UN declares: “Internet access is a human right”

Access to the flow of online information is a right say the UN (image c/o Nrbelex)

Just over a week ago the United Nations underlined the right for everyone to have access to a resource that many take for granted: the internet.  As I have often commented on this blog over the years, lack of Internet access is not simply restricted to those that live in developing countries.  Nine million people in this country have never even accessed the internet, either at home or elsewhere.  From the Los Angeles Times:

“Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states,” said the report from Frank La Rue, a special rapporteur to the United Nations, who wrote the document “on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

Obviously, putting access to information on the same footing as water is a significant and welcome move.  Access to information is absolutely vital for the wellbeing and prosperity of all individuals.  One wonders, however, what councils across the UK make of this development.

For many across the UK, a public library is the only place they can connect to the internet.  In the North East alone, connectivity stands at only 59% of households.  Closing libraries in areas such as the North East will surely result in access to the internet being cut off for many.  In essence, by closing public libraries, councils across the country will be violating tax payers’ human rights, according to the United Nations at least.  Is this likely to force them to change their minds about the extent of the closures?  Probably not.  Having said that, it may well be worth writing to your councillor and including a link to the text of the report.  You never know, it might just prick their conscience.

What do libraries mean to you?

Last week I asked a question on both Facebook and Twitter:

What three words would you use to describe what libraries mean to you?

I had been thinking for a long time that the number of followers for both the Voices for the Library Facebook Page and Twitter account would mean that gathering their thoughts on what libraries are about might be an interesting exercise and, hopefully, draw a wide range of response.  So it turned out to be with over 50 people contributing in excess of 150 words.  The product of this process was an interesting (well, I think so anyway) word cloud:

What do libraries mean to you?

Before going any further, it may be worth pointing out something about the contributions themselves.  The question was asked, as I said, on both Facebook and Twitter.  Whereas it is fair to say that responses on Facebook would have come solely from people who have signed up to ‘like’ the Voices for the Library page (meaning they are possibly more likely to be library workers or library supporters), Twitter was an altogether different proposition.  As Twitter is ‘open’, more people were exposed to the question and consequently, this potentially led to a more varied response from a greater range of people (beyond the usual librarian/library user responses).  In short, basically this wasn’t just a collection of responses from librarians or library workers, it was far broader than that, which is why some of the responses are interesting.

Note, for example, that although several words imply a relationship with books (‘reading’ and ‘literacy’ for example), ‘books’ itself is barely noticeable (it is just under the ‘c’ of ‘community’).  Compare that with words such as ‘knowledge’, ‘community’, ‘freedom’ and ‘information’, all of which feature prominently (word clouds size the words according to the frequency with which they are used – small for rarely used words, large for commonly used words) .  So what does this tell us about how people view libraries in this admittedly limited experiment?  It seems that the most important aspects of the service are the provision of information and the access to knowledge, in all its forms.  So whilst books are important, does it not also suggest that anything that is considered ‘information’ or that imparts ‘knowledge’ should be considered central to the library service?  It would appear so.

It is also interesting to note that the ‘community’ aspect is considered vital.  For many people, community spaces have rapidly diminished.  There are few places left for groups of people to come together and create that sense of community.  Some might argue that that is no longer important as technology has plugged the gap, but I would argue that communities still need that social space.  Who knows, maybe this lack of communal space has helped to exacerbate the individualistic nature of modern society.  He says writing on his blog.

There does appear to be a paradox at play here though.  Whilst it is easier than ever to build connections with people in distance lands, connections closer to home appear more distant than ever.  Although the growth of the Internet has broadened our horizons, has it also blurred the foreground?  That said, are the recent events in the Middle East proof that this is not the case?  Do the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya indicate that communal bonds have been strengthened to such an extent that they can tear down (or at least attempt to) repressive regimes that attempted to keep communities from uniting?

Well, this was supposed to be a post about the word cloud created from a simple question about libraries.  That little diversion was not supposed to happen.  Ah well.

The other thing I found interesting from collecting this data (and interesting in a fairly minor way), was the difference in responses from people on Facebook and Twitter.  Whereas there was limited interaction from the ‘followers’ on Facebook, there was a continuous flow from Twitter.  It rather suggested to me that Facebook users are a little more passive than Twitter users who prefer to engage and discuss rather than simply observe.  But then I guess that reflects the type of person attracted to Twitter, it is not exactly well suited to observation and passive engagement – which is perhaps why many people who try out Twitter for the first time find it hard to get into.

