, for example in Portugal, where the Rights for Right project looks to make the link between literacy and citizenship, with an early focus on human rights. In the United States, school librarians work to build awareness of ethical issues among students, while in Brazil, libraries have stepped in where schools have been unable to help young people come to terms with the economic and social issues they face.

 

Starting the Conversation – the SDG Book Club

Of course, it isn’t necessarily easy to know where to start in order to get a discussion going about issues outside of the curriculum. Books can offer a way in – and indeed they do in all of the examples mentioned above. By telling a story, they can provide a less direct way of getting young people thinking, especially when they look to make the links between what they are reading, and their own experience.

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Book Club is one way of finding books that allow this to happen.

Set up by the United Nations in cooperation with IFLA, the International Publishers Association, the International Board on Books for Youth and the European and International Booksellers’ Federation, this provides a sample of books in each of the six official languages of the United Nations for each of the SDGs, month by month. The most recent list focuses on SDG 5 (gender equality), with SDG 6 (water and sanitation) up next.

The website, in addition to ideas for books, also has a number of other tools, for example how to set up a local book club, communications materials, a newsletter, and a blog – take a look!

 

With the need for – and potential of – engagement by young people shown by the recent climate marches, there is a window for school libraries to show what they are doing to create the citizens of the future. International School Library Month provides a great opportunity, and the SDG Book Club a great tool, to do this.

 

Find out more about the work of IFLA’s School Libraries Section.

Making the Book Chain Stronger – and Unique

In many countries, the series of actors – and actions – that take a book from idea to bookshelf is known as the ‘book chain’.

The metaphor is attractive because of its simplicity, with a book to be published passed from writer, to publisher, to distributor, to bookshops and libraries, and to readers.

It is also used for planning policy interventions to support culture, with each actor benefitting from different supports – grants, tax reductions, or other tools.

Of course there is disruption. Plenty of authors simply bypass publishers simply by self-publishing. The work of distributors and bookshops (and some elements of the work of libraries) is subject to competition from the internet.

What is more worrying – as has been highlighted in online discussions in Senegal recently – is a tendency to forget libraries. This blog explains both why libraries are essential throughout the book chain, and indeed, why they make it unique.

 

Support at Every Step: Libraries Across the Book Chain

In the most simple terms, libraries are a market for publishers – in some cases, they are even the predominant ones (notably for scholarly works). However, this is to forget the other ways they provide help.

Authors – who tend to have a very positive attitude towards libraries – benefit from not only form the possibility to carry out research, but also to meet with some of the most passionate readers out there, and to be discovered by new audiences. Given that, alongside the desire to earn a living, simply being read is a high priority, this makes libraries into natural friends of authors.

For publishers, libraries are also effectively free advertising space, and make it feasible for them to produce a wider variety of content than would be possible if only working through bookshops. Libraries are also key players in developing the book-buyers of the future by encouraging literacy and a love of reading.

Similarly, libraries also be a useful source of feedback about demand for individual books, complementing that provided by bookshops. They are also are a vital part of the overall infrastructure for books – through running ISBN agencies, managing national biographies, and ensuring the preservation of works for future generations.

For bookshops, where perhaps the risk of competition can be seen as highest, there is in fact complementarity. Various studies from the US have shown that not only are people using libraries also more likely to use bookshops, but that discovering a new author in a library often leads to buying a second book at the bookshop.

 

 

Making it Unique: Why Libraries Make the Book Chain Special

What is missing from the previous set of actors are of course readers – libraries’ primary focus.

Indeed, it is this focus on meeting reader needs, first and foremost, that makes libraries and the book chain as a whole so special. No other sector of the creative industries has such a central focus on ensuring that it is not only about profit, but also about access.

This makes sense. Literacy is a core life-skill, and it is clear that a love of books and reading tends to make for better chances in life.

Arguably, as set out in the UNESCO Recommendation of 2015, the written word has a special role in sharing the thoughts and ideas that animate societies, and spreading the knowledge that drives progress. In this situation, giving everyone an equitable chance to access and enjoy it is essential to ensuring social cohesion, innovation, and compliance with international obligations.

Libraries, then, can be a source of pride for all others in the book chain – the thing that marks it out as being truly democratic, truly a contribution to broader social goals, rather than just a market or elite activity.

 

 

Clearly, the book chain is not without its problems, not least the need to hold its ground in the competition for people’s attention with other activities.

