Canadian Federation of Library Associations Update (February 2018)
March 20, 2018
Katherine McColgan, Executive Director of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA), has provided an overview of activities since November 2017.
CFLA-FCAB Executive Director’s Report
February 2018
The following is an overview of new developments in activities since my last report dated November 15, 2017.
Advocacy
Meetings with Members of Parliament and Government Officials
On February 14th and 15th, 2018 Victoria Owen and I met with members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU): Frank Baylis, Liberal MP, Pierrefonds-Dollard’s legislative assistant; Matt Jeneroux, Conservative MP Edmonton Riverbend; Dane Lloyd, Conservative MP Sturgeon River—Parkland; Majid Jowhari, Liberal MP Richmond Hill’s legislative assistant; and, Brian Masse, NDP MP Windsor West. We also met with Arthur Lam, Policy Advisor to the Minister of Industry. It provided CFLA-FCAB a great opportunity to discuss the copyright legislative review process as well as to discuss our interests in topics such as technological protection measures, fair dealing, contract override, the Copyright Board review, rural broadband, and indigenous knowledge as it relates to the Copyright Act. We were advised that the process will take as much as one year to complete and have made a request to appear before the committee when the time comes.
On March 1, 2018, I was invited to join CARL to attend meetings they had scheduled with Dan Ruimy, Liberal MP Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge and INDU Chair; Peter Van Loan, Conservative MP York—Simcoe and Heritage Committee Vice-Chair; and Pierre Nantel, NDP MP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher and Heritage Committee Vice-Chair. These meetings focused primarily on the fair dealing aspect of the Act review.
Digital Literacy Exchange Program
We were very pleased to see the announcement from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada assigning $4.3 million for 2018-19 and $7.3 million per year for subsequent years to the Digital Literacy Exchange Program; a program announced in the 2017 Federal Budget. CFLA-FCAB acknowledges CULC’s natural leadership role this national initiative and offer our support wherever it is needed.
2018 Federal Budget
The federal budget brought with it some good news for the library community: pledging funding to support the construction and operations of a joint facility for Libraries and Archives Canada and the Ottawa Public Library. This is the federal share of the project with the balance paid by the City of Ottawa. It is expected to be completed in 2023; committing funds to address the issue of rural broadband access ; commitments to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples; and, increased funding to granting agencies.
Position Statements
Protecting Copyright Exceptions from Contract Override
Fair Dealing
Technological Protection MeasuresCommittee Updates
Cataloguing and Metadata Standards
Emma Cross and Christopher Carr developed a poster outlining the mandate, responsibilities and projects of the committee. The poster was presented at OLA in January and will be making a tour of the provincial, territorial, and regional conferences this Spring. The next poster sessions will be at ABQLA and APLA. Committee members are being asked to present the poster at their respective local conferences. The long term vision of the committee is to maintain a small agile steering committee focus and to develop regional cataloguing and metadata groups that can feed its work and which can be drawn on to create working groups and task forces as the need arises.
There are two projects the committee would like to develop in the coming year; the first is pushing out information about the RDA Toolkit redesign. CMSC members will be coordinating this in their province or region; the second is to work with the Indigenous Matters Committee on the decolonizing access and classification projects.
Finally, CMSC is considering establishing a working group or task force to look at Canadian readiness for the probable transition to Bibframe from MARC. The proposed committee will be recruited from CFLA-FCAB members by the Committee, lead by a CMSC committee member and report to CMSC. The committee is exploring partnering with the Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange and the Canadian Linked Data initiative. This will likely be a multi-year project. The deliverable will be a report made available to all Canadians on behalf of CFLA-FCAB.
Copyright
The Copyright Committee developed three position statements which were approved by the CFLA-FCAB Board at its January 31, 2018 meeting (links to these statements are found further below):
Protecting Copyright Exceptions from Contract Override
Fair Dealing
Technological Protection MeasuresOn February 1, 2018, the Copyright Committee met, some face to face and some via teleconference to discuss the Copyright Act review process. The committee met again on February 20 to develop points to be covered should we be invited to appear before the committee as well as points to be covered in our written brief. The committee held initial discussions on some proposed language for Indigenous knowledge as it relates to the Act. More work on this position is to come.
Indigenous Matters
Let’s Talk about Reconciliation
On February 1, 2018, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) in partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), the National Film Board of Canada(NFB), the Indigenous Matters Committee of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) launched a series of dialogues about reconciliation.
Press release
WebsiteUBC: Reconciliation Through Indigenous Education
On January 30, 2018, the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education opened a six-week MOOC “Reconciliation Through Indigenous Education” aimed at engaging with Indigenous knowledge keepers, educational leaders, and resources to enhance your understanding and knowledge of practices that advance reconciliation in the places where you live, learn, and work.
University of Alberta Indigenous Canada MOOC
This MOOC began in March 2017. By mid-December 2017, it was reported that over 15,000 people had registered for the course and over 2,500 people had graduated. The 12-lesson course can be taken at the user’s leisure. The next course begins March 19, 2018.
Intellectual Freedom
This committee is comprised of members representing ABQLA, ABPQ, BCLA, CARL, CSL, CULC, LAA, MLA, NLLA, OLA, and SLA and will be holding its first meeting in late March 2018.
Annual Challenges Survey
Don’t forget to complete this important survey whose purpose is to gather data about the nature and outcomes of challenges to intellectual freedom initiated in publicly funded Canadian libraries (e.g., public, school, post-secondary, and government) between January 1 and December 31, 2017.
