Canadian Health Scientists Resort To Sneaker Net After Funding Slashed 168
sandbagger writes "Health Canada scientists are so concerned about losing access to their research library that they're finding workarounds, with one squirreling away journals and books in his basement for colleagues to consult, says a report obtained by CBC News. The report said the number of in-house librarians went from 40 in 2007 to just six in April 2013. 'I look at it as an insidious plan to discourage people from using libraries' said Dr. Rudi Mueller, who left the department in 2012. 'If you want to justify closing a library, you make access difficult and then you say it is hardly used.' This is hardly new for Stephen Harper's Conservative government. Over the Christmas holidays, several scientific libraries were closed and their contents taken to the dump."
Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
Science involves education. Educated masses are not useful to political parties.
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Consolidated masses are very useful to political parties.
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But both require funding. Patents for protection. New pharma for profits before the patents can expire. Patent portfolio trading and litigation. Oppress the innovators, for they don't make us any revenue.
Lead the lemmings to the cliffs. Make them buy or die. Threaten new products with massive litigation costs so that investors will shy away. Bribe the legislatures to protect the monopolies. Buy out any interesting startups so that no one can take their place and use their intellectual property as threats to
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Wait, isn't the Canadian Library Association controversy the story we just read? Or was that some different CLA?
(BTW, there was slow but steady technological and economic progress during the "dark ages", it led pretty smoothly into the Enlightenment)
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Insidious plans and Stephen Harper go hand-in-hand.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're thinking of the closures of the fisheries libraries over the holidays. This is the closure of the health libraries. The other year it was the closure of a bunch of research stations. It's the typical right wing agenda, cut taxes slightly so business doesn't have to give cost of living wages, increase spending so the government is running in the red (they came into power with a pretty good surplus) then cut those parts of government that don't agree with their ideology and give lots of money to their favourite industry, oil. Bonus with all the government re-purposed to supporting the tar business they can claim that they're spending more on science then ever.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's become something of a crusade of mine lately to promote reason, spurred on by stories like this, the rise of scientific illiteracy, and the destruction of culture through a dumbed-down commercial media. I'm not down with any specific ideology, in fact I promote rising above ideology to a more anthropological and phenomenological view of humanity and nature, and a faithful application of empiricism to all things we call "knowledge." Too many people invoke the chemical feeling of "belief" just to get high on it, and have no interest in the hard won truth which comes by skeptical inquiry. Too many of us are willing to swallow conspiracy theories that fit our overblown narratives of authoritarian control, as well, and in that manner also become stupid with time-wasting and untenable beliefs.
I urge people to get into understanding things as they actually are, practicing their arts and exploring the sciences with enthusiasm, focusing on results rather than just pure jollies. Religion, ideology, and self-deception are insidious traps that can hold people for a lifetime, and are very hard to fight against because people are so inured. But fight we must.
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It's just easier for many to believe in something than it is to understand everything.
There is comfort in the validation of long held beliefs, no matter the measure of it's bias on the scientific method.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's fine so long as you're telling people how things are, but very limited if you want to think about how they should be. The problem with abdicating from advocacy is that there are plenty of people without your knowledge, understanding or benevolence who are prepared to fill in the gaps for you. This is why 'promoting societal good' is rightly now a key aspect of scientific endeavour.
Well said. (Score:2)
Thank you.
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Having an ideology is an insidious trap?! Are you a nihilist or something? Oh wait...isn't nihilism an ideology too...hmmm...
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This is very hard-line. Despite what the reddit atheist crowd thinks, there are a lot of religious people who understand that there is no scientific basis for their beliefs. These people, like us seculars, are able to distinguish faith from reason, but they choose to partake of both.
I also have a problem with scientific reasoning when it is overapplied. Sometime, stuff is hard to measure -- for example, social phenomena and things like how prejudices play out in different situations. Saying "but there's n
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Informative)
...are we batshit crazy. What the FUCK ever happened to science? We are descending back into the dark ages...
In the specific context of Canada, certain uppity scientists suggested that there might be unpleasant environmental side-effects to the plan to use tar sands to turn Canada into a dysfunctional petrostate.
