Canada's Bill C-11 and its impact on Canadian content creators (including libraries as content creators), and Audience

 REFERENCE:

Gonez, B. (June 6, 2022). Canada’s Bill C-11: What it could mean for creators and discoverability on YouTube [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKEGnAo4Eqg

 

This Youtube presentation originally published by Canadian journalist Brandon Gonez outlines a new legislative bill in the process of being officially made law in Canada. 

 The bill is being titled The Online Streaming Act or BILL C-11, and has the potential to affect the level of control content creators have and how audiences in Canada will be able to interact with content (Gonez, 2022). The passing of this bill can also mean that the CRTC will have the authority to exert control and influence over content and recommendations to push Canadian content onto Canadian based viewers, therefore limiting their ability to discover global content, and restrict global audience reach for content creators (Gonez, 2022). 

In an interview with Todd Beaupre, the director of product at Youtube, he stated that recommendations on YouTube play a crucial role in audience reach, discoverability of new content and how creators are able to monetize using the platform (Gonez, 2022). he even uses a library as an analogy to say that YouTube functions as a librarian and gatekeeper, assisting viewers in finding content and creators they want to watch and like while remaining largely impartial (Gonez, 2022). If this bill now becomes officially a law, that dynamic will all change, creating a bias in how the platform is meant to function (Gonez, 2022). 

For a moment, if we consider how libraries actually use digital platforms, we could imagine a similar scenario. In recent years due to COVID, libraries have made use of the platform to generate informative video content for programming, branding, and as a news outlet for patrons. If this bill does become law, it could mean patrons will have less control over access to library content from around the world. Yes, supporting Canadian libraries is a good thing, but both patrons, students and libraries should not have a regulator from Youtube via  the CRTC influencing how they search for content or creating a bias for content viewable on the platform, making it harder to search. Content will end up being mismatched with audiences, and affecting the level of interests and likes etc. that can play a big role in supporting creators. We all know that at a library, the last thing a librarian wants is to misdirect a patron to content that is not right for them based on their needs and wants. 

The same scenario can also be applied in theory to digital collections at a library. if a library wanted to create a digital YouTube collection of videos that include content from other countries, the same issues will arise. 

Ultimately these scenarios are created  ONLY IN THEORY, but the impact of this bill is quite real. 

 

 

 

Teacher Librarian Advocacy

   In this blog post, I am sharing a website that I created for teacher librarian advocacy. In this website I discuss in depth the necessity, and importance of teacher librarians as well as how to advocate for them in your school district. I discuss the dangers of eliminating credentialed librarians from schools, and how it will eventually affect all libraries in the future. 

Teacher Librarian Advocacy Website

-Annika De La Rosa INFO 266 (Fall '22)

Creating and Establishing a Virtual Library

Since the pandemic locked down the world, many places including libraries had to get creative to provide services for customers and patrons or risk going-out-of-business. Some libraries in order to meet the needs of their patrons began creating virtual libraries using second life or other platforms where patrons could meet in a virtual space. Some created rooms for virtual books clubs or other activities. A patron could roam around the virtual library space and check out resource, listen to music, and interact with others. An example of a virtual library that was created is Community Virtual Library. This video provides information about the Community Virtual Library and establishing your own virtual library: 

                             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUyaUlIKAOk

 

References:

Hill, V. (2022, March 29). Virtual Reality Leading the Way: Librarians in the metaverse support critical thinking andmetaliterary. In Library2.0 Worldwide Mini Conference. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUyaUlIKAOk

Check Out "Challenges and Accomplishments in U.S. Prison Libraries"

Sabrina Rondero

 Lehmann, V. (2011). Challenges and accomplishments in U.S. prison libraries. Library Trends, 59(3), 490–508. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2011.0001 

Introduction.: EBSCOhost (sjlibrary.org) 

This article explores the library services that are made available in prisons in the United States and the evolving role of prison libraries in the last two centuries. The article highlights the challenges that arise in developing and providing library services in a prison environment by reviewing successful library services and projects that have been implemented in the past. Also covered in the article are collection development policies, law library services, resource management and other topics that are crucial to many other library settings.  

