Canadian Federation of Library Associations Update (May 2018)

June 8, 2018

Katherine McColgan, Executive Director of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA), has provided an overview of activities.

Advocacy

Copyright Act Review

Victoria Owen and Katherine McColgan appeared before the INDU Committee on April 26th on behalf of CFLA-FCAB. We also worked with our members and other stakeholders to coordinate appearances before the committee in its cross-Canada consultations that began on May 7th in Halifax. We have developed a website with links to briefs, presentations, videos and the Blues from this process and are continuing to post new documents as they become available.

Meetings with Members of Parliament and Government Officials

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.

On May 17, 2018, Alix-Rae Stefanko and I met with Chris Cohoe (Policy Advisor) and Shae McGlynn (Special Assistant) of the Office of the Minister of Sport and Disabilities to discuss CFLA-FCAB’s role in the work of the Accessible Formats Working Group and to discuss national strategies moving forward.

Committee Updates

Copyright

The Copyright Committee developed a fourth position statement that was approved by the CFLA-FCAB Board on April 30, 2018:

• Indigenous Knowledge and the Copyright Act

The committee holds regular monthly meetings and is now in the process of drafting CFLA-FCAB’s brief on the Copyright Act Review as well as responding to questions that were asked of INDU committee members during the appearances.

Intellectual Freedom

This committee is comprised of members representing ABQLA, ABPQ, BCLA, CARL, CSL, CULC, LAA, MLA, NLLA, OLA, and SLA. The Chair of the Committee is Richard Beaudry, representing CSL and a retired teacher-librarian and adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. The committee held its first teleconference in April and continues regular monthly meeting. The group is currently working through its terms of reference and developing a workplan for the coming year.

Annual Challenges Survey

This survey gathers 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) each calendar year.

The deadline for completion was March 31, 2018. Donna Bowman, Liaison Librarian at the University of Regina is this year’s survey administrator. I’d like to thank Alvin Schrader for his many years of work on this survey. The Intellectual Freedom committee is working on improving access to the survey and well as modernizing the content being collected.

Working Group on Alternate Format Materials for Canadians with Print Disabilities

This working group is nearing the end of its mandate. A draft version of a long term strategy to address the gaps in published materials is before the working group at present.

Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange

The next meeting of the Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange (CCM) is scheduled for June 11, 2018 as a teleconference. This is CCM’s usual summer meeting, to consider the summer round of MARC 21 proposals and discussion papers and prepare a Canadian position on each, informing the Canadian representative (this time Sarah Stacy from Library and Archives Canada) who will attend the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) and the MARC Steering Committee that meets in conjunction with ALA.

For this meeting CCM will be reviewing 4 proposals and 5 discussion papers. The papers are all posted and can most conveniently found through the MAC agenda at: https://www.loc.gov/marc/mac/an2018_age.html

CCM has prepared and sponsored two of these proposals:

1. Proposal No. 2018-02: Subfield Coding in Field 041 for Accessibility in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
2. Proposal No. 2018-03: Defining New Fields to Record Accessibility Content in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Both are concerned with aspects of metadata needed to record information relating to accessibility features of resources. Both follow up on previous discussion papers prepared by CCM. Proposal 2018-02 follows from Discussion Paper 2018-DP02 (Subfield Coding in Field 041 for Accessibility in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format) which was discussed at the January 2018 CCM meeting.

CFLA-FCAB’s representatives to CCM are Trina Grover and Pat Riva (chair of CCM).

Administration and Outreach

New on the website

Meetings page; new content

National Forum; new content

Indigenous Knowledge and the Copyright Act

Meetings with Members

Julie McKenna (Board member, Saskatchewan Library Association/Manitoba Library Association) and I met with the Saskatchewan Library Association Board of Directors on May 3rd while in Regina to discuss CFLA-FCAB’s activities and outreach.

In the Community

On March 21, 2018 I attended a half-day Sustainable Industry Association Forum. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together association executives to discuss what their industry is doing in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It was a very diverse set of associations with a very diverse level of maturity in sustainable development. It was an excellent opportunity to hear of success stories and pitfalls and to learn more about ways in which CFLA-FCAB can contribute to this goal. The next meeting is planned for September 14, 2018 in Ottawa.

Alix-Rae Stefanko and I attended the IFLA Global Visioning Workshop at LAC-BAC on April 16 & 17, 2018. The workshop brought together library leaders from Canada and the US to discuss the future of libraries and to develop concrete steps on what IFLA and Canada can do to support the 10 Opportunities outlined in the IFLA Global Vision Report. The 2018 Toolkit is now available.

We also participated in the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Three-Year Plan 2019-2022: Consultation held in Ottawa on May 16, 2018. This session, normally held as the Stakeholders’ Forum provided an opportunity for library leaders across the country help develop a series of high level strategic initiatives for LAC. Work will begin in the fall to develop action plan items.

I attended the CNIB 100th Anniversary Gala hosted at Library and Archives Canada on May 29, 2018. It was a beautiful celebration of the advancements for the work of CNIB in the community. I had the opportunity for a brief discussion with John Rafferty, CEO and President of CNIB about CFLA-FCAB’s interest in a national strategy for accessible formats in Canada.

CFLA-FCAB 2018 National Forum

The National Forum took place in Regina, Saskatchewan on May 2, 2018 and drew156 participants. A sincere thank you to Alix-Rae Stefanko (CFLA-FCAB Chair, and Chair of the Program Committee), Lise Brin (CARL), Leah Jones (LAC-BAC), Rebecca Jones (OLA), Nancy Mackenzie (SLA Program Chair), and Sarah Stacy (LAC-BAC) for their exceptional work in bringing together such a successful day.

Powerpoint presentations, table notes and videos of the keynote address by Bruce Walsh, artificial intelligence panel and intellectual freedom panel can be found on the CFLA-FCAB website at http://cfla-fcab.ca/en/meetings/national-forum-2018/.

Respectfully submitted,
Katherine McColgan

May 31, 2018

(Via Canadian Federation of Library Associations)