In a not-at-all-dysfunctional-petrostate move, the Harper regime decided to show those uppity scientists where they could shove their 'evidence'. (Probably not a library, anymore)
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:4, Funny)
Who would benefit from the destruction of knowledge in Canada?
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
A government who refuses to make evidence-based decisions, and instead likes to believe their ideology defines reality.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Informative)
That also covers the US under the Bush administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
A quote from Ron Suskind, 2004 (the aide he is referring to was later identified as Karl Rove):
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
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Perhaps you missed the part about Rove being a steamrolling asshole.
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People in power can and do shape the future, but they can only do so within the bounds of reality. Obama can't make a speech and declare that potato chips are now the cure for cancer. If he wants to shape a future with a cure it will take a " judicious study of discernible reality."
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Well, yeah, of course you could put the cure for cancer into potato chips. But you'd have to actually know the cure first. No matter how much leadership you have, you can't simply change the laws of physics.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he seems to be confusing "We're powerful enough to avoid facing the consequences of our actions" with "Because we're so powerful, our actions lack any undesirable consequences".
In the short term, and from his perspective, there is no difference between the two claims. Over the long term, though, this position is unsustainable and will lead to the fall of his "empire". Pretending that you change reality by sheer force of will and political power doesn't actually change reality.
Either he isn't concerned with the long-term consequences of his actions (maybe because he'll be dead by the time that they start to come due), in which case he's a self-centered asshole, or he genuinely thinks that politics determine reality, in which case he's a lunatic.
What's unreasonable about those claims is that they are the same power-drunk ravings that have brought down every empire that has ever existed.
Re:Not only in the US... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fisheries guys are comparatively small-time (and have been around for decades, and also have a love/hate relationship with scientific fish experts, nobody likes being subject to quotas; but fishermen aren't dumb enough to think that the future of fishing is in having no fish, so they agree in principle, if not in yearly numbers and exact population estimates, with the science guys), so my money would be on the tar sands sector.
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Things like this have been going on for some time in Canada. For example, world class science was being done at the Experimental Lakes Area, see section on it's defunding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Lakes_Area
I'm from Buffalo NY (USA) and we recently spent a weekend with some scientist friends in Toronto -- they took us to a lecture about this major problem. One of the conclusions was that scientists (in Canada) aren't used to political action, so this government move has (to some extent) b
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To paraphrase Sid's Alpha Centauri:
Beware those who would deny you knowledge,
For in their hearts they dream themselves your master
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Nobody will notice.
The shiny rectangles [theonion.com] will keep them filled with 'dark light of unenlightenment'.
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Science is just fine in Canada, in reality you're reading a story from the CBC. The equivalent of Pravda, with more spitshine and gloss. They have an axe to grind against any government that isn't the liberal party, and sometimes the NDP.
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For the first 4 years of the Harper regime we had a Minister of Science who was a creationist... That's how "fine" science is in Canada.
So tell me there AC, how has that actually effected scientific industry in Canada. Come now, you can cough up actual and provable points and not something from the CBC or rabble right?
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Plus, since it takes a long time for something to go from concept to product, it's hard to see the results immediately. For example - HP is taking a long time to die but that idea would never have been thought of while they had thriving R&D.
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So, if the CBC reported it, it does not count? That is convenient.
If you were interested, though I doubt you are, you could look at the references, citations, etc.. in:
Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy?
which google will happily provide you a pointer to.
In the unlikely event that you would bother, I am sure you would label them all, along with the authors, institutions, neighbourhoods, cities and provinces as anti-right. Facts are no match for blind, stupid partisanship.
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Always a good plan to assume, since you know what it makes you right? As for the story "muzzling civil servants..." remember Betteridge's law of headlines? [wikipedia.org]
Right.
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The newly elected (Sep 2013) Australian Government no longer has a Science Minister.
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Seriously? Oh, crap. So the Western-culture countries are just giving up and handing the future to Asia. I suppose it's the logical conclusion of the MBA disease, where if something doesn't make a profit this accounting cycle then it's not worth doing.
