Canadian Federation of Library Associations Support for Prisoners’ Right to Read

The Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) recently published a statement on reading and access to information for people incarcerated in Canadian correctional institutions:

"Prison libraries must be given the space necessary to provide access to collections and library programs that meet incarcerated people’s recreational, cultural, educational, and other information needs. As supporters of intellectual freedom and access to information, prison libraries must provide people who are incarcerated with the widest variety of relevant and current materials possible, including access to legal materials. Materials should be provided in universally accessible formats, and/or libraries should have access to conversion technology in order to provide universally accessible formats. Collections and programming in prison libraries must also reflect the ethnic and cultural incarcerated population including people with disabilities. Library professionals are key to the prison library mandate including library staff dedicated to managing collections and delivering programs and services (...)"

"This statement is supported by the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) (2015), the IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto (2022) and the IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to Prisoners (2023) as well as CFLA-FCAB’s policies on intellectual freedom."

 The Canadian Association of Law Libraries is a member of the CFLA. 

Government Information Day(s) 2023 Program

The Ontario Council of University Libraries - Government Information Community will be hosting this year’s virtual Government Information Day(s) 2023 next week (December 12-14).

Topics include:

• parliamentary and legislative libraries and their work;
• current day issues with online government information and efforts to safeguard its permanence and accessibility;
• the metadata and organization of online government information;
• Crown Copyright and where we are at;
• Freedom of Information (FOI) for both the beginner and more advanced advocates;

Registration for the Zoom sessions is free.

Globe and Mail Series on Canada's Underfunded Access to Information System

The Globe and Mail newspaper has published the fruits of its month-long research project called Secret Canada, an investigation into what it describes as Canada's broken access to information system.

As part of the project, journalists interviewed well over 200 experts and filed more than 500 freedom of informastion requests to every level of government. This included federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as major municipalities, police forces, hospitals and school boards across the country.

They also created a database about freedom of information requests in Canada, videos and a podcast.

One of the articles in the series describes some typical situations:

"A developer from Cornwall, Ont., is perplexed to find that his building permits are suddenly being denied. He files a request under freedom-of-information law for copies of any city records about him or his company. Three months later, he’s told he will need to pay a $1,963.50 processing fee. When he does, he receives pages of mostly blanked-out paper, a full box of his own building applications and files and a note that 3,500 records are being fully withheld."

"In Saskatoon, a woman wants to learn about the outcome of a police investigation in which she was a complainant. She submits a freedom-of-information request and specifically asks for a copy of her witness statement, as well as copies of e-mails that she had provided as evidence. In response, the police service refuses to release those records without redactions, because of privacy concerns – privacy concerns about records she supplied."

"A wildlife protection organization is skeptical of an Alberta government claim that scores of wild horses need to be culled to prevent ecological damage. They believe the assertion is based on data that was given to the government by a ranchers’ association. The activists request those records, and are told they will need to pay the association for a copy. The price tag: $110,022.15."

"These cases, which are among hundreds reviewed by The Globe and Mail, are a snapshot of the frustrations and stonewalling Canadians encounter every day when trying to access public information using the legal framework governments have created."

They found an underfunded, understaffed system. Government agencies were often uncooperative, if not downright unresponsive. And delays and refusals were routine. 

Canadian Judicial Council Guidelines for Management of Requests for Bulk Access to Court Information by Commercial Entities

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has published new guidelines for the Management of Requests for Bulk Access to Court Information by Commercial Entities:

"Courts across Canada are grappling with requests by commercial entities for bulk access to Court Information to aggregate, analyze, repackage, commercialize and distribute it, particularly court decisions, orders, and other documents typically found in Court Records."

"This demand has traditionally been driven by publishers of research systems and precedent databases. Increasingly, however, requests are coming from a more diverse range of organizations, some motivated by intent to apply advanced analytics or machine learning algorithms to predict individual and collective decision-making outcomes based on features such as judges or counsel names, and fact patterns."

(...)

"While access to Court Information must be a core tenet underpinning ‘open justice’, it is also important to balance this by mitigating the risk that inadvertent release of private or sensitive information residing in court files does not cause harm to vulnerable people, undue distress or a risk of identity theft arising from malicious use."

(...)