Moreover, there are ongoing discussions about how it is most appropriate for governments to support the creation and dissemination of new ideas, how to ensure that authors get a fair deal. As with any activity involving public money (including of course libraries), it’s important to be careful about how it is spent.

What is certain, at least, is that libraries are, and should be, part of the solution.

 

Find out more about how to support new authors – and creativity in general at session 188 – From Consumers to Creators – of this year’s World Library and Information Congress.

Libraries Transforming Education: Equity, Capability, Continuity

This year’s International Youth Day focuses on the need to transform education.

As the United Nations’ own website underlines, the combination of the crucial role of education in delivering other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the future role of young people themselves, makes this a vital area of work.

Libraries have always had a key part to play in supporting education, from simply making available the materials needed by students to more active provision of teaching.

They can also be at the heart of the transformation that will be necessary to make education truly universal, effective and meaningful for all. This blog suggests three ways in which they can make a unique contribution.

 

Equity: a key challenge faced by many schools is the unevenness of basic literacy skills among new entrants. It is clear that those children who have had more opportunity to read – and listen to others read – before starting formal education are in a better position to succeed.

Libraries have a long experience of promoting reading for pleasure from a young age, and indeed in the Netherlands are seen as part of the overall government offer of support for young families. In this way, they allow for early intervention, which helps stop children starting school at a disadvantage.

 

Capability: in addition to supporting basic literacy, libraries are very well placed to help young people develop the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in an information-rich world. Many support media and information literacy classes, for example, giving youth the tools they need to take their own decisions and engage in civic life.

In other cases, libraries provide a space for learning how to use new technologies which may not be available in schools (for example in Kibera, Kenya), or to learn to code (as in rural regions of Romania). There are further great examples in the most recent newsletter from IFLA’s Section on Library Services for Children and Young Adults.

Such skills can be essential if young people are to go into the world with the knowledge and abilities they need to be independent.

 

Continuity: crucially, the support that libraries offer does not stop when school does. A key strength of the library field is that services are available for all, throughout their lives. Evidence from the United States suggests that about half of all 18-35 year olds have visited a public library in the last year, a larger share than any other age group.

Especially where compulsory education does not extend far beyond primary school, libraries can be essential as places for young people to keep contact with learning opportunities. As underlined in Katarina Popovic’s contribution to this year’s Development and Access to Information report, these are chances which are indispensable if we are to achieve the SDGs.

 

With the right support, libraries ready, in turn, to support the transformation of education necessary to ensure that everyone has the knowledge and skills they need.

 

See also our blogs for World Youth Skills Day 2019 on the importance of information skills for youth, for World Teachers Day 2018 looking at how libraries support teachers, and for World Youth Day 2018, focusing on libraries providing safe spaces for youth.   

 

The Robots are Here: AI, Libraries and the Internet

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – systems able to collect and analyze structured or unstructured data and make decisions based on that information to achieve a defined goal[1] – were a widely discussed subject at the 2019 edition of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG).

Today, AI continues to fundamentally change the way people use and interact with the internet[2]. Given that the internet deeply affects the library and information service fields, it is important for libraries to “stay ahead of the digital curve”, in order to be able to continue to uphold their values and offer services which meet society’s needs.

AI isn’t just something for the private sector. Several countries are looking for ways to integrate AI technology into their public services (for example, see the Agency for Digital Italy). There are many possible uses: optimising street traffic, helping public employment agencies, determining eligibility for welfare programmes, visa and immigration applications and more[3].

Naturally, more reliance on AI for public service delivery requires internet access and basic digital literacy for the population to use e-services (as reflected in the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation report recommendation that by 2030 every adult should have access to digital financial and health services, and the broad theme of the report, “Leaving No One Behind”).

Internet access and digital literacy courses are services that many (in some countries, almost 90%)[4] libraries are already offering. The growing necessity of giving people access to connections will only make them more important. Crucially, they can help marginalised populations who cannot afford a broadband subscription adapt to the digitalisation of public services.

Even if every citizen has access to the internet and basic digital literacy skills, the internet they interact with will also be increasingly shaped by AI.

On the user and content levels, AI is often used for moderation. However, the effectiveness of AI in moderating supposedly harmful content is often questioned, and many agree that right now this task cannot be carried out by AI alone, and human moderators are still needed.

However, some EuroDIG 2019 participants argued that the sheer amount of online content generated every day, as well as the growing pressure on popular platforms to control harmful content, could make more AI moderation seem like an attractive solution.

