Now they have me seeing red....

So I spent a good deal of my summer learning all there was to know about the Canadian DCMA and was thrilled to pieces when the bill was stopped due to the election. Then what do I spot at boingboing??

"The Conservative Party has released its platform and it devotes a half-page to copyright that leaves little doubt that it plans to bring back Bill C-61 and continue to support ACTA. According to the platform:

A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will reintroduce federal copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance among the rights of musicians, artists, programmers and other creators and brings Canada's intellectual property protection in line with that of other industrialized countries, but also protects consumers who want to access copyright works for their personal use. We will also introduce tougher laws on counterfeiting and piracy and give our customs and law enforcement services the resources to enforce them. This will protect consumers from phoney and sometimes dangerous products that are passed off as reliable brand-name goods."

(See Cory Doctorow's full post here)

In a sound, not a word: faugh. This bill was done without consultation and harms rather than helps the parties involved. Time to gird ourselves for the copyfight AGAIN.

For background information as well as updates on this (possibly) unfolding mess, check out Michael Geist's blog at www.michaelgeist.ca

Google in the archives

The lethargy got me (although there wasn't a heck of a lot in blogland....although I didn't quite check) so I haven't posted in a spell....

One story that caught my eye today was this little number from The Industry Standard which asks what if Google's mission extended to public records?? An excellent question, and as we know, public perception of what has been digitized and what actually has been transferred are quite different. Ian Lamont here speaks about genealogy and how little there is available to help internet savvy searchers find more about their families. This simple seemign question brings to my mind a whole series of questions like what woudl Google's interests be in this? Would they then own the public records of what they scanned, like censuses (censusi?) or ship records? And would this indeed help the public sector as the documents would be scanned and thus would increased access for this insitutions' users? And again, with digitizing all these records, what becomes of the archivist? A good set of questions that I can see coming back in a few years.

So apparently ordinary people are just chum

Another good article about the art and culture cuts that the Tories want to enact:

Toronto Star Article "Ordinary People don't care about arts"

Now whether you agree with government support for the arts or not, recall that a portion of this was for digitization projects which would increase access to many resources. As we all know, many small archives and museums are strapped for cash so any funding for digitization would be very welcome. And most of the arts funding was to send off groups to show off Canadian culture around the world. I fail to see why this is a bad thing. As the article states and many commentors point out, many of these so call "rich" artists barely make much over the poverty line. I think I react the most to the comment of "ordinary Canadians don't care about the arts". It's probably because we don't get a chance to see much art and culture in some areas of the country. Now we may never see it as there's no funding for it.

Also the comments about privatizing the CBC really send a chill up the spine. The ol CEEB isn't doing so hot these days but it would be a real shame to lose it. I would like to direct your attention to a brilliant speech given by Stephen Fry about the BBC in England. I think we could learn a lot from this: Stephen Fry's blog

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in days to come...
-Jess

Cheney can't hide his legacy...

An interesting story from LISnews.org:

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday ordering Vice President Cheney and the National Archives to preserve all of his official records.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's order came in response to a lawsuit filed this month by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group, joined by several historians and open-government advocates, warned that Cheney might destroy or withhold important documents as the Bush administration winds down if he interprets the Presidential Records Act of 1978 as applying to only some of his official papers. ...

(For more, click here)

Being in Canada, I haven't the foggiest if the PM or anyone else is held by law to keep papers, but as a budding archivist, I would be quite disturbed to see these papers destroyed. History will be the final judge of the Bush Administration and their legacy however the loss of papers will definitely affect the optics. As the journalist states later on, Cheney is considered to be one of the most influential vice presidents ever, and his role in the Bush Administration will continue to be examined for years to come.

This also shows how important laws can be in forcing accountability. Who knows if these historians and other groups will truly be successful in ensuring all the Cheney papers remain, but at least someone is looking out for history.

The Marilyn Monroe files

Just in case you are curious:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/marilyn/marilyn

(courtesy of the ArcanL Listserv)

From the Arcan-L listserv:

"Make the case for culture to ordinary Canadians..." at http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2008/09/11/arts-panel.html

In the realm of the digital: at http://www.cbc.ca/spark/, episode 44 includes an interview with Brewster Kahle on "why, for the sake of our culture, we need to digitize works of print, audio and video;" and Ed Burtynsky discusses "photographs that will last 10,000 years."

(courtesy of Cheryl Avery, Univeristy of Saskatchewan)

In light of recent announcements of cuts to cultural programs, the CBC article raises an excellent point about arts funding. How does one justify the needs of artists during an election when there are perhaps more pressing needs? Does someone who lost their manufacturing job really care about having touring artists travel the world to show off Canadian culture? Although, I haven't looked, I doubt any of the party leaders have announced any arts or culture funding.

I haven't yet listened to the Spark one, but I find everything to do with the Long Now project just fascinating. I"d be interested to know how they think format shifting will be overcome. People think in such short lengths of time that it is refreshing to see projects that will take perhaps fifty lifetimes to complete. Maybe the Long Now people should talk to our politicians....

-Jess

Welcome!

Welcome to a brand new year at the I School here at the University of Toronto! This will be the ACA Student Chapter blog where we will post articles, upcoming events and other items of interest to students.

Our chapter consists of:
Kate Guay, president
Sarah Niezen, vice president
Rebecka Sheffield, secretary
Jessica Green, treasurer
Kristen Buckley, social chair
Bruce Harpham, member at large

We are looking forward to meeting many of you both in the archives concentration and other students interested in archives. Be sure to come to the Job Talk this evening for insight into summer jobs you too can have after one year at the I school!