"The objective of this report is to propose a common approach and guidelines to assist Canadian courts responding to requests for bulk access to Court Information. The proposed mechanisms are aimed at recalibrating the core principles of ‘access’ and ‘open courts’ in the context of digital information and online service delivery. Access issues were much easier to navigate at a time when court information was held in paper files and the need for physical attendance at a courthouse effectively meant that information was practically obscured and thereby protected from broad, inappropriate use. It is now more challenging to balance ‘access’ principles with other important principles including preserving integrity, safeguarding the administration of justice, protecting the reputation and integrity of the court and the judiciary, and mitigating risks associated with misuse of private or sensitive information."

"The Framework specifically identified some potential risks associated with an overly cavalier approach to the ‘open courts’ principle in an era where Court Information is stored in electronic rather than paper format, where sensitive Judicial Information and private data is intermingled with other information on court files and databases and when the effective protections afforded by practical obscurity are no longer present."

"A more recent, emerging consideration, many will see as a risk, is the trend towards application of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to Court Information. While there are some potential benefits from these developments, there are also some risks associated with incorrect predictions and the ramifications of reliance upon the output from biased or poorly designed machine learning models. The key question here though is whether it is the role of the judiciary to make determinations about the quality or effectiveness of such services and whether courts are in any event resourced to wade into such territory."

The CJC's  role is to ensure the proper conduct of federally appointed judges. This includes the power to investigate the conduct - and not the decisions - of federally appointed judges when a complaint is made against one of them.

The Council also makes recommendations on issues relating to court management and technology.

It is chaired by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

New South Wales Law Reform Commission Paper on Publication Bans

The New South Wales Law Reform Commission in Australia has issued a Consultation Paper on Open justice: Court and tribunal information: access, disclosure and publication.

It is part of a consultation process into whether current arrangements for court-ordered publication bans strike the right balance between the proper administration of justice, the open courts principle, the rights of victims and witnesses (for example, children involved in court proceedings and complainants in sexual offence proceedings), privacy, confidentiality, public safety, the right to a fair trial, national security, commercial/business interests, and the public interest in open justice.

It will also look into whether such bans can remain effective in the digital environment.

The document examines the situation in New South Wales, other Australian states, New Zealand as well as England and Wales.

The full terms of reference for the project are on the Commission's website.

Library Associations Call For Unfettered Access To Government Publications In Face Of COVID-19

Last month, the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) called on the federal and provincial governments to assign a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) to publicly available government information in an effort to eliminate barriers to government documents:

"Over the past months, as they faced unprecedented challenges caused by COVID-19, Canadians have relied on their governments for information related to the novel coronavirus and its impact. Now more than ever, unfettered access to taxpayer-funded government information is of fundamental importance to a democratic society and to the health of its citizens."

"Unfortunately, pre-existing barriers and confusion related to Crown copyright have exacerbated the issues associated with accessing government information. For example, onerous and unnecessary permission requests to government departments are subject to extensive delays; existing digital content remains unnecessarily restricted; and questions about the control and dissemination of both print and digital works, as well as data collections, hamper their sharing and redistribution (...)"

"Over the past months, as they faced unprecedented challenges caused by COVID-19, Canadians have relied on their governments for information related to the novel coronavirus and its impact. Now more than ever, unfettered access to taxpayer-funded government information is of fundamental importance to a democratic society and to the health of its citizens. Unfortunately, pre-existing barriers and confusion related to Crown copyright have exacerbated the issues associated with accessing government information. For example, onerous and unnecessary permission requests to government departments are subject to extensive delays; existing digital content remains unnecessarily restricted; and questions about the control and dissemination of both print and digital works, as well as data collections, hamper their sharing and redistribution. "

Many library associations such as the Canadian Association of Law Libraries have been asking that the federal government reform or abolish Crown copyright.

Law Reform Commission of Ireland Report on Accessibility of Legislation in the Digital Age

The Law Reform Commission of Ireland has published a report on the Accessibility of Legislation in the Digital Age that makes a wide range of recommendations as to how legislation can be made available online in a more consolidated and comprehensive way. 

Chapter 3 of the report, "Comparative Approaches to Making Legislation Accessible", considers, from an historical perspective, legislative developments that have taken place in other jurisdictions, encompassing both common and civil law traditions, including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 

The Chapter looks at various measures that have been adopted in these jurisdictions to make their respective laws more accessible, for instance codification, statute revision, rolling reprint ("the periodic revision of legislation as it was amended on an ongoing basis and its publication in pamphlet form", p. 92), online consolidation of amendments, historical point-in-time information, and "officialization" (the  recognition by governments ofonline versions of legislation as the official or semi-official versions of the law).