Anyway, getting back to the central driver behind this post (the word cloud remember?!), I’d be interested to hear what thoughts others have as to why words such as ‘community’, ‘knowledge’, ‘information’ and ‘freedom’ took precedence.  Why are these more common responses than ‘books’?  What do this mean for libraries?

Is Murdoch Heralding The End of Free News?

With Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that News Corp will start charging for content on the internet, there has been much talk about what the implications are in a society that is used to accessing such content for free.  Whilst it is only News Corp at the moment who are looking at this, it will almost certainly lead to other newspaper groups considering their options.  Will others follow suite?  Or will Murdoch’s media empire be the sole crusader against free news?  As a library student, I will be hoping that it is the latter rather than the former (although I also don’t think it makes much business sense either – it won’t increase revenue as long as other groups keep content free).

One of many problems associated with this move is  the impact it will have on public libraries.  For years now, public libraries have been able to access news content on the internet from reliable sources free of charge.  Suddenly, that looks like it could be threatened by this move.  How will public libraries be able to afford to subscribe to a range of newspapers should others follow suit?  Certainly it seems unlikely that they would be able to subscribe to every national newspaper.  But cost isn’t the only concern.

Although the idea is to charge for news content, ensuring that only subscribers can access it, in practice this will be very difficult to manage.  In an era when anyone can publish information for all to see, what is to stop a subscriber from copying chunks of news content and publishing it on a blog?  Very little.  Sure, it risks breaching copyright, but as we saw with the distribution of music files it still happened.  Once these extracts are published on blogs they will be distributed far and wide making it virtually impossible to prosecute everyone involved in its distribution.  And therein lies the other problem for libraries: the temptation to rely on blogs for news content.  It would be very tempting to rely on a freely accessible blog rather than worrying about having to pay for content – quite possible leading to inaccurate information being disseminated.  Good news for bloggers who want to make a name for themselves, bad news for those who require access to accurate information. (Although that doesn’t mean that I have a problem with allsuch content.  There are some excellent blogs out there and I also see the value of resources such as Wikipedia, it just means more care needs to be taken.)

It will be interesting to see if anyone else does follow suit or whether this is a massive error by a newspaper owner who has never really got to grips with the internet.  Personally, for the sake of access to information, I hope that the majority of newspapers continue to carry freely accessible content.

Web 2.0 Technologies and the Media

As a long-time blogger, I have been a great believer in the positive impact they can have on the news narrative.  I have always believed that they can be a force for good, drawing people’s attention to the stories that the mainstream media overlooks. The growth of the blogging community could (finally) ensure that the stories that are normally ignored by the mainstream media would finally get the exposure they deserve.  They also had the potential to create stories in a new and exciting way.  In my opinion, blogs had great promise as providing a distinct news narrative from the mainstream media.  At least, that was my opinion, until the events of the past couple of weeks.

The revelations concerning the proposed establishment of a website designed to smear opposition politicians grabbed a great many of the headlines recently.  What made this story unique was that a well known blogger (Paul Staines, otherwise known as ‘Guido Fawkes’) was key to these revelations getting into the public domain.  Cue much excitement in the media about blogs coming of age and actually dictating the news agenda.  But was this such a great revelation?  Was there actually any real difference between these revelations and countless other similar such revelations in the tabloid press over the past twenty years?  Not really.  The blog at the centre of the revelations has hardly caused a revolution in terms of the style of reporting.  It has merely repeated tactics that have been used by the tabloid press for sometime.  The fact that it was on a blog rather than in the print media was the only thing particularly unique about the story. The real story over the past few weeks has been much more interesting than that.

When Ian Tomlinson died during the G20 protests, there was initially very little coverage of the incident in the mainstream press.  When it was mentioned, it was usually framed to imply that protesters had been the main cause of his subsequent death.  The central accusation that they had thrown bottles at members of the emergency services who were trying to resuscitate him. The story was sidelined by most of the media and little or no attempt was made to investigate the incident any further.  The version of events that was presented to the media was taken to be fair and accurate representation of events on that day, and there appeared no need to investigate the story further.  This was pretty much reflective of how the mainstream media have operated in recent years.  Investigative journalism is time consuming and, therefore, expensive.  In these times of increased competition, costs need to be kept low to ensure that the organisation is competitive.  Consequently, investigative journalism is a rare feature of the modern media (although obviously it still happens from time to time).  This is not a good thing for democracy as a whole.  As one professor in journalism has put it:

Investigative journalism matters because of its many contributions to democratic governance. Its role can be understood in keeping with the Fourth Estate model of the press. According to this model, the press should make government accountable by publishing information about matters of public interest even if such information reveals abuses or crimes perpetrated by those in authority. From this perspective, investigative reporting is one of the most important contributions that the press makes to democracy. It is linked to the logic of checks and balances in democratic systems. It provides a valuable mechanism for monitoring the performance of democratic institutions as they are most broadly defined to include governmental bodies, civic organizations and publicly held corporations.