Re: The real dark ages - physical matter for ideas (Score:4, Informative)
Re: The real dark ages - physical matter for idea (Score:2)
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So what I don't understand here is what is being lost really if there are digital records of this paper data - or did they never digitize anything? I know there is a cost to it, but over time even a volunteer effort can make large inroads...
Re: The real dark ages - physical matter for idea (Score:2)
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They digitized a few pages as that was all there was funding for. It's the usual bullshit, increase spending while slightly lowering taxes until the government has spent its surplus and gone into debt (we had 8 years of surplus before these guys got in) then scream and panic about cutting spending and cut whatever is against their ideology. Their ideology in this case is that government exists to serve the oil industry.
So then they didn't really care (Score:2, Insightful)
They digitized a few pages as that was all there was funding for.
Screw funding. What are grad students for if not the massive man-hours required to simply photograph or scan every page? Where is ANY sign of a volunteer effort to preserve this data?
Lets say it had not been thrown out. What about Fire? Flood? Library of Alexandra mean anything to anyone? Never has the "those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" been more percent. To blame funds alone on letting this data slip away is absolving
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Pretty hard to do that after the fact.
As for before, I'm sure you could work out with a few seconds thought that even your suggested army of slaves need some resources to keep them going and the scale would be immense. However I suspect pretending to be stupid, angry and ignorant helps push some sort of petty political agenda so thus the tripe above.
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Because there probably aren't enough man hours for such rote, manual labor? Particularly if you're underfunded and your time is split between the research you're supposed to be doing and something completely unrelated to your job?
Why should they have had to worry about it?
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Re:The real dark ages - physical matter for ideas (Score:5, Informative)
What complete and utter crap.
The scientists who monitored these things kept libraries, containing their research journals, results, and papers and the supporting documentation.
And you, like a fucking moron, jump to the conclusion that "a small elite" have been secretly hoarding all of this information.
You're a fucking idiot. Some of this stuff is decades old, and predates when you could digitize it.
The government has claimed they're going to digitize it, but the evidence so far indicates they've barely tried to do that, and are moving straight onto destroying records.
The people complaining are the people who were trying to preserve the data and keep it accessible.
The secretive douchebags here are the politicians who don't like it when facts get in the way of policy -- because this government makes policy on what they want to be true, and seldom give a damn about what is actually true.
Oddly, we see the exact same pattern in the US with your neocons, who like to believe when they say reality is X, the rest of the world jumps and says "yes sir, reality is now X".
This is a political game, and if you can remove the stuff that proves your government is either lying or failing to make decisions based on actual evidence -- then you can pretend you have all of the answers.
Sorry, but your screed is directed at the wrong group here, and you are full of shit. The scientists wanted this stuff digitized, and had been told that it would be digitized -- they aren't the ones trying to keep the information secret and only available to them.
Your entire post tells us you are a moron, who believes scientists are secretly conspiring to make sure they have all the information and the rest of us have none.
Go crawl back under your rock.
What the fuck happened to education? (Score:2)
Of course he's probably only pretending to be so stupid as a way to try to mislead the kiddies and brainwash them into some sort of political agenda that sees an aware and informed population as an obstacle.
But there's good news (Score:1)
They'll welcome Slashdotters with serious software skills who keep saying they can no longer live under the US government.
So-called "conservatism" in action. (Score:5, Insightful)
'If you want to justify closing a library, you make access difficult and then you say it is hardly used.'
So we have "starve the beast" in Canada now.
Spiffy. Not.
--
BMO
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When you spend years running on the failure of government, is it any wonder when you get into power and make that happen even faster?
Re:So-called "conservatism" in action. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Here in Canada we're actually suffering from the tyranny of the minority. The Conservatives got 38% of the voters who bothered to vote.
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Ah you mean the Liberals were elected to power when I wasn't looking? If you want an example of tyranny of the minority you only need to look there and the amount of special-interest crap that went on during the Chretien days. Especially the massive-super-screwover of Western Canada and the Eastern provinces. The only thing that mattered to them was: Ontario(electorate), and Quebec(electorate). The current government is at least working with the primers of each province, and isn't telling them to go awa
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Or the guy who had adopted the oh so brilliant minds of the Foreign Policy Initiative (nee PNAC) so that we would be dropping bombs on Tehran two months after inauguration.
