Libraries, literacy, and community

Crossposting from the Daily Gumboot where this article originally appeared, only because I know a different group of people read my blog and it's an important issue. If you have thoughts to share why not check out the original post on dailgumboot.ca and comment.


Literacy, both reading-and-writing and community literacy, are critical components of a strong community.

Informed discussion, enlightened imagination, and literal comprehension are the pillars of an active and engaged people. They enable organization, planning, and debate; all of which are critical to a healthy and functioning society.

CC -publicdomainarts on flickr

It is difficult to overstate the importance of libraries and literacy.

While it is true that communication tools have led to improved access to information, the effectiveness of that access in terms of promoting local community development and community literacy is greatly diminished by the quest for monetization and the decentralized and isolated nature in which we receive it.

One of the great defining aspects of libraries, beyond providing access to a wealth of information, is that they are communal in nature. Scan the offerings at your local library and you will find activities, courses, support, services, and events that help build strong communities at a grassroots level.

Helping parents raise literate and informed children, helping students and teachers with research and access to information, and opening our eyes to publications from around the globe that provide insight into every aspect of our lives. All provided not for profit, but for our collective good.

Libraries serve as a critical grounding during a time where we are all-to-easily distracted by links of the day, explosions on television, and celebrity gossip publications.

They reveal and support the best in us all. The loss of any of these services would be detrimental to our communities, yet at the moment we find that loss a very real possibility.

BC provincial public libraries have not yet received their 2009 annual operating grants from the provincial government, nor have they been told how much money they will be receiving – both of which usually happen earlier in the fiscal year. There have been strong indications that the Province has decided to stop funding libraries and that this funding may be cut from the current and subsequent budgets.

http://www.stopbclibrarycuts.ca/public.htm

With articles in community publications across the province, the reaction to this holdback by media points to the importance of libraries to our communities.

Hopefully that coverage leads to informed debate and action that results in a long-term plan to support libraries and the communities of British Columbia.

It’s our chance to support those that support us, to bring positivity to a political debate that is all-too-often debased with uninformed comment, and to steer our representatives towards a very real way they can support the communities from whence they came.

You can find out more about what funding means to British Columbia’s libraries, and how you can become engaged through the British Columbia Library Association. If you're interested they have an official response and list of other resources as well.

Lobbying, Influence, and Honesty

24 Hours made good use of an access to information request with Washington state and is reporting some doublespeak with regards to influence peddling and what may or may not be unregistered lobbyists.

Good Connections Open Doors

Definitely not as cool as the Hotel Lobbyists.

Canadian Casinos Cleaning Cash?

The casino situation in British Columbia is fucking depressing. Over the past few decades we’ve been apathetic enough to allow them to become an integral component of our social and public service system. Anyone who has ever worked a bingo for their swim club or bussed trays for baseball understands the dynamic well. Gambling takes advantage of the most vulnerable among us, reaps (or rapes) a great profit, and trickles a little down the line to the organizations in need.

Yet we’re all so placid that only the few and the brave (we like to call them radicals or agitators) among us say anything outside of our own four walls, except for maybe when we’re in Starbucks’ four walls and we want to sound all progressive and shit.

Now, after years of wrangling with FOI requests and some great undercover work the CBC has shed some light into the dark corner we knew was there all along.

As part of the investigation, CBC reporters exchanged thousands of dollars in bills of $20 and $100 for cheques from the casino, demonstrating how criminals could use the gambling operations to hide illegal revenues.Documents obtained by the CBC also showed casino workers routinely observed dozens of suspicious financial transactions each year, but only a fraction were reported to the federal agency that tracks money laundering.

Premier awaits review of casino allegations

So not only is our system so bent that we rely on gamblers to keep our organizations running, but we’ve set ourselves up with a beautifully handy cleaning system.

Just

Fucking

Great.

I’m really bent out of shape about this. It follows the all-too-common theme of negligence when it comes to the oversight of risky business.

What kind of person turns down money because they suspect it’s of illegal or questionable origin? Are they the same kind of people who run gaming houses and casinos? Is it the low-wage earners working the front counter who may risk their jobs or their personal safety by reporting their suspicions? Can anyone honestly answer yes to those questions?

Relying on those who stand to profit the most to regulate themselves is bunk. It’s bunk when it comes to industry, it’s doubly bunk when it comes to policing in casinos and gaming centres.

We’d still be in this mess even if we had reliable funding for public programs and services, but we’d be able to deal with the issues in a way that doesn’t cripple our communities that now rely on gambling as a source of income. As it is, whatever losses BC’s casinos may take will surely affect more than those responsible. From the province, to our cities, to our clubs and charities that are most in need.

Boo.

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High(er) Education

Emily Carr joins in the 'university status' parade... students plan collaborative multi-medium installation based on themes of 'arbitrary semantics' and 'the ability of language to define reality, man'?

Morning Brew: April 30

• Vocational School
• College
• University
• Technical Institution

 It’s all higher education, but each of the above titles/brands has a distinct meaning. Doctors aren’t generally trained at the same institution as electricians. It follows then that perhaps the institution designed to train doctors may be a different kind of organization than the one that trains electricians.

What has happened over the past week in post-secondary education has been very interesting. Kwantlen is now a polytechnic-university. Douglas is now a university, so is Capilano, and Emily Carr, and Malaspina became a university instead of a university-college.

So what does it mean? Well, I personally think it cheapens the university brand. I have a lot of respect for Capilano university, I studied there and learned a tonne, but can any of us honestly say it’s a university in the same way as UBC/SFU/UofA ?

No, not really.

That's not to say I don't believe in higher education outside of the university pool - I'm mostly college and technical-institution educated, and very happy for it. What I do believe in is a little specialization, which I think is being lost here.

I hope for a big boost in our ability to support the transfer of credentials and credits between institutions.

What I fear is an even more unclear landscape for students.

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