The American Library Association has written handbooks and journals attempting to define standards in prison library work. The journal emphasizes the main point, which is that at the root of any library work it is essential for librarians to understand the communities they serve and to strategize their resources in order to fulfill their patron's information needs.  

Review: Librarians to the Defense: Groups form to fight a conservative-led attack on libraries' efforts to promote social justice

Bader, E.J. (2021, October 19). Librarians to the defense: Groups form to fight a conservative-led attack on libraries' efforts to promote social justice. The Progressive Magazine. https://progressive.org/magazine/librarians-to-the-defense-bader/ 

This mentions many great programs that libraries around the country are conducting that promote inclusivity and awareness. One such program was a Holocaust book discussion group run by librarian Jeannie Ferriss for the Whitehall Community Library. Ferriss stated she mentioned the Holocaust to a group of young adults, and they had not heard of it before. Like me, upon hearing this news, Ferriss was very surprised, and that's when the idea of a Holocaust book discussion group began. The program is for 14–17-year-old teens and invites adults to join. It not only involves book discussion, but also offers visits to a Holocaust Memorial Museum, lectures by rabbis, and "discussion with both a Holocaust survivor and a former soldier who helped liberate the concentration camps".

There are numerous other initiatives across public libraries that seek to “protect against the distortion of history” by archiving pamphlets, leaflets, posters, prints, and other historical artifacts. 

However, the article also points out the pushback against these initiatives. Specifically, they point out what happened at the Niles-Maine District Library in Niles, Illinois. Right wing groups were able to win most seats on the library’s board and proceeded to influence library policy. They ended programs that “distributed books to the homebound and people who live in nursing homes; [cut] the overnight cleaning crew; [reduced] the adult services budget by $150,000; and [slashed] the number of [open] hours”. 

They did this because they believed that libraries should be run like businesses, aimed at saving taxpayer funds, and not as community enrichment organizations. They also won the conservative majority because only 8.4 percent of eligible voters participated in the election. 

It is important for organizations that support library programming aimed at inclusiveness and diversity, to be active at library board meetings, and in the community when there are important elections for board seats or library funding initiatives. The article mentions a referendum to fund renovations for a library in Plainfield, Illinois. Right wing organizations rebranded the referendum as a “property tax and paid for robo-calls to urge people to vote ‘no’.” The message was to vote no on taxes, not to vote yes on libraries. It is all about what message the community hears. There is support for libraries, but community members must be active to counter the message of right-wing organizations.

On Children's Media Literacy

 Watkins, Rachel

Buckingham, D., Banaji, S., Burn, A., Carr, D., Cranmer, S., & Willett, R. (2004). The media literacy of children and young people: A review of the research literature on behalf of Ofcom. Office of Communications. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10000145/1/Buckinghammedialiteracy.pdf

 

This is a review of the literature about media literacy of children. It discusses the aspect of media literacy: access, understand, and create. It also discusses barriers to children learning media literacy as well as things that enable them to learn media literacy.

 

 I thought this article was very intriguing. I think the subject matter is important and I feel like the authors did a good job evaluating the literature and presenting information in a format that made sense.

Book Challenges: Classrooms, Parents, Court

 Pearsey, Eliza

Read the Room | On the Media | WNYC Studios. (2022). WNYC Studios. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-read-the-room

This podcast from WNYC (an NPR affiliate) focuses on how books get challenged and removed from classrooms and libraries, what rights parents have, and the 1982 Supreme Court case that ruled that school boards can’t remove books based on their disagreement of the ideas in them. 

This is a timely and helpful article in 2022. One important point is that when some items are challenged, we as librarians need to make sure we read in context. Generally, people who challenge a book haven’t read it. And because of that the context suffers. For example, in Go Ask Alice, many people point to a passage where she talks about sex, but basically she’s stating that she regrets what she’s done and hopes that one day, some one will genuinely love her. Overall, this could be a beneficial text for students. It's important that context and connotation are taken into account when challenging a book.