His Romneyness didn't back away from the statements by Dan Senor that we would be at war with Iran at the behest of Israel.
--
BMO
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It's not so called conservatism it's actually conservatism. The public service in Canada is pretty large and it's not sustainable. Canada is basically going through it's own downsizing of government they started about 1-2 years ago when they laid-off a lot of public sector employees and reduced spending all around. Every public servant in Ottawa was in a tizzy for months, you'd have thought the world was coming to an end to hear them speak of the calamities that were going to result in this. Personally, as
Reality has a well known liberal bias (Score:5, Funny)
In fairness, the libraries aren't being closed. They're being re-purposed as public relations offices responsible for such things as communicating the need to move forward with new forms of multimodal multimedia information dissemination, on a go forward basis.
Also, the books are not being dumped, they're being converted into bio-fuel (burned in very efficient co-generation waste incinerators).
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Public Relations = Lobbying
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You have no idea how funny I find that. You have no clue about me at all. LOL
Like the Fisheries libraries (Score:5, Informative)
Once again the data is (allegedly) retained, but moved and is now less convenient to access.
Before the main library closed, the inter-library loan functions were outsourced to a private company called Infotrieve, the consultant wrote in a report ordered by the department. The library's physical collection was moved to the National Science Library on the Ottawa campus of the National Research Council last year.
Re:Like the Fisheries libraries (Score:5, Funny)
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With the inter-library loan system, there doesn't really need to be a physical copy of every book in every library, because it's expensive to house so many books, especially in areas with high land prices. But instead of shutting down libraries, they should be downsizing them so they're still local, and moving to digital copies of books. A neighborhood library could be nothing more than a shelf full of holds, a drop box for returns, and a few terminals to request holds and check out physical and digital boo
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and if you need reference help of course you are screwed because there is no librarian.
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There could still be librarians. Add a telephone to each terminal that dials directly to a call center in India.
You get the best government you deserve (Score:1, Insightful)
If the people of Canada think this is horrid and despicable, they only have to look into the mirror to see who is responsible for electing a Tory government. Next thing you know, your precious universal health care will be under siege. Wake up neighbors!!!
Re:You get the best government you deserve (Score:4, Insightful)
You get the best government you deserve
Stop it. Just stop with this. Does an average person have any control over a government? No. They can write letters or vote for whatever paid-off politician they wish.
That does not mean they are getting what they deserve. They are merely getting what people with power and influence want. Nothing more.
Re: You get the best government you deserve (Score:4, Informative)
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2011 election, Tory seats won:
Ontario: 73
All four western provinces: 72
The land of Oil and Evil and Oil (aka Alberta): 27
Like Texas, everything is bigger in Alberta. Including, apparently, our votes.
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Re:You get the best government you deserve (Score:4, Insightful)
You might want to read up on the election fraud that occurred here. Google: "2011 Canadian federal election voter suppression scandal", aka the Robocall Scandal.
The Cons worked hard at getting that swept under the rug. For any act like this that politicians get caught in, you can bet there's probably a dozen more they pulled off without the public knowing.
Wasn't there a story about this (Score:2)
By like some famous author dude where you couldn't get books so people like memorized them or something?
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By like some famous author dude where you couldn't get books so people like memorized them or something?
Books are the source of evil. They must be burned lest some crazy ideas creep into the minds of the populace.
We wouldn't want that. Keep them ignorant. Keep them in front of a 100 inch lcd/plasma wall display. But for pete's sake don't give them books. Your civic duty is to denounce those hippies that still cling to those old fashioned dead trees. Burn them, burn them all to hell. Remember citizen, the only good book is a burned book.
To the dump!? (Score:2)
What a horrible waste. I hope they at least had the libraries open to the public as a well-publicized "everything's free bookstore" for a few weeks before hauling the leftovers to the dump.
I remember my library growing up had a "free shelf" in the basement of old books that were to be discarded. They were often a bit tattered and worn, but what a treasure trove for a young book lover on a shoestring budget.
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that sounds like a step down the slope of Communism.
The kind of people who throw away whole libraries wouldn't dream of letting people have the books for free.
They aren't trying to privatize the library, they are trying to bury it.