The deadline for completion is March 31, 2018.
Working Group on Alternate Format Materials for Canadians with Print Disabilities
To date, the Working Group on Alternate Format Materials for Canadians with Print Disabilities has met three times.
The purpose of the working group is to support the Government of Canada, through the Minister of sport and Persons with Disabilities, in developing a long-term strategy to address the gap in published materials available in multiple, accessible formats for Canadians with print disabilities. It is co-chaired by Krista Wilcox (Director General, Office of Disability Issues, Employment and Social Development Canada) and Bill Adair, (Executive Director, Spinal Cord Injury Canada).
Membership is composed of a variety of not-for profit organizations and consumer groups, publishing and technology industry representatives, national indigenous organizations and representatives, and representatives from Government of Canada departments. The CFLA-FCAB Board approved Teresa Johnson, Director, Research & Planning, New Brunswick Public Library Service, Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour as our representative on the committee.
The critical path of the working group is to review discussion papers that will guide discussion for each meeting that have been prepared by the Office of Disability Issues: understanding the problem (opportunities); understanding the policy environment; exploring solutions; and, assessing solutions.
Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange
The Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange (CCM) meets in December/January for the winter round of proposals, and again in May/June for the summer round.
The CCM updated its Terms of Reference and composition in summer 2017 to, among other things, allow for two representatives from CFLA-FCAB instead of from CLA. The full Terms of Reference can be found at: http://www.marc21.ca/040010-203-e.html
The CFLA-FCAB Board approved Trina Grover, Cataloguer and Liaison Librarian – Politics, Criminology, Ryerson University and Pat Riva, Associate University Librarian, Collection Services, Concordia University as CFLA-FCAB representatives to this committee. Pat is the current chair of the committee; both will serve a 3-year term (2018-2020).
At its meeting in January 2018 the committee worked on the development of the Canadian national position that will be presented to the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) where the final decisions are taken. MAC meets in conjunction with the ALA conference twice a year and CCM is represented by one of the two LAC representatives to CCM. This year, CCM supported Proposal 2018-01 (Coding 007 Field Positions for Digital Cartographic Materials in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Holdings Formats) and Discussion Paper 2018-DP02 (Subfield Coding in Field 041 for Accessibility in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format). A full list of the discussion papers can be found online.
At each meeting, CCM also discusses updates on national and international developments in bibliographic standards that might impact the communication of bibliographic information, and provides feedback to committee coordinated by LAC.
Administration & Outreach
Website
Colour schemes and formatting are constantly being worked on for a constant look and feel on the CFLA-FCAB website. Work is still being done to increase the amount of French content that is available to our members and the public and I am exploring outsourcing to complete some of this work in a more expeditious manner.
New on the website
Fair Dealing
Indigenous Resources; new content
Membership in CFLA-FCAB
Meetings page; new content
National Forum
2018 Annual General Meeting information
Protecting Copyright Exceptions from Contract Override
Technological Protection MeasuresMeetings
I met with the ABPQ Board of Directors on February 9, 2018 in Montreal where we discussed the projects and issues that CFLA-FCAB is currently involved in and what the Federation’s plans are for the next year. I very much appreciated the opportunity to share information and discuss what CFLA-FCAB can do to support their work.
I will be meeting with members and stakeholder organizations throughout the spring, which I try to coincide with existing travel to maximize on that time.
LAC Stakeholders’ Forum
Peter Bailey and I participated in the LAC Stakeholders’ Forum meeting held in Toronto on January 29, 2018. This was an opportunity to review a summary of the discussions and the record of outcomes from the October 2017 meeting. LAC provided participants with an update on the National Union Catalogue to OCLC; the strategy for a digital preservation program; information about the digital asset management system; projects related to the revitalization of Indigenous language and culture; the Gatineau 2 preservation facility project; the work of the Ottawa Declaration Working Group; the IFLA Global Vision Discussion 2018; and, the Canadian National Heritage Digitization Strategy. It also provided a space for those present to give an update on their organization’s projects and activities.
The next meeting will be held in Ottawa on May 16, 2018.
New Members
CFLA-FCAB is pleased to welcome the Canadian School Libraries and Administrators of Medium-sized Public Libraries of Ontario new members. We look forward to working with them on our projects and initiatives moving forward.
2018 Annual General Meeting
The CFLA-FCAB Annual General Meeting was held Wednesday January 31, 2018 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre during the OLA Super Conference. The meeting was well attended and good conversations were had with members. There was also a panel discussion moderated by Paul Takala on Friday February 2, 2018, where attendees heard from committee chairs Camille Callison (Indigenous Matters), Christopher Carr (Cataloguing and Metadata Standards), and Victoria Owen (Copyright) providing an update on the work of CFLA-FCAB’s committees and working groups.
CFLA-FCAB 2018 National Forum
The National Forum will be held in Regina, Saskatchewan on May 2, 2018. The day will begin with a thought-provoking keynote address followed by a day of engaged discussions on the topics of artificial intelligence and intellectual freedom.
Register now: https://saskla.wufoo.eu/forms/pxt6t6m0pc9zpu/
More information on the Forum is available on the CFLA-FCAB website at http://cfla-fcab.ca/en/meetings/national-forum-2018/
Respectfully submitted,
Katherine McColgan
February 28, 2018
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