Local governments will play safe with library closures, but will close them anyway

It is a bit like fighting a losing battle but fight we must to save our local libraries and library professionals.
The proposed closures of libraries (as many as 450) nationwide has raised much interest, scepticism and deep-rooted concerns. Many passionate library-lovers have even embarked on campaigns to save their local libraries from cuts.
There is a wider argument to save our local libraries. Users go to libraries to learn new skills, read, broaden knowledge, access information and even to improve their digital skills by simply going online for finding entertainment/information. Libraries serve as community and cultural centre for residents. They help researchers and academics conduct their reference work and even encourages children to develop reading activity.
Arguably, the internet and electronic reading devices have helped in bringing library to you and make searching and discoverability easy. But until these devices become mass market and until we resolve Britain's digital divide, libraries will continue to help us build a knowledge economy.
In addition to books, libraries provide access to the internet, reference databases for individual disciplines that can be very expensive.
Library professionals have even made an effort to keep up with the digital trends and have introduced RFID tags (users can borrow books from one library and return it via another public library) and even e-books. They have also formed consortium with a view to reduce managing cists and sharing more books between councils to provide users more value and choice.
It is not just an emotional argument. The local authorities have a statutory duty too.
Under the Libraries and Museum Act of 1964 which outlines the general duty of library authorities as "It shall be the duty of every library authority to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof..."
The Act further states that it is the duty of the library authority to encourage both adults and children to make full use of the library service, and to provide advice as to its use and of making available such bibliographical and other information as may be required by persons using it.
They are also required to keep adequate stocks, by arrangements with other library authorities, and by any other appropriate means, that facilities are available for the borrowing of, or reference to, books and other printed matter, and pictures, gramophone records, films and other materials, sufficient in number, range and quality to meet the general requirements and any special requirements both of adults and children.
Local government authorities may be well aware of their obligation to comply with the law and that's why they are playing it smart. Just as Hounslow Councillor Jagdish Sharma responding to residents' concerns about libraries told Hounslow Chronicle that, "We will still provide public libraries, but how many and where will be subject to the result of the public consultation. Whatever the results, we will ensure that everyone still has access to first-class library services across Hounslow."
The local council pledged that its three main libraries - Feltham, Hounslow and Chiswick will not be up for consultation. That means smaller towns of the council such as Brentford will see its library services axed.
Such streamlining of services call for people to travel longer, miss out on the local flavour and discourage local residents from engaging in public library services.
Government will find ways to work around the Act through other initiatives such as the Big Society project under which local residents will be encouraged and assisted to run library service.
But what about the library professionals who provide specialised services, recommendations and are well aware of the users' needs?
Libraries and library professionals contribute in making users more skilled, and informed as well as help them improve their digital skills.
Under the current initiatives, libraries will stop resembling the libraries we once loved. It is as important to save them as it is to save other public services and we must use the 1964 Act as a means to save libraries.
-By Archana Venkatraman

Control the cloud before it gets out of hand

While outlining its strategy for cloud computing, European Union vice president for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes emphasised that an increased focus on security and data protection in the cloud lies in the heart of its strategy.
Kroes called for data protection standards to be "trans-national because, the free movement of personal data within the EU is another way to complete the digital single market in Europe".
Industry experts have responded that they are already driving self-regulatory initiatives such as developing code of practice documents. But what is really required is a concrete plan of action to address important issues relating to delivery of information services via the cloud.
It is time that guidelines and advisory services for cloud computing is followed by practical initiatives.
While not all data loss issues in the recent times are directly related to cloud, data protection and security issues have always wrecked robust adoption of these technologies by consumers.
Companies need to address a few issues to reassure customers. They need to clearly define what constitutes as their own responsibility towards data protection and security on the cloud, and what constitutes as customer's responsibility. Not many customers are aware of where vendor's responsibilities towards data management ends and where theirs begin.
Secondly service providers need to confidently convince businesses that they can manage unstructured and ever-expanding information created on the social web and safely and securely streamline this information for businesses to action on it.
And lastly, as these providers set their eyes in emerging markets such as China where information is increasingly accessed via mobile devices rather than traditional computing machines, they need to have clear strategy for information delivery on mobile.
Otherwise, as social web and mobile computing become the norm in 2011, there will be wide-spread confusion about who is responsible for data breaches and compliance issues, how to manage and control access to users on mobile devices and how to manage information flow on the social media.
2011 will be a crucial year as we gradually emerge out of the current economic chaos and see new technologies catch up rapidly. The industry must come to grips with these pressing issues and bring transparency, accountability and safety to data on cloud. And yes, the onus is on business customers and info pros too to read the fine-print of cloud services. We are all in it together, aren't we?

