Program
(Available presentations are highlighted.)
Thursday, May 9th, Virtual Program
9:30 am PST/12:30 pm EST
Welcome
9:40 am PST/12:40 pm EST
Freedom of Information/ Access to Information Panel (Itzen Presentation) (Worby Presentation)
Nich Worby, Spencer Itzen and Tom Cardoso
Worby will discuss the Sunlight Project, a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Bureau at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and University of Toronto Libraries. His talk will explore the sustainability challenges facing data journalism projects and preservation strategies that can be implemented to prevent the loss of valuable public data.
Spencer Itzen will consider the several decades of academic, non-profit, and government research that has developed a matured body of empirical knowledge effectively quantifying freedom of information. We thoroughly understand access regimes, referring to the assemblage of people, policy, and devices that mediate access to government records, are deeply problematic and underperform compared to the original popular expectations. Metrics that include annual “processing times” and “disclosure rates” dominate the discussion. However, we do not have a particularly robust understanding of how access regimes work, what they look like ‘under the hood,’ and how their architecture and performance engender at times the same secrecies they were established to rebalance. Researchers of FOI and government secrecy have been explicit in calling for there to be a “sociological turn” in the field, as David Pozen writes, “to gain greater purchase on how transparency policies operate…[and] the specific legal, institutional, historical, political, and cultural contexts in which these policies are crafted and implemented.” Spencer’s study with the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association attempts to respond to this call by investigating how 66 public bodies co-ordinate their obligations under freedom of information law and the Information Management Act, the B.C.'s government record-keeping law, using a dataset of documents obtained using those very same access regimes under observation.
10:45 am PST/1:45 pm EST
End-of-term Crawls in the US
James Jacobs and Mark Phillips
11:30 am PST/2:30 pm EST
Break
11:40 PST/2:40 EST
Navigating Copyright for Crown-Published Works: A Code of Best Practices for Libraries
Amanda Wakaruk and Graeme Campbell
Reproducing and sharing government publications shouldn’t cause legal chill, but we know that it does. What are your library’s legal rights and how should you navigate Crown copyright controls when embarking on digitization and web archiving projects? This session introduces a code of best practices focused on these types of stewardship activities.
12:25 PST/3:35 EST
Closing
NEW
Thursday May 9, 2024
Archive-It Workshop
In-Person and Virtual
1:00 pm PST/4:00 pm EST - 3:30 pm PST/6:00 pm EST
Preserving information published online is increasingly important to researchers and scholars who will study this period in our society and the increasingly online world. Web archiving—the process of collecting, preserving, and enabling access to web materials—presents a powerful opportunity to develop collections of otherwise ephemeral resources. Whether you're new to the practice or have a well-established program, the daunting range of possible collecting focuses, policies, technologies, and workflows also presents challenges.
Join us for a practical workshop on how to use the Internet Archive’s Archive-It software, led by a Web Archivist from the Internet Archive. This workshop is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of web archiving concepts, demonstrated through real-life case studies from various relevant organizations. You will also be able to engage in hands-on exercises and demos of the Internet Archive’s Archive-It software, ensuring that you leave with the practical skills and concrete plans necessary to implement web archiving in your work.
Friday, May 10th, In Person Program
Internet Archive Canada, Vancouver)
Schedule (all times in PST)
9:30 am - 9:45 am
Introductions and Logistics
9:45 am - 10:15 am
Democracy’s Library
Brewster Kahle
10:15 am -11:00 am
Navigating Archival Records and Indigenous History
Min Hannaford
Join Library and Archives Canada (LAC) for a session on navigating archival records pertaining to Indigenous History. Explore techniques for accessing collections and digitized records, gain valuable insights on conducting research, and learn about the resources available at LAC’s Vancouver service point.
11:00 am - 11:15 am
Break
11:15 am - 12:00 pm
Lightning Talks
Collaborative Collecting: Lessons Learned
Janice Banser
This talk will be a brief overview of the collaborative effort by the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Island University, and the University of British Columbia to create a shared archive of web content related to the 2022 BC municipal elections.
Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network Update
Katie Cuyler
In 2023 the Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network (CGI-DPN) worked on updating policies, focused on core collections, and began planning for the future. The Governance, Membership and Collections policies were updated; A Pre-election Web Archiving Toolkit was created; and a complete crawl of the Government of Canada Publications Catalogue was run.
Our goals continue to be ensuring the preservation of Canadian, Provincial, and Territorial government web content and preserving a back-up of the federal depository catalogue. Moving forward the network is looking to facilitate more opportunities to collaborate across the government information community on web archiving and digital preservation. We're excited to share some future plans and welcome input and hope to reach some potential new members or collaborators.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Lunch (sponsored by Internet Archive Canada)
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm
CivicInfo BC: BC's Local Government Information Hub
Todd Pugh, Executive Director
CivicInfo BC is home to British Columbia’s central local government directories, a repository of local election results, a variety of specialized document collections, an archive municipal datasets, and much more. In this lively session, attendees will learn about what CivicInfo BC does, and how its services benefit local government decision makers and the public.”
1:45 pm - 2:30 pm
Digitization at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
Marionne Cronin and Danielle Suter
Marionne will be presenting on the digitization work that she is doing with the sessional clippings books. Her colleague Danielle will be presenting on their new digitization project for the historical AV collection.
2:30 pm to 3:15 pm
Government Collections at the BC Legislative Library
Charles Hogg
This presentation will provide an update and overview of the state of BC Government Collections at the Legislative Library. Topics covered will include an update on the digitization program, a discussion of the MARC records program and its future, efforts to preserve and provide access to the collection, and some of the challenges encountered in building and maintaining the BC Government documents collection. Questions will be encouraged.
