Last month (April) Labour and Immigration Manitoba released a guide for new immigrant women out of the Status of Women Office. The guide, entitled Manitoba My New Home. Living in Manitoba. A Resource Guide for Immigrant Women, is the first of its kind in Canada.

Unfortunately this document - promoted as a key resource to support the full range of new immigrant women's needs - left libraries virtually unmentioned. No library or library system is listed in the Guide's directory, and libraries receive 3 scant mentions in the 109 page document.

The MLA feels this was a significant oversight. Our community - libraries from a range of sectors - know the value we have to offer new immigrants. We are aware of the services we deliver to them and the difference we make to their social and economic status.

Following a review of the Guide, I sent a query via the MLA and other listservs asking for your stories about interacting with new immigrant women and their families. Thank you for your feedback. Messages were received from many sources including small, rural libraries, academic libraries and special libraries and reinforced that we are serving this group in creative and effective ways.

Your input informed the letter to Minister Nancy Allan included below. I am happy to report that talks with the Status of Women office have begun and the MLA hopes to shortly have news to report as to how the omission in the Guide can be rectified or mitigated.

Stay tuned! And many thanks,
 
Monique Woroniak
Director of Advocacy

Click here to read MLA letter to Minister Allan

Visit here to read the Guide: http://www.gov.mb.ca/msw/publications/index.html
 

This past May the MLA communicated to Labour and Immigration Minister Nancy Allan our frustration and disapproval regarding the omission of libraries in the Province’s guide for new immigrant women.  For background and MLA’s letter to the Minister, see:

MLA action in response to oversight re: new immigrant women

I am happy to report that MLA action has resulted in some improvement to the information about libraries being disseminated to new immigrant women in Manitoba.  After consultations with the Status of Women Office, MLA produced and had posted to the Office’s website an appendix to the Guide.  A hardcopy of this document was also included in the Office’s continuing distribution of the Guide to immigrant stakeholder groups.

See:  http://www.gov.mb.ca/msw/publications/index.html

In addition, the MLA submitted numerous edits/additions to the Guide, effectively embedding mentions of libraries and their value throughout the document.  The Office is currently undertaking the French translation of the Guide (which is to include some amendments) and we are hopeful a number of our suggestions will be included.  We have strongly suggested that the changes we submitted be used to inform future English-language editions of the Guide.

Many thanks to those of you who responded to our request regarding the services you currently offer immigrant women and their communities.  We hope that this result demonstrates the value of your feedback, as well as that of your communication with MLA.

Monique Woroniak
MLA Advocacy Director

It's Operating Budget planning time at the City of Winnipeg and recently staff members at Winnipeg Public Library "went public" with the message that the city's library system should not - and cannot - withstand another round of budget cuts.

Winnipeg Public Library workers are members of CUPE Local 500. The Local recently produced a pamphlet titled "Public Libraries Serve Winnipeg" which is being distributed to library branches and other locations in the city, and which staff members handed out in front of the Millennium Library earlier this year.
 
The 2010 Operating Budget is expected to be approved by the end of March. The 2009 Operating Budget, found here:

http://www.winnipeg.ca/FinEXT/FPR/files/2009_adopted_operating_budget.pdf

has projected staff cuts for this fiscal year and moving forward (see pages 108 and 109 of the PDF).

For more information about the Local's campaign to support public library service in Winnipeg visit:
http://cupe500.mb.ca/campaigns/publiclibraries.htm

and be sure to contact your City councillor to let your voice be heard on behalf of libraries.

The Manitoba Library Association is once again pleased to support Freedom to Read Week. The campaign, which runs from February 26th to March 3rd, challenges Canadians to think about how censorship in all forms limits our access to information and hinders the democratic exchange of ideas. Whether resisting the removal of books from our schools and public libraries, or fighting the attacks on our freedom of expression on the Internet, libraries have always been instrumental in supporting our freedom to read. Please join us in celebrating our democratic right to read what we choose.

For more information, visit http://www.freedomtoread.ca/

May 11, 2012

In a joint press release issued on April 16th, Access Copyright and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) announced they had negotiated a model license that purportedly allows universities to reproduce copyright protected materials in both print and digital formats. The agreement includes an astonishing increase on per-student fees of more than 600%, and has unprecedented and vague monitoring and surveillance requirements that may seriously compromise privacy and academic freedom. The agreement also contains the creation and assignment of fictitious rights to Access Copyright that do not exist under Canadian copyright law.

Under the agreement, universities and colleges will see a steep increase in payments to Access Copyright, which in many cases will be passed on to students by way of new ancillary fees. The agreement charges royalties to institutions at the rate of $26 per full-time student, up from previous agreements in which $3.38 per full-time student was paid in addition to course pack fees. Access Copyright rationalizes the increase based upon new digital rights added to this agreement. It does not account for the price of these new digital reproduction rights, and the fact that they are largely redundant. Universities have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to publishers directly to obtain online access to these materials including e-journals and e-books. Institutions that sign on to the agreement will be forcing their students to pay several times over for the use of copyrighted materials already licensed through direct-licensing with publishers.

The agreement creates and assigns new rights to Access Copyright that do not exist in copyright law, such as redefining “copy” to include “posting a link or hyperlink”. This will cause universities and students to pay yet again for linking to already licensed materials as well as for linking to articles that are freely available on the Internet. Additionally, this broad definition of copying, which encompasses email and Internet use, combined with unprecedented surveillance and monitoring powers granted to Access Copyright, will invariably lead to infringement upon student and faculty privacy. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has noted many privacy and academic freedom concerns in its own objections to the agreement stating that “because the license defines copying to include transmission by electronic mail and storing, posting, displaying, uploading and linking to digital files, the survey instruments will require intrusive monitoring of professors, librarians, researchers and students”.

The Manitoba Library Association urges universities and colleges to reject this terrible deal and not capitulate to Access Copyright's unreasonable demands. The MLA joins with many groups across Canada who have expressed their concerns on this proposed agreement including the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Atlantic Provinces Library Association, the Canadian Federation of Students, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Library Association

Download the PDF version of this letter

The Ontario Library Association has posted a list of the federal budget cuts to libraries and archives, as they are currently understood, here. They include the elimination of the Community Access Program by Industry Canada, the introduction of reduced service delivery at Library and Archives Canada, the elimination of approximately 20% of LAC's workforce, the elimination of LAC's Inter Library Loan Program as it currently exists, and the termination of the National Archival Development Program.

Many of us, as individuals, as grass-roots groups, and through the collective voice of a number of our professional associations have spoken out against these cuts, have shown that we stand in solidarity with our affected colleagues, and have expressed that we fear the true impact that these cuts will have for our profession, for our national and cultural heritage, and for the Canadian public. We should not forget that our profession is one that places access to information, intellectual freedom and freedom of expression as central and essential values, and so we urge you to inform yourself of the issues, to contact your Member of Parliament and to voice your opinion.

The Manitoba Library Association is pleased to support Freedom to Read Week. The campaign, which runs from February 24th to March 2nd, challenges Canadians to think about how censorship in all forms limits our access to information and hinders the democratic exchange of ideas. Did you know that books are regularly being challenged and removed from bookshelves in libraries and schools across the country? As librarians and educators intellectual freedom is at the root of our professional values and in light of the recent case with a McMaster University librarian - it is just as important as ever. Whether resisting the removal of books from our schools and public libraries, or fighting the attacks on our freedom of expression on the Internet, libraries and librarians must support our freedom to read.

You can check out http://www.freedomtoread.ca/ for more information or ideas to promote the campaign at your library.