It's about making information that you don't want go away.
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It's extremism of the same sort the Islamic Fundamentalists practice.
Next up is no education for girls and religious instead of secular law.
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I remember the same thing in a a county library in Colorado, except the library would sell their unwanted books at ridiculously low prices. Older reference books worth hundreds would go for a dollar or two. A treasure trove indeed. Hopefully the the books sent to the dump were at least offered to the public first!
I should also add that a local university library near where I live now recently sent a bunch of their old books to the dump (except the ones I fished out of the dumpster) Shame on you, University
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What a horrible waste. I hope they at least had the libraries open to the public as a well-publicized "everything's free bookstore" for a few weeks before hauling the leftovers to the dump.
I must admit I got the image of book burning, without the burning. The end result is pretty much the same, in the sense it is destruction of knowledge and culture. Then again I see a lot of common with Harper and a certain historic figure with a narrow moustache (not Charlie Chaplin).
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We need a new culture law - I propose we call it "Chaplin's Law": Any sufficiently large asshole can ruin a cool mustache for everyone.
Don't believe everything you read (Score:2, Informative)
I lived in Ottawa for over 15 years and worked with government employees every day. Anything that comes along and 'the sky is falling' this is just more of the same nonsense.
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Seems to me that a reduction in staff from 40 to 6 is not a matter of requesting more funding. How about just not cutting it by 85%?
Can they crowdsource adoption? (Score:1)
They are doing this to all Federal Libraries (Score:5, Informative)
They closed Transportation Canada's library system. It no longer exists. Who knows what happened to the information there, if it even exists any more. My friend told me they housed some of the world's foremost research on transportation science, and were called upon by international colleagues to provide them with information.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... [www.cbc.ca]
They did a similar thing to the library at the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic... [www.cbc.ca]
Environment Canada
http://o.canada.com/news/last-... [canada.com]
This government has a war on science and knowledge and actively prohibits scientists from speaking to the media without government approval.
http://scienceblogs.com/confes... [scienceblogs.com]
The Conservative government does not care about facts. They have policies they want to implement, and they will do WHATEVER it takes to ensure those policies are enacted. Even if it means destroying our scientific heritage.
Re:They are doing this to all Federal Libraries (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternate Headline (Score:2, Insightful)
Alternate Headline: "Public Agency Finds Less Expensive Way to Do The Same Job; Saves Taxpayer Dollars".
This is what people voted for. It's a democracy. If people want the more expensive solution which does the same thing, then they'll vote for that instead.
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Except that the cost savings here ... are negate by the millions spent on advertising for programs that don't even exist yet [www.cbc.ca].
It isn't "less expensive way to do the same job" anyway, it's less expensive for inferior services.
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This government got 37% of the votes (much less when you consider the people who didn't vote) so no, it is not what the people voted for. This government has also squandered the surplus and ran a deficit the whole time they've been in power. Billions spent on advertising how we have the best science and billions given to the bitumen industry. Its got to the point where the oil companies don't really want any more tax credits as they know it looks a lot better if they pay a little tax.
Curtin Uni in Australia (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a student at curtin for a while. Whilst I was there they binned some old chemistry reference books than no one had used in a while.
They were a near complete set of chemistry journals from the 1750ish through 1910 ish. These were one of maybe 3 sets in the world, we sent to the tip. Gone forever.
This is why I am keen in the digitization of works copyrighted or otherwise.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Digitize and make free (Score:2)
This is why all of this needs to be digitized and made freely available online - so it cannot be controlled or contained. Information is power. How big would the torrent for all of it? The scientists should band together, home build book scanners, and seed away. All the tools for information freedom are now at hand, use them!
Fundamental Problem (Score:3)
Not to defend the Conservatives I dislike, however a few points worth noting. I have had some experience with this.
A) Many of these specialized libraries are not used regularly. There may be a need for the information, and sometimes that need might be more than usual, however for the most part I would bet that most of the staff are not all that busy. Hence the reduction of staff. Though as argued this may have led to a decline in service when they are actually needed, making them even less used, etc...
