I mentioned earlier this week the lovely little tweet-exchange that my Twitter pal Minister of Heritage James Moore had with some librarian peeps. There have been some incredible efforts on the part of librarians and archivists this week to battle the ridiculous Code of Conduct being imposed on staff at Library and Archives Canada. In particular, a few freedom fighters came to the fore and managed to push the issue into the national spotlight.
Myron Groover, a.k.a., Bibliocracy, a.k.a., my Twitter homeboy also happens to be the Chair of BCLA’s Information Policy committee. He gave a stellar interview to CBC Radio One’s As It Happens, which is a nationally-broadcast current affairs show on the issue of the Code of Conduct and why it makes no sense. You can hear the interview here. It’s sort of a big deal.
Kim Silk, a fellow librarian in Toronto staged a twitter and e-mail campaign to various CBC radio shows and got a response from Jian Gomeshi, host of another nationally-broadcast show on CBC radio called Q, which is focused on the arts and pop culture. No biggie (!!! He’s kinda famous!!!). Jian focused exclusively on the “chilling” Code of Conduct in his opening essay on Friday. Listen to it here.
I also came across this interview via Radio Canada International with James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (an organisation that includes academic librarians and has been very outspoken against cuts to Library and Archives Canada in the past). It’s a nice long-form interview and he articulates the issues really nicely. As such, I deem James Turk an Honourary Librarchivist, with all rights, privileges and obligations pertaining thereto.
Some seriously awesome developments . And how has the government handled this simmering issue? By shutting down the debate, of course. Oh, and here’s a really in-depth and well articulated letter from Daniel Caron regarding the Code of Conduct. He does a great job of acknowledging and addressing all the various concerns of the information community and giving a detailed response to each. :-/