The decline in investigative journalism means a decline in quality information ‘about matters of public interest’ – a concern for anybody working in the information sector.

Despite the failure of the mainstream media in investigating the incident in question, the story did still develop over the following weeks. However, this was not due to traditional investigative journalism techniques. Whereas the media had failed to fully investigate the death of Mr Tomlinson, the public and modern technology stepped in. Shortly after the initial reports had emerged, a witness had approached The Guardian with filmed footage of what appeared to be an assault on Mr Tomlinson by a police officer shortly before he died. Needless to say, this caused a media storm and suddenly questions were being asked when before a blind eye was turned. Over subsequent days, more evidence began to emerge about what really happened during the G20 protests. Photos such as this one were posted on Flickr. Video footage emerged on YouTube that also suggested that the police were less than even-handed in their dealings with protesters. Suddenly, the media agenda was being led by developments on web 2.0 technologies. Ordinary citizens armed with cameras were able to do what journalists had failed to achieve. This was radically different to anything that had happened before. This was providing a new, distinctive narrative separate from that pursued by the mainstream media. Whereas ‘Guido Fawkes’ was essentially repeating the tactics of many a red-top over the years, this was something new and different and highlighted the potential that sites such as FlickR and YouTube in disseminating information.

The funny thing is that, over the past few years, blogs and the mainstream media have become ever closer. The media mimic some aspects of blogs in order to maintain an audience (see the number of articles that now have comment threads) and blogs (such as Guido Fawkes) have mimicked typical tabloid tactics. In the near future, you will barely be able to distinguish between the high-profile blogs and the mainstream media, such will be the similarities between the two. The consequence of this (particularly in terms of decreasing funds in the mainstream press) is a distinct decline in the standard of information in the public domain. This would, in turn, lead to an ill-informed electorate without the information required to exercise their democratic rights. It could just be that web 2.0 technologies will become an even more important informational tool than was first thought.

Public Libraries and Democracy

I am currently in the middle of reading Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward S Herman and yesterday I watched the re-released documentary on DVD. Given the subject matter of this work (Chomsky and Herman argue that as media outlets are run by corporations, they are under the same pressures as corporations leading to what they call the ‘propaganda model’), it got me thinking about our role in the exchange of ideas and information in a democratic society.

I have long been interested in the idea that librarians are a vital element in a democracy. Perhaps never more so than now, in the ‘information age’. An age where there is such a wealth of information out there, it is very difficult for the average person to navigate through it. After all do we really all have the time to sift through the mass of information out there to keep up to speed with current affairs and world events? Not only does this information need to be ‘sifted’, it also needs to be evaluated and analysed to determine its accuracy. How can anyone be expected to spare the time to analyse and evaluate the plethora of information that is out there?

And that is, I guess, where we step in (to a certain degree). Acting as a conduit between the library user and the wealth of information out there is a big responsibility. Libraries have an important role in ensuring that all sections of society are brought into the democratic process. Indeed, in 1990, the American Library Association adopted a policy entitled ‘Library Services for the Poor’ which stated:

…it is crucial that libraries recognize their role in enabling poor people to participate fully in a democratic society, by utilizing a wide variety of available resources and strategies.

Former US President, Franklin D Roosevelt, also underlined the importance of public libraries in a democratic society, describing them as

the great symbols of the freedom of the mind….essential to the functioning of a democratic society.

Libraries ensure that everyone can gain access to information and thus partake fully in the democratic process. The role of a librarian is, therefore, absolutely crucial in a democracy. Without this access, the electorate become ill-informed in the actions of their representatives and are unable to partake in the democratic process. This is particularly a concern for the poorest in society who cannot afford books, let alone internet connections. Whilst the affluent can keep in touch with the democratic process with ease, the poor are left isolated and effectively disenfranchised.