Businesses cannot ignore data protection and privacy issues as pressure mounts

Towards the end of September, the European Commission referred the UK to the EU Court of Justice for not fully implementing EU rules on the confidentiality of electronic communications such as e-mail or internet browsing
The organisation pointed out that existing UK law governing the confidentiality of electronic communications is in breach of the UK's obligations under the EU's ePrivacy Directive and the Data Protection Directive in a few areas.
The Commission also proposed a regulation to strengthen and modernise the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). Under its mandate, ENISA would engage EU member states and private sector stakeholders in joint activities across Europe, such as cyber security exercises, public private partnerships for network resilience, economic analyses and risk assessment and awareness campaigns.
Following this UK's data protection watchdog- ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) along with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has agreed that there needs to be a common sense and modern day approach to data protection.
The law needs to provide more clarity for individuals and for businesses. In particular the privacy watchdog wants more clarity on the scope of the law including what constitutes personal data, ICO noted.
This heightened sense of data protection was echoed by academics too. Amid intense information protection concerns, the Oxford University Press has launched International Data Privacy Law (IDPL), an international journal covering law relating to data protection and privacy.
The journal focuses on all aspects of privacy and data protection, including data processing at a company level, international data transfers, civil liberties issues (e.g., government surveillance), technology issues relating to privacy, international security breaches, and conflicts between US privacy rules and European data protection law.
However, there is a wide disparity between how regulators and academics approach data protection and how businesses approach them. The regulators have a cautious approach looking at ways to improve privacy of personal data and secure public confidence. While a series of data loss incidents, (latest one being the ACS Law issue) mark the attitude of corporate entities.
These are huge issues for multinational organisations. They are faced with double whammy. In addition to stricter regulation to fit the digital age, organisations, especially the public sector ones, are under immense pressure to follow open data policies. This is part of the government's open data revolution to make themselves more transparent and accountable and offer data to people for re-use.
Business must get their house in order soon before one-off data loss stories snowball into huge unmanageable legal issue for the sector because then it will only take longer to regain confidence, convince more people to get online and to build a secured yet connected UK digital economy.

Digital Economy Act continues to remain unpopular

By Jack Phillipps
A few weeks ago, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was asking for individuals within the library sector to respond to the Ofcom consultation on the implementation of the Digital Economy Act by 31 July 2010 to ensure that decision-makers understood implications of the Act.
Considerable uncertainty was lurking around the Act like a bad smell due to confusion over which legal category the sector would fit into, leaving the sector vulnerable to risks. To avoid these pitfalls the MLA, the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) have written up a bunch of crib sheets and helpful templates to help the sector keep ahead of the Act as well as Ofcom's code of practice and ways to respond to the consultation.
I've read over the briefing on sections 3-16 of the Digital Economy Act for museums, libraries and archives myself and to me it would seem to cover all sections of the Act and resolve all uncertainties. The document, amongst other things, explains why you should read it at all, why museums, libraries and archives should be aware of the Act and the implications it has for their institutions.
While it is hardly a page turner to read, the document shows that the MLA, the British Library and the JISC have done their duty admirably in providing institutions the information required to prepare for the introduction of the Act and for this they should be commended.
The government however, as seems to be their tendency, have not been as proficient as Roy Clare, MLA chief executive, has commented: "The Digital Economy Act is complex, hastily enacted, and perhaps not drafted with the library user high in mind. There is thus a risk of an unintended consequence, namely interference with the vital role libraries have in enabling people freely to access information online."
So, while the government are, as ever, content to ignore all advice but their own, it is good to know the industry of museums, libraries and archives has someone to fight its corner in the form of the MLA.