B) Digitizing is expensive. Storing the information is expensive. Organizing the information is expensive. Hosting the information is expensive. Now multiply all those things by a factor of 5 because you have to use government services or contractors to built it, and infrastructure to host it. There are a whole lot of reasons for this which I won't get into, but the fact is it is reality.
C) You may or may not agree with it, but if you lower taxes, you need to cut services, and if you cut services you have to decide which ones. Too many people out there somehow think that they don't have to pay taxes and somehow get all the services they want for free. Some have pointed out that the taxes cut are corporate taxes, and I am sure the Conservatives would argue that this makes Canada more competitive and creates jobs. Personally I think that is BS, but the fact is, less taxes means less services.
Anyway many are painting this as some sort of dastardly master plan by the Conservatives to destroy science and push their agenda. I think you are giving them way to much credit. That may be the round about way result, that has some small affect on the some specific long term research, but likely its immediate impact and gains (which is what most political parties are looking for, I highly doubt the Conservatives are playing the long game here) are negligible. This is more a simple consequence of the Conservatives following their ideological plan they got elected for. They cut corporate taxes using the assumption that it would make Canada more competitive and thus more attractive to corporate job creation, this costs money so to make up for it, rather than raise income taxes (which they also said they wouldn't do) the cut services to things which they don't see as A) important, and likely B) will have little impact on the short term while they are in office so as to have little effect on the next election cycle.
So none of this is really all that surprising, nor unexpected. If you want to blame anything it is our electoral process that gives a majority government to party that doesn't even have a majority of the popular vote simply because the left is split, and that because these parties have a election cycle of 4 years, unless you have a strong leader with some legacy fetish, odds are no party will think much longer than those terms.
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Wasn't there some Austrian dude who like burned a bunch of books and restricted what would be taught in schools to only support his totally bogus regime?
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Hey, I know Arnold Schwarzenegger did some unpopular things, but I haven't heard anything about the book burning.
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Hey, I know Arnold Schwarzenegger did some unpopular things, but I haven't heard anything about the book burning.
Turns out Schwarzeneggger isn't the only Austrian dude out there who ended up in government in another country...
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Yes, but he achieved full employment, no debt, huge GDP growth, major scientific progress, and offered free train trips to millions regardless of their class.
He just had to deal with minor terrorism issues, but our governments have learnt from his mistakes.
Re:Odd Change of Paradigm (Score:5, Insightful)
Used to be, we wanted to know everything about everything. Now it seems there are powers out there that want a select few to keep their knowledge, and everyone else should know nothing.
This. The whole "knowledge is power" thing isn't just a platitude. The rich and powerful have realized that the lower classes are beginning to figure out a little too much for their liking. I think the Internet upset the balance a bit and gave 'em a scare until they realized that Facebook was the great pacifier.
Mobile tech, internet addiction, social media, health care costs, mortgages, unpaid internships and student loan debt... control the population by enforcing a giant wealth/knowlege/skills/health/opportunity gap. Let the plebs smash themselves to bits trying to get ahead.
Can't fix the system by playing a part in it.
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Why is this post moderated as troll? Cold fjord received mod points?
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Spend their own money? No, this government spends more on advertizing then all the previous governments put together. If you ever see ads about the keystone pipeline, remember that it is the taxpayers of Canada paying for those ads.
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lot of financial issues in Canada and it isn't anything new
[Citation Needed]
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/intera... [www.cbc.ca]
Canadians had no financial issues until Harper took power. We were on track to pay off the national debt.
Libraries are hardly used to begin
[Citation Needed]
cost a significant amount to create and maintain
[Citation Needed]
They are expensive, and a huge tax burden
[Citation Needed]
Everything in those libraries are turned into ebooks
[Citation definitely Needed]
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Offer the library contents to Google if Google will pay the freight. Truck freight is reasonable and a moving van will hold thousands of pounds of books. Problem solved without loss of access.
Re:last time (Score:4, Funny)
You probably should have worn more than a trench coat, and perhaps your first question shouldn't have been "is porn blocked on the library computers?"
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They still *occupied* storage (Score:2)
The Harper administration, ever the efficient cost-cutters, saved the intermediary step between physical and digital by simply trashing the records instead. Hooray for small government!