3:15 pm to 3:30 pm
Break
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Round Table and Wrap-up: Real Time Issues
9:30 am PST/12:30 pm EST
Welcome
9:40 am PST/12:40 pm EST
Freedom of Information/ Access to Information Panel (Itzen Presentation) (Worby Presentation)
Nich Worby, Spencer Itzen and Tom Cardoso
Worby will discuss the Sunlight Project, a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Bureau at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and University of Toronto Libraries. His talk will explore the sustainability challenges facing data journalism projects and preservation strategies that can be implemented to prevent the loss of valuable public data.
Spencer Itzen will consider the several decades of academic, non-profit, and government research that has developed a matured body of empirical knowledge effectively quantifying freedom of information. We thoroughly understand access regimes, referring to the assemblage of people, policy, and devices that mediate access to government records, are deeply problematic and underperform compared to the original popular expectations. Metrics that include annual “processing times” and “disclosure rates” dominate the discussion. However, we do not have a particularly robust understanding of how access regimes work, what they look like ‘under the hood,’ and how their architecture and performance engender at times the same secrecies they were established to rebalance. Researchers of FOI and government secrecy have been explicit in calling for there to be a “sociological turn” in the field, as David Pozen writes, “to gain greater purchase on how transparency policies operate…[and] the specific legal, institutional, historical, political, and cultural contexts in which these policies are crafted and implemented.” Spencer’s study with the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association attempts to respond to this call by investigating how 66 public bodies co-ordinate their obligations under freedom of information law and the Information Management Act, the B.C.'s government record-keeping law, using a dataset of documents obtained using those very same access regimes under observation.
10:45 am PST/1:45 pm EST
End-of-term Crawls in the US
James Jacobs and Mark Phillips
11:30 am PST/2:30 pm EST
Break
11:40 PST/2:40 EST
Navigating Copyright for Crown-Published Works: A Code of Best Practices for Libraries
Amanda Wakaruk and Graeme Campbell
Reproducing and sharing government publications shouldn’t cause legal chill, but we know that it does. What are your library’s legal rights and how should you navigate Crown copyright controls when embarking on digitization and web archiving projects? This session introduces a code of best practices focused on these types of stewardship activities.
12:25 PST/3:35 EST
Closing
NEW
Thursday May 9, 2024
Archive-It Workshop
In-Person and Virtual
1:00 pm PST/4:00 pm EST - 3:30 pm PST/6:00 pm EST
Preserving information published online is increasingly important to researchers and scholars who will study this period in our society and the increasingly online world. Web archiving—the process of collecting, preserving, and enabling access to web materials—presents a powerful opportunity to develop collections of otherwise ephemeral resources. Whether you're new to the practice or have a well-established program, the daunting range of possible collecting focuses, policies, technologies, and workflows also presents challenges.
Join us for a practical workshop on how to use the Internet Archive’s Archive-It software, led by a Web Archivist from the Internet Archive. This workshop is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of web archiving concepts, demonstrated through real-life case studies from various relevant organizations. You will also be able to engage in hands-on exercises and demos of the Internet Archive’s Archive-It software, ensuring that you leave with the practical skills and concrete plans necessary to implement web archiving in your work.
Friday, May 10th, In Person Program
Internet Archive Canada, Vancouver)
Schedule (all times in PST)
9:30 am - 9:45 am
Introductions and Logistics
9:45 am - 10:15 am
Democracy’s Library
Brewster Kahle
10:15 am -11:00 am
Navigating Archival Records and Indigenous History
Min Hannaford
Join Library and Archives Canada (LAC) for a session on navigating archival records pertaining to Indigenous History. Explore techniques for accessing collections and digitized records, gain valuable insights on conducting research, and learn about the resources available at LAC’s Vancouver service point.
11:00 am - 11:15 am
Break
11:15 am - 12:00 pm
Lightning Talks
Collaborative Collecting: Lessons Learned
Janice Banser
This talk will be a brief overview of the collaborative effort by the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Island University, and the University of British Columbia to create a shared archive of web content related to the 2022 BC municipal elections.
Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network Update
Katie Cuyler
In 2023 the Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network (CGI-DPN) worked on updating policies, focused on core collections, and began planning for the future. The Governance, Membership and Collections policies were updated; A Pre-election Web Archiving Toolkit was created; and a complete crawl of the Government of Canada Publications Catalogue was run.
Our goals continue to be ensuring the preservation of Canadian, Provincial, and Territorial government web content and preserving a back-up of the federal depository catalogue. Moving forward the network is looking to facilitate more opportunities to collaborate across the government information community on web archiving and digital preservation. We're excited to share some future plans and welcome input and hope to reach some potential new members or collaborators.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Lunch (sponsored by Internet Archive Canada)
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm
CivicInfo BC: BC's Local Government Information Hub
Todd Pugh, Executive Director
CivicInfo BC is home to British Columbia’s central local government directories, a repository of local election results, a variety of specialized document collections, an archive municipal datasets, and much more. In this lively session, attendees will learn about what CivicInfo BC does, and how its services benefit local government decision makers and the public.”
1:45 pm - 2:30 pm
Digitization at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
Marionne Cronin and Danielle Suter
Marionne will be presenting on the digitization work that she is doing with the sessional clippings books. Her colleague Danielle will be presenting on their new digitization project for the historical AV collection.
2:30 pm to 3:15 pm
Government Collections at the BC Legislative Library
Charles Hogg
This presentation will provide an update and overview of the state of BC Government Collections at the Legislative Library. Topics covered will include an update on the digitization program, a discussion of the MARC records program and its future, efforts to preserve and provide access to the collection, and some of the challenges encountered in building and maintaining the BC Government documents collection. Questions will be encouraged.
3:15 pm to 3:30 pm
Break
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Round Table and Wrap-up: Real Time Issues