Google Wave drowned by apathy

The Official Google Blog announced the close of Google Wave- the web app for real time communication and collaboration, developed by the search engine giant in 2009.
Urs Hölzle, senior vice president, operations & Google fellow wrote on the blog: "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects."
Those who liked it really liked it- the twitter posts from its handful of fans are saying that loud and clear. "Google Wave was email evolved. It heralded a fundamental change, in my mind, of how we could interact with each other and our various locations on the net." And "a gem of a communicative tool goes down the drain" and so on.
Google Wave was truly collaborative. It enabled users to manage their total communication on the web- instant messaging, emailing, and communication on social networks.
It enthralled business users too with its document collaboration applications, easy and intuitive tools to share ideas, wikis, graphs, opinions, files and presentations. It allowed users to mash up a wide range of web based technologies like such as sharing a map or document and even allowed private communication within a group collaboration.
It allowed the sharing of images and other media in real time, enabled third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, allowed drag-and-drop of files from desktop and even playback the history within the web browser.
And it was free.
So, if it was indeed this good then why it failed. The search engine is partly to be blamed for Google Wave's failure. Apart from a few (and far between) tedious You Tube demos and introductory clips, Wave's true objective and potential was not communicated to the users. Left to people's own perception, its uptake was limited because many thought it was complicated and unnecessary.
Wave was rejected as yet another communicative tool that just brought together everything on the web that we managed separately.
In fact, Wave allowed group collaboration, but unlike social media, it allowed you to choose what you share and how much you share with whom.
A large part of its failure is down to us and our obsession with old-fashioned communication. While we appreciate and embrace new tools of communication, we are not truly embracing of collaboration. We still choose to do all things - email, IM, sharing - separately, when Wave allowed us to do them within a single browser.
We only appreciate digital resources that perk up our existing form of communication but if it is one that just brings together all that we do individually, we fail to see the point.
Of course Wave had problems- the predictive texts and the ability for multiple users to edit the same text brought in confusion, but nothing that couldn't be easily fixed.
Google Wave had a great future but our apathy drowned it.