Whilst I was having a think about the role of a librarian in democracies, I came across a journal article by John Abdul Kargbo [sub required], a librarian at the University of Sierra Leone. Coming from the perspective of a nation that, at the time of writing (1999), had only recently restored a democratic system and was at the centre of a bitter conflict, it was quite interesting to see the importance that they feel libraries have in such a system. Kargbo writes passionately about how simply installing a civilian government is not enough to create a democracy. As he states:

For democracy to succeed it is crucial that the institutions to support and invigorate the democratic process or ideals must exist.

These institutions, he reasons, include public libraries:

Libraries are powerful instruments of social and political change; they can help in the demands of democracy and the spread of literacy.

He goes on to reflect on just how important equality of access to information is in the democratic decision making process and the importance of the librarians role in that process. I think it is very easy for people in the West to forget just what an important role libraries play in society. Politicians (and elements of the media) have become obsessed with targets and tangible outcomes. The number of books that are issued by a public library has become the yardstick by which many measure the success or failure of a public library. However, the contribution a library makes to local society goes way beyond how many books are issued over the course of the year. There are certain intangible elements that need to be considered that cannot just be assessed in terms of concrete figures.

Furthermore, not only do they provide an important function in democracies, they are also essential in times of economic hardship. During a recession, libraries can support the unemployed in gaining new skills and finding employment. This certainly appears to be reflected in the news that library usage has increased in some authorities. Cumbria, for example, has recently announced that they have seen a 39% increase in new joins between September and December. Even then, however, there was still talk of the authority closing libraries – proof that even when the tangibles are impressive, authorities still consider closure.

Public libraries do play an important role in our society. They help to bring people into the democratic process and keep them informed as citizens about the actions of their representatives. They also play a vital role in supporting the most vulnerable during a recession and provide them with the tools they need to develop their skills and gain employment. In times of affluence these facts are easily forgotten. In times of recession we are reminded of their value to the community. Public libraries have not lost their relevance, maybe some of us have just forgotten what made them relevant.

Twitter….the new Facebook?

It would certainly appear that Twitter is fast becoming the next big thing in the world of social networking.  According to a number of reports today, traffic to Twitter has increased by an amazing 974% in the past year.  According to the director of research for Hitwise, the company that has produced these figures, Twitter was

 

…one of the fastest growing websites in the UK last year, and it shows no signs of slowing down.  If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website.

If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers could be even higher. Many people seem to find Twitter addictive: the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter.com has more than trebled from less than 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.

Pretty impressive stuff.  But what is Twitter and why is it being touted as the next big thing?

Twitter is essentially a service that allows account holders to update their status rather like the status section on Facebook.   Using the question “What are you doing?” as a starting point, Twitter allows users to do exactly that in 140 characters.  As well as updating your status, you can follow other people’s updates and read a feed of all the status updates of the people that you follow.  Now, that may seem that it would be useful only for pointless  meanderings and useless chitter-chatter, but it is also a useful tool for information sharing.  Instead of sending emails to a number of different people, you can just post to your Twitter page and save an awful lot of hassle.  Furthermore, as updates can be sent from your mobile phone by SMS, you don’t even have to access the internet to share info with your followers.

 

My Twitter Profile

 

 

Twitter has proven to be an extremely useful tool of late.  Take the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai.  During the attack, people caught up in the events were able to ‘tweet’ (the term used for updating Twitter) the events that were going on around them when the media was trying desperately to grapple with the events as they happened.  The same was true of the recent plane crash in New York.  Local observers were able to tweet before the media could even get on scene.  Although it lacks the authority of the media, these two events have demonstrated the strengths of Twitter as an information sharing service.

Personally, I have also found tweeting quite useful.  Recently my wife flew out to Spain to be with her family and I was left home alone.  During the course of that week, I had a lucky escape as there was a series of major road accidents on the way to work and I was held up for a couple of hours.  As I could just send a text from my phone, I could let my wife know via my Twitter page that I was ok (cheaper than texting Spain!).  It also came in handy when I was due to fly out to meet up with her.  The last time we went to Spain at this time of year, there were massive delays and we were stuck at Heathrow for hours.  The ability to tweet would have been very useful for keeping her family up-to-date with the latest regarding departures and arrivals.  Luckily it wasn’t so problematic this time, but at least I could keep her informed.

But Titter can also be useful from a business perspective.  It can help bring the business and their customers closer together.  It could be particularly useful in the library field as it would be easy for the library to update ‘followers’ on what is going on in their local library in terms of events etc.  It also enables users to post questions that can be answered via a tweet reply (using @username in the status window) and can also be used to post links to a blog or other useful resource (although it is necessary to shorten the address to a Tiny URL).