More broadly, AI could impact physical internet access by moderating, predicting and regulating internet traffic for improved efficiency. Both uses could have implications for freedom of access to information and freedom of expression, since the bias in AI can reinforce existing inequalities.

Libraries around the world stand for the principles of access to information and freedom of expression, and these principles should be at the heart of the debate on AI internet governance.

What Libraries Can Do for a Society Living with AI

  • Use AI responsibly. Today, libraries are under pressure to deliver maximum value and justify their public funding. That is why it can be tempting to turn to AI, hoping to maximize efficiency. However, it is important for libraries to be informed about potential ethical issues of some AI use cases, and make ethical choices to safeguard public trust. For example, the 2019 Mozilla Internet Health Report suggests thermal sensors as an alternative to cameras for collecting crowd and visitor data[5]. This solution achieves the same goal without compromising privacy concerns, and shows a commitment to ethical standards.
  • Support ethical AI research. As the use of AI grows, many governments and NGOs are looking for better data for AI training models and improved data collection practices. As discussed earlier, libraries can supply a wealth of high-quality datasets for machine learning[6]. Academic libraries in particular have large repositories of data from quantitative studies, coded and labelled according to high scientific standards. Trained specialised librarians can also actively assist in ethical AI research, offer their data literacy expertise and promote ethical data handling and collection methods, especially in local contexts.
  • Expand their efforts to support literacy. In the last few decades, many libraries have started providing digital literacy training; today, algorithmic literacy is becoming particularly important. This form of literacy includes recognizing when you interact with AI, understanding how it determines which information you find online, and knowing how your private data is collected by AI algorithms. Libraries can include these skills in their digital literacy programmes. Several ongoing research projects, such as “RE:search” and “UnBias”, outline the best ways to develop algorithmic literacy skills among lay users. Librarians can use the insights provided by state-of-the-art research, and organize classes to help their patrons develop these skills.
  • Encourage public debate around AI. In addition, libraries can use their role as community hubs to encourage debate and citizen participation to discuss the functions of AI in society. Because of the many ways AI can change society, some stakeholders at EuroDIG 2019 advocated broad public consultation on the uses of AI by the government. This requires the public to be informed and proactive; and libraries can provide both a physical forum and the unbiased information to initiate such a debate. For example, they can enable local residents to communicate their problems to the AI Commons initiative, which brings together AI developers and problem owners.
  • Education to live with AI, education with the help of AI. Society is facing an enormous task of transforming education systems to cope with the changes in labour markets caused by AI and automation. One of the biggest priorities is encouraging lifelong learning and improving social inclusion in educational settings[7]. Libraries can play a big role in achieving these goals – they provide access to knowledge and information with no entry barriers, and they can be particularly suitable for helping older learners and non-digital natives[8]. On the supply side, AI can also help libraries create reproducible and customisable learning tools, which would work well together with a librarian’s personal guidance for a non-digital native user.

 

In its best use-cases, AI can bring many advantages and societal benefits. Libraries can help to make sure that, truly, no one is left behind in this progress. Public internet access and digital literacy programmes can help more people enjoy the benefits of AI – from healthcare bots to easier travel.

But more importantly, libraries can help the people who are most at risk of falling behind if AI and automation increase existing inequalities. The knowledge and information that libraries offer can help people learn new skills to navigate the changing labour market, improve their livelihoods, and help make their voices heard in political discussions.

 

 

 

[1] European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (2019), A definition of Artificial Intelligence: main capabilities and scientific disciplines, 8 April 2019

[2] Internet Society (2017), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, policy paper

[3] Carrasco, Miguel, Mills, Steven, Whybrew, Adam, and Jura, Adam (2019), The Citizen’s Perspective on the Use of AI in Government, 1 March 2018

[4] Alleman, Kate (2018), Digital Literacy Support in Libraries: More than Just Your Computer Classes, 1 May 2018

[5] Mozilla (2019), 2019 Internet Health Report

[6] IFLA (2018), The Robots are Coming? Libraries and Artificial Intelligence, blog, 24 July 2018

[7] Michel Servoz (2019), “The Future of Work? Work of The Future! On how artificial intelligence, robotics and automation are transforming jobs and the economy in Europe”, report to the European Commission, 3 May 2019

[8] IFLA and TASHA (2019), Development and Access to Information 2019, report