Hot Off the Presses.....the ACA Student Session Call

Call for Student Proposals
Association of Canadian Archivists Conference 2010
New Ideas, New Voices: The Student Session
Halifax, NS – June 10-12, 2010

Are you an archival studies student with an idea that you want to share with the archival community? Are you researching a paper and would like to take it to the next stage? Are you honing your public speaking skills, and looking for ways to enhance your CV? The ACA 2010 Program Committee wants to hear from you!!

Proposals are now being accepted for the ACA Conference’s annual student session.

Submissions relating to the conference theme, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Next Generation of Canadian Archivists,” are encouraged, though proposals on other archival topics will also be considered. For more information about the conference theme, see the ACA conference website. All full-time students who are presently enrolled in or will graduate from a Canadian archival studies program in the 2009-10 academic year are eligible to apply.

The student session, “New Ideas, New Voices,” will be held on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 from 1:30 to 3:00 pm. Three student papers (15 to 20 minutes each) will be selected by the Program Committee, each by a student from a different institution.

Thanks to the Association of Canadian Archivists Foundation (ACAF), those selected participants who do not have full-time employment will receive a bursary which covers the cost of the registration fees as well as some assistance for the travel and accommodation expenses, through their schools. Students who meet the eligibility criteria (e.g. ACA member, Canadian, travel originating in Canada), may also apply for a travel subsidy through the ACA’s SSHRC travel fund, while the completed SSHRC travel form must be submitted directly to the ACA office.

Please include the following in your submission:

• Your name, telephone number, postal address, and email address
• Name and address of the school/program that you attend
• Title and abstract of your paper (max. 250 words)
• A one-sentence statement indicating your commitment to attend the 2010 ACA Conference and to deliver your paper in person if selected by the Committee

The deadline for submissions is January 25, 2010.

Defintion: Special Collections

It’s definition time! Ever wondered what distinguishes a special collection from an archives? Well, you are about to find out:

In information science, a special collection is the name applied to a specific repository or department, usually within a library, which stores materials of a “special” nature, including rare books, archives, and collected manuscripts. Works kept in special collections (as opposed to the library's general collection) are typically stored there because they are unusually valuable, rare (possibly unique), or fragile, or because they should not, for some particular reason, be allowed to commingle with the library's other works.

Unlike an archives, a special collection may originate from more than one provenance and is collected (usually) because the materials share some kind of “aboutness”. For example, the E.J. Pratt Library is home to the Virginia Woolf Collection. This special collection consists of more than 3,000 items, including books by and about Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. The special collection is “about” Virginia Woolf, but was not created by her. On the other hand, California State University, Bakersfield is home to the Center for Virginia Woolf Studies, which owns an archives of Woolf’s resource notebooks for her seminal work, Three Guineas. This archives has a single provenance (Woolf) and is not “about” the author or her work. Rather, the author created the resource notebooks during the course of writing Three Guineas. Although researchers may use the archives to shed light on the thoughts and processes of Woolf as she wrote her book, they are by-products of her actions and not meant to be “about” her thoughts or processes. Clear as mud?

So, what about a queer archives? The Canadian Gay & Lesbian Archives (CLGA), for example, houses a rare book library, a vast collection of photographs, organizational records, and videos. The CLGA’s mandate is to collect and preserve material “about” LGBT experiences in Canada. Is this an archives or a special collection? Thoughts?

When the Historical Record is Neglected or Ignored

Prime Minister Harper has unwittingly provided a great example of the danger of neglecting the historical record when making assumptions about the nation. According to Harper, as it appears in a recent article in the Calgary Herald, "we have no history of colonialism." Ummmmm?...

A few morsels from the article:

"Canada remains in a very special place in the world. . . . We are the one major developed country that no one thinks has any responsibility for this [economic] crisis. In fact, on the contrary, they look at our policies as a solution to the crisis. We're the one country in the room everybody would like to be."

"We're so self-effacing as Canadians that we sometimes forget the assets we do have that other people see. We are one of the most stable regimes in history. . . . We are unique in that regard."

"We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them."

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the First Nations people of Canada might think differently about colonialism in the country. I will point readers to:

Collections Canada
NativeWeb
http://www.qub.ac.uk

etc......

Ontario Divisional Court rejects claim that electronic data is not a "record"

Calling all 1330 students! If anyone is interested in a recent ruling that helps clarify the definition of "record" with regard to electronic information, I would like to direct you to the Information and Privacy Commissioner's (IPC) January 13th press release regarding the Toronto Police. Click here for the full release.