Of course, Twitter will also be used for bog standard pointless ‘twitterings’ and if that isn’t your bag, you might find it irritating, but you don’t have to follow people if they do have a habit of posting annoying updates.  If you are fascinated by celebrity, it might well be right up your street.  For example, I am currently following Stephen Fry, Graham Linehan (of Father Ted, IT Crowd fame) and Jonathan Ross (not because I am obsessed with celebrity, they are just interesting).  In fact, I even managed to have a short tweet conversation with Jonathan Ross about ebooks (he has a Kindle and a Sony Reader apparently).  So, if you are interested in celebrity, telling everyone what you are up to, or interested in sharing information, Twitter is certainly a very useful tool.

However, it does have some limitations.  It would be useful if you could tweet to a group rather than an individual or everyone.  That could make it much easier for those that wish to tweet for business and pleasure.  The other problem at the moment, certainly for me, is that there are still a lot of people who have not brought themselves to get an account.  Out of all my friends in my email address book, I am the only one with a Twitter account – which makes it pretty dull at the moment!  However, I am convinced that Twitter has a lot of potential and, alongside ebooks, could just be one of the big things for 2009.

If you want a more comprehensive explanation of Twitter, I found this YouTube video that explains all about it and how it can be used in the workplace (be warned it is over an hour long…..the first 5-10 minutes should be enough to explain what it’s all about)

E-Government and the Digital Divide

I read with interest today that President-Elect, Barack Obama, intends to deliver weekly updates to American voters via YouTube.  Although this is a laudable attempt to reach out to the American people, it will present issues in terms of the growing divide between those that are described as ‘information rich’ and the ‘information poor’.  Not only is this a dilemma facing the future US president, it is a dilemma faced in all Western nations as e-government becomes an increasingly popular method for bringing the electorate and government closer together.

Despite being one of the most developed nations on Earth, the United States rather lags behind other countries when it comes to broadband access.  According to one estimate, 57% of American households have broadband access (this compares to 65% of UK households) making the United States 15th out of the top 30 industrialised nations.  This presents a major problem for countries such as the US and the United Kingdom that are keen to develop e-government.  If broadband coverage remains at such low levels, it is hard to imagine how any government could substantially increase the role of e-government in the political process.

The UK government has already introduced a range of services for those that have a broadband connection.  Provided you do have such a connection, you can purchase car tax discs, access information on public services at Directgov, interrogate statistics at the website for the Office for National Statistics, watch YouTube clips from Number 10 Downing Street and you can even create an e-petition on the official website of the Prime Minister’s Office.  If you do not have broadband (or, for that matter, a computer) then you do not have access to these services, effectively rendering a two-tier system and therein lies the problem with the growth of e-government.  There will be a sizeable proportion of the public that do have access to these resources and a sizeable proportion who do not.  This is where internet access in public libraries becomes so vital.  For many, this is the only way that they can freely access information that is otherwise unobtainable.  If the digital divide is going to be tackled, public libraries must be at the forefront of the drive to address the imbalance between the information rich and the information poor.  It is only when this divide is suitably addressed that e-government can be successful in bringing government and people closer together.

Whilst it is encouraging that the future President sees opportunities to use modern technology to bring the people closer to the workings of government, one wonders how those who do not have access to the internet will benefit.  According to the previously quoted statistics, 43% of Americans do not have access to broadband and, therefore, will be unable to view these broadcasts.  Instead, they will rely on rather more traditional ways of receiving such information (newspapers, broadcast media etc) which tend to be filtered and lack the personal nature of an internet clip.  As the future President also plans to

put videos of government meetings online, have officials hold online ‘town hall meetings’ and create an accessible internet database of government spending so that the public can track their tax dollars themselves, [Guardian]

it is vital that the digital divide is addressed if e-government is to be a serious proposition.  If not, the divide will be entrenched and a considerable percentage of the population will be excluded from the political process.  Public libraries can play a massive (and vital) role in addressing this imbalance, but it also requires action taken by government.  Only then can the digital divide be closed and universal e-government can be a reality.

Broadband ‘failing customers’

Been a bit slow to pick up on this report by the BBC on the problems associated with poor service standards amongst internet providers.  Of course, this is a very serious problem in an age where more and more people rely on the internet as a primary source of information.  It is up to Ofcom and the government to ensure that information is accessible for all, as well as ensuring that internet service providers are censured for failure to deliver their contractual obligations.  Without putting meaasures in place, there is a very real danger of an increased divide between the digital haves and the digital have-nots.