From the press release:

"The Report points out that there are over 3,000 Acts in force (of which more than 1,000 are pre-1922 Acts from before the State was established) and the vast majority of these Acts have been amended many times, but they are not all available in their up-to-date, as-amended format."

"The Report points out that this is not satisfactory from a number of perspectives, including:

• the constitutional or rule of law perspective: it is vital that all citizens have access to the law as it currently stands; and 

• the economic and digital policy perspective: improving online access to legislation is consistent with the State’s policy on reducing the cost of doing business, and also 'digital by design' policy, including GovTech, which involves applying emerging technologies such as advanced data processing to improve the delivery of public services (...)"

"The Report being published today seeks to build on these significant improvements by proposing additional methods to make more legislation, whether as enacted or in its amended form, available online in this digital age. In doing so the Report discusses how other countries have addressed these problems, for example: 

• enactment of comprehensive codes of legislation, such as the legislative codes in the United States, where all federal law can be found online under 54 subjectheadings, called Titles, of the United States Code: one of its best-known is Title 11, the bankruptcy code; and 

• consolidation of priority areas of legislation, such as in New Zealand and Wales where planned programmes of consolidation must be presented to their parliaments."

International Statement on Duty to Document During COVID-19 Pandemic

The International Council on Archives (ICA) and other information management organizations recently released a statement on the importance and need for governments, businesses, and research institutions to document their decisions and transactions during the COVID-19 pandemic:

"This is the most recent statement developed by ICA and the International Conference of Information Commissioners, supported by ARMA International, CODATA, Digital Preservation Coalition, Research Data Alliance, UNESCO Memory of the World and World Data System."

"The statement is built on three principles: Decisions must be documented, records and data should be secured and preserved in all sectors, and the security, preservation, and access to digital content should be facilitated during the shutdown."

"We hope the archives, records, data and allied communities will support the statement and join us in underscoring the importance of the duty to document, now and for the future."

US Supreme Court Rules Georgia Can’t Copyright Annotated Code

This is a follow-up to the Library Boy post of December 10, 2019 entitled US Supreme Court Hears Case on Copyright Status of Georgia's Official Legal Code.

The government of the state of Georgia was claiming that it owned the copyright over its official legal code. Georgia has a contract with legal vendor Lexis Nexis to publish an annotated version of the code.

Non-annotated codes are available for free but only the annotated commercial version is considered official. That version costs a lot of  money.

Yesterday, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state governments could not copyright annotated versions of their laws.

The decision is a victory for the non-profit Public.Resource.Org, a group that works to facilitate public access to government records and legal materials.

As Chief Justice Roberts writes:

"Over a century ago, we recognized a limitation on copyright protection for certain government work product, rooted in the Copyright Act’s 'authorship' requirement. Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties."

"We have previously applied that doctrine to hold that non-binding, explanatory legal materials are not copyrightable when created by judges who possess the authority to make and interpret the law. See Banks v. Manchester, 128 U. S. 244 (1888). We now recognize that the same logic applies to non-binding, explanatory legal materials created by a legislative body vested with the authority to make law. Because Georgia’s annotations are authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties, the government edicts doctrine puts them outside the reach of copyright protection."

Commentary:

• Supreme Court Reaffirms Public’s Right to Access State Laws (Public Knowledge press release)
• Supreme Court says Georgia must provide official code free to public (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
• Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules (New York Times)
• Supreme Court Rules States Can’t Copyright Annotated Laws (Courthouse News Service)
• Georgia Copyright Loss at High Court Could Jolt Many States (Bloomberg Law)
• In unusual lineup, SCOTUS rules annotations in Georgia state code can't be copyrighted (ABA Journal)
• Opinion analysis: Sharply divided bench rejects Georgia’s copyright in annotations of Georgia statutes (SCOTUSblog)
• Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing (Publishers Weekly)
• Supreme Court Affirms That No One Owns the Law (Electronic Freedom Foundation)

Government Information Day 2019 Call For Proposals

The SLA Toronto chapter and the Toronto Reference Library are hosting the Government Information Day (East) 2019 on Thursday, November 28, 2019.

The event takes place at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street.