One interesting excerpt from the IPC press release:

The Star originally filed two freedom of information requests with the Toronto Police, seeking information from the police databases of arrests and occurrences, with personal identifiers removed, for its series of articles on racial profiling. When the Star was not able to obtain the information it sought, it filed an appeal with the IPC. The position taken by the police – that the information sought was not a “record” – was rejected by the IPC, which ordered the police to make a decision on access to the information.

The police then challenged the IPC Order and applied for judicial review to Ontario’s Divisional Court, which overturned the IPC’s Order, holding that the need to develop new software takes the request outside the statutory definition of “record.”

Good fodder for those upcoming papers!

How do they know my address???

Yesterday, I received a brand new credit card in the mail. And I started to panic. I didn't remember applying for a credit card and I recently moved, yet the bank had my correct address? How? Why? Where did they find me? Seriously, how?

I phoned the credit card company and discovered that this new card was a replacement card for one that I've had since 1998. Really? Well, I did have a spending problem in University, so this didn't seem so far out there.... but I think I probably cut this card up about 10 years and almost as many addresses ago.

I was still baffled at how they found my new address so I asked the rep on the phone and he explained that they keep addresses for customers on file and they keep cards active even if the cardholder hasn't used the account in over ten years....as in my case. This still did not answer my questions, so I asked again:

RS: Yes, I understand that you keep the account active, but I don't even live in the same province as I used to when I originally held this card. How did you find my new address?
CC: You must have updated our records.
RS: No, I've had no communication with the bank.
CC: Hhmmm....well, do you have another type of bank account, such as a savings or chequing account?
RS: No, I just said that I've had no communication with the bank. I didn't even remember that I had this card.
CC: Well, that is interesting. Perhaps you have an account with one of our affiliated brands.
RS: (!!!???) You have affiliated brands?
CC:....er, yes. Well, oh I see that your card is now activated and everything is good to go. Is there anything else I can help you with?
RS: ah, no.
CC: Thanks for your business. Have a great day.

Anyone know anything about how a credit card company would have my most recent address on file even if I haven't communicated with them in over a decade? I should also mention that I have the type of address that doesn't fit nicely into any kind of form. It's a miracle that any mail gets to me at all, let alone a long-lost credit card that I forgot I owned. Oy!

The mysterious dissemination of my address information is quite unnerving.

Palin’s email hacker a cyber-modern Robin Hood?

Remember last year when Sarah Palin was running for Vice President? I know, I’ve tried to block it from my mind as well, but she just keeps popping up in the news and reminding me that she almost became Second-in-Charge of the United States. (Oy!).

A few days ago, Wired ran a story about the Tennessee college student charged with hacking into Palin’s Yahoo account and sifting through her emails. The 20-year-old defendant David Kernell, and his lawyer are claiming that the young man did not violate Palin’s privacy because a judge had already declared the emails in this account to be public records. Apparently, it would be difficult for the prosecution to prove that privacy was violated if the records were public records....I'm not sure I believe this, but anyway...

So, if not a breach of privacy, then is this theft? Was Kernell stealing property from Palin by accessing her account and forwarding emails to his own account? There appears to be some controversy surrounding the notion that email constitutes property. Kernell's lawyer, Wade Davies, argues that email is not defined in law as a traditional property and therefore the charges of theft against his client are invalid.

I'm assuming that the charge of computer fraud will stick, but invasion of privacy and theft are still up in the air. Whatever the result, it will set an interesting precident for US law regarding email as public record and property.

Kernell’s trial is set for October 27 and he faces 18-24 months in prison and a fine between $4,000 and $40,000.

Boing Boing / Geist nail the the Conference Board of Canada to the wall

Captain Copyright to the rescue, er, wait.... It's another collossal CopyFAIL!

Canadian think-tax spends tax dollars to plagiarize and regurgitate talking points from US entertainment lobby group

The Conference Board of Canada, a think-tank, took money from the province of Ontario to develop a paper on the "Digital Economy" and then copy-pasted most of the material in it from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (an American lobby group representing the music, film and software industries). Some of the material was plagiarized -- copied without attribution.

Read more here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/25/canadian-think-tax-s.html

and here:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4000/125/

and then take a look at the Copyright Board of Canada's "About Us" page:
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/about-cboc/default.aspx

The website states the following:
"Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."