A would-be Gen Y worker speaks out

The Centre for Information Leadership at City University London has put forward its first challenge paper, which looks at whether information and business leaders are prepared for the entry of Generation Y into the workplace.
The paper, entitled "Responding to the Millennial Generation", looks at Generation Y in contrast to its predecessors and highlights the level of individuality and the entrepreneurial spirit of 'digital natives'.
IWR asked intern Jack Phillipps to take a look
As a member of Generation Y myself studying for a university degree and entering the workplace in a year's time I would say I can judge pretty well whether the paper has any validity or is talking utter rubbish. There are several things about this generation that make it completely different from those that have preceded it; the root of these differences is that millennials are the first generation that never been without a computer or a mobile phone to hand.
I myself could not imagine living without the internet, mobile phones and text messaging; they make our lives so much more convenient but while previous generations appreciate the difference between before and after, to Generation Y they have a permanence similar to that of the sun and the moon.
A study in the US found millenials were comfortable with using technology and found novel ways of using it not originally envisaged by the designers; this is Darwinism at its most contemporary. Some other findings were that there was more ethnic diversity, the tendency to sleep with their mobile phones under their pillows and despite a high proportion of unemployment there was confidence about finding a decent job in the future. Another discovery that will surprise no one was the preoccupation with social networking sites, the 21st century form of gossiping.
The white paper makes a number of observations, some valid and others I would disagree with:
• Apart from medicine, the law and the civil service businesses will not be able to give a young twenty something employment for life, it's just not feasible. So Generation Y has naturally adapted to this changing job environment and if they are to stay ahead of the game the larger employers must keep up or they will stagnate.
• No doubt generation Y's individuality will change the expectations they have in relation to the work-life balance; the older generations' ideas of a template for how to use technologies will eventually be outstripped by the millenials who will find other options when present ones bore them.
However there are a few points I would dispute:
• Generation Y needs support in going beyond the initial Google search and weighing evidence from authoritative sources; this claim seems to completely ignore a good number of universities which are making their courses increasingly relevant by showing how to adapt their courses to the job market. The weighing of evidence from authoritative sources is an essential part of my own university degree and I'm sure this cannot be particular to me and my circle of university friends.
• They prefer to deal with folksonomies and tend to rely on cognitive authority. Again, this claim can be viewed as weak because I know from personal experience that university academics spend hours of their time drumming into their students the danger of relying on unreliable sources, so that when we enter a search term into Google we should not select the first site on the list, usually Wikipedia, which academics hate for the fact that anyone and everyone deems themselves an expert in something or other.
This White Paper is an interesting piece which is particularly relevant at the moment with the number of university applicants increasing every year and the economic downturn threatening the job market. While I would say there are flaws in the argument put forward it is a good place to start.

Microsoft must realise that Internet is a different ball game

Microsoft's slipping browser market share is a telling statement that when it comes to the web, it is fast information exploration and easy content navigation that matters over brand name, technological grasp of the provider or its market dominance.
From January 2010, Microsoft started offering Windows users in Europe a choice among different web browsers, thus widening consumer choice for browsers. Its decision followed European Commission's "Statement of Objection" sent to the company in 2009.
EC's statement outlined concerns about Microsoft abusing its dominant position in the market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows PC operating system, the software giant has agreed to allow computer manufacturers and users the possibility to turn Internet Explorer off.
Fast forward five months and the browser survey by Net Applications, a US-based web apps and measurement company revealed that for the first time Microsoft's web browser application - Internet Explorer (IE) is rapidly losing market share, currently retaining less that 60% of the total browser market.
At its peak in 2003, Microsoft held as much as 95% of the market share. But it is not all thanks to the EC's anti-trust charges against Microsoft that turned the browser market upside down. IE was being dethroned since it peaked seven years ago owing to users' experience, information, experimentation and a quest for a better browser with more functions. It also lost popularity because of rapid adoption of mobile computing devices with each service provider offering their own IE tool. This includes Opera Mini for smartphones, Blackberry Browser and Apple's Safari for iPhone
As it stands today, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is at 59.95%, followed by Mozilla's Firefox at 24.59&, then Google's Chrome at 6.73%, Apple's Safari at 4.72% and Opera at 2.3%. IE is losing market share even in the UK but holds 70% of the market, according to research firm Nielsen.
User awareness of browsers have been on the rise for more than five years now where research shows that under 20s install a different web browser form IE even before exploring it. Users of Opera and Mozilla Firefox quote lack of capabilities, lack of speed, intuitiveness and performance on IE.
So where did Microsoft go wrong? Firstly it was playing catch up by introducing tab features and others. It missed out on the big open-source movement where professionals were ditching proprietary softwares and browsers for free, open source browsers.
Experts also point out that Microsoft kept IE tied down to operating system for far too long. As operating systems evolve slower than browsers, it crippled IE's ability to evolve faster. The browser was found to be unsecured by several users and there were more plugins released for Firefox browser. Other browsers scored over IE for better standard codings, speed, security and HTML5 support.
Just like other battles on the web world, the browser battle too might shift its axis once again. Until then, let's see what Microsoft's promising version 9 of IE has to offer.