The organizers are calling for proposals for presentation topics and/or speakers, within any of the following broad government information themes:

• preservation & access (can include either print collections or born-digital information)
• digitization & web harvesting
• open data &open government
• privacy & freedom of information

The submission deadline is October 31, 2019.

New Open Access Book on Government Information in Canada

The University of Alberta Press has published a new book entitled Government Information in Canada available in a downloadable open access version:

"Public access to government information forms the foundation of a healthy liberal democracy, but because this information can be precarious, it needs stewardship. Government Information in Canada provides analysis about the state of Canadian government information publishing. Practitioners from across the country draw on decades of experience and hands-on practice to offer a broad, well-founded survey of history, procedures, and emerging issues—particularly the challenges posed by the transition of government information from print to digital access. This is an indispensable book for librarians, archivists, researchers, journalists, and everyone who uses government information and wants to know more about its publication, circulation, and retention."

The editors are Amanda Wakaruk (University of Alberta) and Sam-chin Li (University of Toronto).

They explain that the book:

• bridges a thirty-year literature gap for Canadian government information since the publication of Olga Bishop’s Canadian Official Publications,
• aims to document both the current state of government information in Canada and the “state of the discipline” of government information librarianship from a practitioner’s perspective,
• provides both an overview of what has changed in the government information ecosystem and highlights evolving strategies for continued access to these important resources.

 Table of contents:

I Historical Overviews
1 Government Publication Deposit Programs: The Canadian Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Landscapes
Graeme Campbell, Michelle Lake, and Catherine McGoveran
2 Official Publications and Select Digital Library Collections at Library and Archives Canada, 1923 to the Present
Tom J. Smyth
3 Parliamentary Information in Canada: Form and Function
Talia Chung and Maureen Martyn
4 Commissions and Tribunals
Caron Rollins

II Provincial Landscape
5 Alberta Government Publishing
Dani J. Pahulje
6 Saskatchewan Government Publications Deposit in the Legislative Library
Gregory Salmers
7 Inside Track: Challenges of Collecting, Accessing, and Preserving Ontario Government Publications
Sandra Craig and Martha Murphy
8 Digitization of Government Publications: A Review of the Ontario Digitization Initiative
Carol Perry, Brian Tobin, and Sam-chin Li

III Looking Forward: Collaborative Stewardship
9 GALLOP Portal: Making Government Publications in Legislative Libraries Findable
Peter Ellinger
10 The Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network: A Collective Response to a National Crisis
Amanda Wakaruk and Steve Marks
11 Web Harvesting and Reporting Fugitive Government Materials: Collaborative Stewardship of At-Risk Documents
Susan Paterson, Nicholas Worby, and Darlene Fichter 

Library-Related Highlights from the 2019 Federal Budget

The website Librarianship.ca has published the highlights from yesterday's federal budget that may be "of interest to the Canadian library and information management community".

They include items relating to access to information, accessibility for Canadians with disabilities, the development of better data for decision-making, digital services and digital skills, higher education, infrastructure spending, high-speed Internet access, measures to support journalism, help for Northern communities, progress on reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians, scientific research, seniors, and training.

Impact on Legal Information of Partial US Government Shutdown

This is a follow-up to the January 10, 2019 Library Boy post on Disappearing Data Caused by US Federal Government Shutdown.

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) issued an eBriefing today on the Impact of the Partial Federal Government Shutdown:

"Impact of the shutdown to selected agencies:

• The Library of Congress/Law Library of Congress and the Government Publishing Office remain open. The shutdown has not closed the Library of Congress/Law Library of Congress or the Government Publishing Office. Both remain open because they are funded through the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, one of the five appropriations bills completed prior to the October 1 start of Fiscal Year 2019. Government websites operated by these agencies—including Congress.gov and govinfo—remain available.
• The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Legal Services Corporation are open.
• The National Archives and Records Administration is closed.
• The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts is operating the Judiciary on limited funds through January 18, 2019 (...)"

"In general, federal departments and agencies that face a lapse in appropriations are required by law to shut down operations, with only 'excepted activities' relating to the 'safety of human life or protection of property'. Agencies develop contingency plans outlining actions to be taken when Congress fails to enact appropriations, under guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)..."

According to AALL, many government websites in the US are not being updated during the shutdown, including those of the Department of Justice and the federal Courts of Appeal.

There is also more information on the Free Government Information blog (Government shutdown causing information access problems) and the legal research website beSpacific (Shutdown: Dot-gov websites vulnerable to cyberattacks, certificates expiring amid funding pause).

Disappearing Data Caused by US Federal Government Shutdown

The Pew Research Center's Fact Tank website has documented a perhaps unforeseen consequence of the ongoing shutdown of major parts of the US federal government: the drying up of the important streams of data government that institutions provide citizens, investors, planners and the government itself:

"Figuring out which of the government’s data streams will continue to flow and which have been stoppered is complicated, not least because some agencies were fully funded before last month’s budget negotiations reached a stalemate, and thus have been able to keep operating. Here’s a look at what data are and are not available during the shutdown, from what we’ve been able to find out via agency release schedules and planning documents, third-party calendars, and our own reporting. Bear in mind that, based on past experience, scheduled data releases may be delayed because of information-gathering backlogs even after the budget impasse is resolved and agencies fully reopen."

Sixth Annual Government Information Day Conference in Toronto

The Ontario Government Libraries Council is organizing the sixth annual Government Information Day on November 30, 2018. The event will take place at the OISE  Library of the University of Toronto,

The program includes sessions on:

• Investigating the Persistence of Federal Government Publications in Former Depository Libraries
• Web Archiving
• An Update on GALLOP Portal (Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada)
• Librarianship in the Digital Age: Challenges, Threats and Opportunities
• FOI Inside Out: Librarians working in FOI
• Scholars Portal Grey Literature Project
• Linked Parliamentary Data Project
• Digitization of At-Risk Government Publications
• Is a 50% Reduction of Government Doc's Space Possible? - The Curation Weeding Dance
• Government Information in Canada (the book)

Canadian Federation of Library Associations Applauds Government Support for Net Neutrality

The Canadian Federation of Library Associations issued a press release last week applauding the federal government’s response to the Protection of Net Neutrality report from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should give consumers access to all legal content and applications on an equal basis, without favoring some sources or blocking others.

In its press release, the CFLA states:

"The government’s response highlighted its commitment to support principles of net neutrality in telecommunications services, particularly through the Telecommunications Act. The government has also supported motion M-168, which indicated the need to uphold standards of net neutrality that are globally recognized. "

"CFLA-FCAB is also pleased to see the government is committed to ensure that international regimes will not inhibit Canada’s position on net neutrality noting 'The Government of Canada is mindful of the concerns of Canadian enterprises and citizens over the recent changes in the United States (US) to its net neutrality regime and will seek to address with the US any situation whereby a Canadian enterprise is negatively affected by the traffic management practices of a US ISP'."

The CFLA is the national voice of Canada’s library associations.

Complete Series of Official Supreme Court Reports Now Available on Lexum

All issues of the official Supreme Court Reports dating back to their first publication in 1878 are now available on the Lexum website.

Lexum is the Court's partner which has published Court decisions since 1992 and the Reports since 2013.

Parties to proceedings may cite either the print or PDF version of the Reports in documents filed with the Court.

This initiative is part of the Court’s continued efforts to make case-related information more accessible to the public.

Canadian Lawyer Magazine Grades Trudeau Government on Justice Reform

The magazine Canadian Lawyer has created a report card for the Canadian federal government, evaluating how it has been doing on justice reform issues since the late 2015 elections.

The results are all over the map:

• Family Law: F
• Access to Information: C
• Mandatory victim fine surcharge: D
• Cannabis: B
• Solitary confinement: C
• Pardons: D
• Court Challenges Program: B
• Judicial Vacancies: C
• Judicial Diversity: A

Government Information Day in Ottawa

The University of Ottawa Library and the Carleton University Library, in collaboration with Library and Archives Canada (LAC), are holding a Government Information Day on October 26, 2017.

The day's activities will take place at Library and Archives Canada and feature presentations on the following themes:

• Access to government information and data in an era of “open by default” 
• Extending preservation and access - government information and data beyond government 

The full program is available on the LAC website.

More US Library Association Oppostion to Trump

This is a follow-up to the January 31, 2017 post entitled US Library Association Oppostion to Trump Continues.

That post referenced public statements by a variety of American library & information associations opposing the disappearance of public information from US government websites and the temporary ban on immigrants and refugees from 7 Muslim countries.

As the following post on the infoDOCKET (Library Journal) website shows, opposition continues.