from library juice\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd thank you all for coming here this morning. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI also want to thank my research assistant Debra Levy who happens to be a \r\nlibrarian and tutored me in all things bookish in preparation for this \r\nspeech. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nEvery speech in the world begins like that - the pro-forma thank yous. I've \r\ndone it plenty of times on autopilot. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut this time is different. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe fact that the ALA decided to come to Toronto - my city - despite SARS, \r\nbecame for me a sort of beacon of sanity in what seems an increasingly \r\ninsane world. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhen things seemed to be spiraling into an apocalypse of violence, illness, \r\nfundamentalisms and hysteria, I would check the ALA website and make sure \r\nthat yes, the librarians were still coming: \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe U.S. and Britain might have gone to war based on no evidence of Weapons \r\nof Mass Destruction. My neighbours might be wearing masks to go to the \r\ncorner store even though no one has been infected that way. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd yet some people are still thinking, still making decisions based on \r\nfacts. The librarians are coming to Toronto. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo I do not take your presence here for granted. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNor do I take for granted the idea that thousands of us can gather together \r\nin a room like this and freely exchange ideas, even controversial and \r\ncritical ones. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThese are new sentiments for me. I confess that until very recently, I took \r\nopen borders and open forums for granted. Of course we are free to move, \r\nfree to speak our minds - what else would we be? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI don't feel that way anymore. I feel like we are losing freedoms every day. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nMuch of this comes from internally imposed restrictions: We are more afraid:\r\nof each other. Who is going to infect us? Who is going to blow us up? Who is\r\ngoing to blow the whistle on us for being anti-American - for saying the\r\nwrong thing, or reading the wrong book? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe curtail our own freedoms out of fear of what might happen. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut we also have reason to be afraid, some of us much more than others. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI don't have to tell you this. Librarians in the United States are on the\r\nfront line of the attacks on privacy and civil liberties. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe Patriot Act has put you there. You know how little evidence - in fact,\r\nnone - is required to invade your users' privacy. That any law enforcement\r\nofficial can demand to see a record of the books your users have taken out\r\nand the Internet sites they have visited - without so much as claiming\r\n\"probable cause.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI was shocked to read in The New York Times a quote from Anne Turner,\r\ndirector of the Santa Cruz Public Library System, talking about how her\r\nlibraries are shredding users' records on a daily basis. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nShe said: \"The basic strategy now is: keep as little historical information\r\nas possible.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt has actually come to this: professional archivists, the people who value\r\ninformation and history most, driven to shred their own records for fear of\r\nhow they could be abused. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYou all know this is happening and yet when you gather here with your\r\ncolleagues to discuss the pressing issues facing your profession, you cannot\r\neven tell each other if you have been subjected to one of these searches. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's the not knowing that kills me: not knowing how many records have been\r\nrifled through, how many people have been detained, for how long, how many\r\nface deportation. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo my thank you this morning is not one of those pro-forma thank yous: I\r\ntruly am thankful that we can talk like this. And I am especially thankful\r\nthat the ALA decided to come to Toronto. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYour choice is highly relevant to my topic today. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI was asked to talk about globalization. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSARS, and other highly infections diseases, are very much a part of\r\nglobalization, though a side of globalization that our politicians generally\r\ndon't like to talk about. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe official discourse about globalization is usually about things,\r\nstuff: goods and services being traded across borders. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut globalization is also about people - the effect of that movement of\r\ngoods and services on people. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd one of the effects is that people move: \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe travel, we migrate, we look for better opportunities. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nMaybe the people who move were displaced by a war, or by a mega-dam that\r\ndrowned their village, or an industrial farm that pushed them off their\r\nland. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhat I argue in my book Fences and Windows is that the current lopsided\r\nvision of globalization has been about freeing money and goods while trying\r\nto control and contain people. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo we in rich countries are told that we can have all the benefits of trade\r\n- cheap products, access to the world at our fingertips - without the messy\r\npeople. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe are told that we can live in bubbles of security while the rest of the\r\nworld boils with poverty, disease and violence. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhat SARS reminds us of - in a relatively small way - is that we human\r\nbeings, regardless of national borders, are connected to each other -\r\nwhether we like it or not. Globalization is for real. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nA flu in Hong Kong is connected to a conference in Toronto. An air\r\nconditioner in New York is connected to a flood in Sri Lanka, and a famine\r\nin Malawi. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nOne continent's pandemic becomes another's illness. One people's fury\r\nbecomes every country's fear. One nation's war becomes another's refugee\r\ncrisis. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNo border is truly secure. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nOur skins - the borders of our own bodies - don't protect us from disease. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nJust as the borders of our nations cannot protect us from terror. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe humans, much as we tell ourselves otherwise, are porous: our nations, our\r\nbodies. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNo matter what armour we use to make ourselves feel safe and protected,\r\nwhether face masks, or elaborate alarm systems inside gated communities, or\r\nweapons of mass destructions, we will never be entirely sealed off. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd so the question of the global age is not \"Is globalization good or bad?\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt is: how are we going to pull this thing off? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWill the values that connect us be profit or justice? Fear or solidarity? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAre we going to keep trying to build better bubbles? Wrap ourselves in Saran\r\nWrap and turn our nations into police states? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nHave even more grotesque invasions of libraries by the FBI under the Patriot\r\nAct? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nOr do we go another route? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYour coming here to Toronto - despite the SARS hysteria - was defiantly,\r\nbeautifully global. Many of you were afraid - and understandably so - but\r\nyou came anyway. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe need more such acts of brazen connectedness, more flagrant, defiant\r\nopenness. A human globalization to answer corporate globalization. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhen I look out at this room I see people who represent values that are\r\ndistinctly different from the ones that currently govern the globe. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThese values are, in no particular order: <\/p>
\r\nBut you didn't and the very notion that that some things that are so\r\nimportant that cannot be fully owned and contained is under siege around the\r\nworld. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhy? A simple, prosaic reason: Because there is money to be made. The global\r\neconomy is in recession. There aren't nearly enough middle class people in\r\nthe world to consume all of the cheap products that are being produced. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThat means that the current stage of globalization is not simply about\r\n\"trade\" in the traditional sense of selling more products across borders. It\r\nis about feeding the market's insatiable need for growth by redefining\r\nentire sectors that were previously considered part of \"the commons\" - and\r\nnot for sale - as \"products.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhen we talk about free trade or globalization, what we are really talking\r\nabout is the fencing in, the enclosing, of the commons. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThis has reached into every aspect of our lives: health and education, of\r\ncourse, but also ideas, seeds, now purchased and patented, as well as\r\ntraditional remedies, plants, water and even human genes - the privatization\r\nof life itself. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd as you know, it is also reaching into libraries. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nInformation - your stock and trade - ranks just below fuel as the most\r\nprecious commodity coursing through the global economy. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe U.S.'s single largest export is not manufactured goods or arms or food,\r\nit is copyrights - patents on everything from books to drugs. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe implications are not abstract, as I have learned in my research. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI was in South Africa a little less than a year ago. It was during the World\r\nSummit on Sustainable Development - or Rio plus 10. All the talk was of\r\nPublic Private Partnerships: the solution to hunger would come, voluntarily,\r\nfrom Monsanto, while thirst would be dealt with by Suez and Bechtel. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet in the poor townships, privatization has meant that 40,000 households\r\nlose access to electricity every month. Hundreds of thousands have been\r\nforced to drink from cholera infested rivers. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI went to a community meeting about water cut offs in Durban. A woman stood\r\nup named Orlean Naidoo. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nShe said something that really stuck with me: \"There are people in this\r\ncountry who have made a mistake. They think that water is like gold or\r\ndiamonds. But you don't need gold or diamonds to survive. Water isn't\r\ndiamonds. It's life.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWater isn't the only thing that is fundamental to life. So is shelter. So, I\r\nwould argue, is knowledge. So is medicine. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd yet tell that to the trade tribunals that have allowed drug companies to\r\nsue governments like Brazil for daring to produce generic life saving AIDS\r\ndrugs and distribute them for free to those in need. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWould that life-saving drugs were shared like library books, simply because\r\npeople need them to live and can't afford to pay. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut sharing is under siege. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt is the sworn enemy of the global market - which is why so much of\r\ninternational trade law is designed to criminalize sharing. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nForget Napster, and the crackdowns on pirated CDs and software. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn Cochabamba Bolivia, the uprising against Bechtel was sparked by the fact\r\nthat under the contract, it became illegal to collect rainwater, since the\r\ncompany had bought all water rights. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn India, farmers are sued by Monsanto for engaging in the age old practice\r\nof saving their seeds and sharing them with their neighbours - they are\r\nsupposed to buy them anew each year from Monsanto. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThis is the essence of free trade: making sure that absolutely nothing -\r\nwhether books or water or ideas - is offered for free. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe role of international trade law must be understood not only as taking\r\ndown \"barriers to trade\" - as it claims - but as a legal process that\r\nsystematically puts up new barriers - around knowledge, technology and the\r\ncommons itself, through fiercely protective patent and trademark law. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere is absolutely nothing free about it. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nMost of you probably didn't think that helping people to share books was\r\nsubversive when you decided to become librarians. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd it shouldn't be: sharing, giving, saving and reusing are the most human\r\nof impulses and we are at our best and most human when we act on them. The\r\ndesire to share, as you know, is immense. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet the fact is that you have chosen a profession that has become radical. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBeing a librarian today means being more than an archivist, more than a\r\nresearcher, more than an educator - it means being a guardian the embattled\r\nvalues of knowledge, public space and sharing that animate your profession. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYou may not have chosen it but the fight against privatization and in\r\ndefense of the public good has been thrust upon you - by the mania for\r\nprivatization, public private partnerships, and outsourcing. It has also\r\nbeen thrust upon you by GATS: the General Agreement on Trade and Services, a\r\nWorld Trade Organization side agreement. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNow before we wade into those waters, a warning: GATS is purposefully\r\nconfusing, designed to prompt lay people to delegate the whole mess to the\r\n\"experts\" who will rob them blind. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut you aren't lay people; you're librarians. So let's give it a try. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere are two main problems with GATS: one is that it takes privatizations\r\nand locks them in so they become irreversible. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe other is that it takes partial privatizations - like outsourcing or\r\nfee-for-service within a public system - and uses it as a legal wedge to\r\nforce full privatization. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo let's talk about the first problem: locking privatization in. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYou are all familiar with the infamous case of Hawaii's State Library\r\nsystem's 1995 decision to outsource book selection to a private company in\r\nNorth Carolina. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nLike all outsourcing and privatization, it was supposed to offer greater\r\nefficiency at less cost. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn fact is was universally recognized as a disaster: \r\n<\/p>
\r\nLots of padding with cheap books, 61 copies of Newt Gingrich's novel,\r\ngeographically inappropriate books like A Practical Guide to Lambs and Lamb\r\nCaring - in Hawaii. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt wasn't more efficient, it wasn't better. The contract was cancelled, and\r\nthe policy was changed. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt became a learning experience. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nUnder GATS, that could never happen. GATS strips us of our right to learn\r\nfrom our mistakes. It denies us our right to be prudent: to try something,\r\nsee if it works, and if not, change our minds. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nA few examples: \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe British rails. In October, The Guardian newspaper got its hands on a\r\nleaked government report about GATS and its rail system. The privatization\r\nof Britain's rails is seen by most people as a scandal: accidents have\r\nincreased, the trains are late, fares keep going up. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd yet the document published by the Department of Trade and Industry said\r\nthat that in order to comply with GATS they would have to \"fully bind the\r\nexisting regime for road and rail\" - in effect locking privatization in\r\nindefinitely and preventing re-nationalization, regardless of whether or not\r\nthe public demanded it or voted for it. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nA year ago in Canada, the city of Vancouver was about to privatize its water\r\nfiltration system. The council backed out at the last minute, not because it\r\nwas against privatization per se but because after studying other cases, it\r\nrealized that it would lose the right to reverse the decision down the road. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThat's what happened in Cochamaba Bolivia when the water was privatized by\r\nBechtel: in 2000, there was a popular revolt against the fact that\r\nprivatization had brought rate increased of 50 per cent or higher. Bechtel\r\nwas forced to pull out. But now the company is suing the Bolivian government\r\nfor $25-million for breaking the contract. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nFar from making services more efficient and quicker on their feet, these\r\nrules merely lock in bad deals and rob citizens of their right to adapt\r\n- to change their minds. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nOnto the second problem: using partial privatizations as a wedge to force\r\nfull privatizations. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe way GATS works is that countries can take entire sectors out of the\r\nglobal market and declare them public services - but they have to go all the\r\nway, there are no half-way public services. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nMany trends, as you know, are pushing you towards a two-tiered library\r\nsystem: charging for special orders, and for Internet use, outsourcing\r\nordering, even opening bookstores inside libraries. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThese measures are a response to the same issues that pushed public schools\r\nto invite advertising into their classrooms or public hospitals to start\r\ncharging for selective services: a desperate shortfall of government funds. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nHawaii's outsourcing debacle didn't arrive out of the blue - it was a\r\npanicked response to the fact that the state had cut the library budget by\r\n25 per cent. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nUnder GATS, the problem is that these partial privatizations could well be\r\nused against you to force complete de-funding of libraries. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nPrivate research providers, bookstores, and video store chains could go to\r\ntrade court and argue that they are being discriminated against because they\r\ndon't get public subsidies and you do. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nTrust me on this: Barnes and Noble is not your friend, even if they do hand\r\nout cool tote bags. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd the big publishers may be wining and dining you this week - but that\r\ndoesn't mean they won't sue you in trade court for offering electronic books\r\nand journals for free. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYes, it's outrageous. But it's also happening. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nHere in Canada, UPS launched a challenge against Canada Post - the national\r\npostal service - saying that they were being discriminated against because\r\nthe Canadian government was subsidizing their competition. If having a\r\npublic post office is an unfair trade barrier, having a public library could\r\nbe too. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere are already three ominous signs.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo, what can you do to halt this process? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe primary recourse libraries have is that governments have the authority\r\nunder GATS to exclude the public services they choose. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBut if you think your governments are going to go to the wall to protect\r\nlibraries - instead of using it a bargaining chip to push other countries to\r\nopen up their water and prison markets - I fear that you are mistaken. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI know that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick hand-wrote a letter to\r\nthe president of the ALA saying that you don't have to worry about GATS. And\r\np.s. \"my first job was in a library so you can be sure I share your\r\ncommitment to this valuable public service.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThat may be. But the thing is, Robert Zoellick works for the same\r\nadministration that showed exactly how it feels about libraries - and about\r\nhistory and culture in general - when it stood by while Iraq's libraries\r\nburned to the ground, its museums were looted and Iraq was turned into a\r\ncountry with no past. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAs Robert Fisk wrote from Baghdad on April 15: \"For Iraq, this is Year Zero;\r\nwith the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archeology and the\r\nburning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural\r\nidentity of Iraq is being erased.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"Why?\" he asked. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI don't know. But I do know that erasing a culture isn't bad preparation for\r\nAOL-Time Warner and Viacom to come in a sell a shiny new, pre-packaged one. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nI'm not saying that was the plan. But I'm willing to say that the reason it\r\nwasn't stopped - even though the danger was well known to the Pentagon - is\r\nbecause wiping out Iraqi culture posed no threat to \"U.S. interests in the\r\nregion\" - as the hawks like to say. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nHow else to explain Donald Rumsfeld's response? When asked how he felt about\r\ndestruction of Iraq's museaums and libraries he offered words that will go\r\ndown in history: \"Stuff Happens.\" \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd so I congratulate the ALA for its courageously worded resolution\r\ncondemning the destructions of these acts that will come before the council\r\ntomorrow. It's none of my business, of course, but I do hope it passes. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt shouldn't be surprising that the U.S. government cannot appreciate what\r\nhas been lost in Iraq's libraries - there is precious little evidence that\r\nit can appreciate what is being lost when its own libraries are ravaged by\r\nstate cutbacks at home. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhen all four branches of the public library in Binghamton, New York are\r\nshut down entirely, as they were in December. The books weren't burned -\r\nnothing so dramatic - they were just put into storage. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nOr when California Governor Gray Davis actually proposes cutting library\r\nfunds from $31.5 million this year to $1 million next year - 31.5-million to\r\n1-Million!!! \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt looks like about half of that is going to be restored, but let's be\r\nclear: neither U.S. nor Canadian librarians can trust either your state,\r\nprovincial or federal politicians to stand up for you at the World Trade\r\nOrganization - you can't even trust them to stand up for you at home. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nAll is not lost, however. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere are measures you can take to protect yourselves. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe best way you can preserve the state funding you currently receive is to\r\nresist the temptation to partially privatize your precious public spaces -\r\nwhether by letting advertisements into libraries, or co-branding with\r\nMicrosoft, or outsourcing more of your core services. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe more you allow the lines to be blurred between a library and a\r\nsuperstore, or a library and - heaven forbid, Google Answer - the more these\r\nmultinationals will be able to turn around and claim that you are robbing\r\nthem of their rightful market share. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nPartial privatizations will be used as the thin edge of the wedge - the\r\nlegal precedent -to force more complete privatization down the road. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's already happening with water, health care, sewers, and energy. Why -\r\nwhen information is so profitable - would libraries be immune? \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere's another reasons to resist partial privatizations. No matter what you\r\ndo, libraries are going to have to fight for their very existence. That\r\nmeans you are going to need your most valuable asset on your side: library\r\nusers. Your communities will have to fight for you and with you. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIf that's going to happen, your users have to know in their bones that there\r\nis no comparison between a chain of book superstores, or an Internet café,\r\nand a genuine community library. They have to feel your \"public-ness\" -\r\nwhich is about much more than whether or not your funding comes from the\r\nstate and whether your services are free. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's about that ephemeral quality that gives a community a sense of\r\ncollective ownership over a space. You know what it takes much better than\r\nI: An ongoing, never-ending conversation between the library and the community\r\nit serves. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nA presence in people's lives that goes beyond anything offered by the\r\nmarket: great librarians teach children to love reading, they introduce\r\nyoung adults to the thrill of research, and they become de facto social\r\nworkers for adults who turn to the library when they have lost their jobs. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThey also provide physical space for people of all ages to debate the issues\r\nthat matter to them \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe other thing that gives people a sense of ownership over their public\r\ninstitutions is accountability to the community (as opposed to their\r\nshareholders): that means running libraries transparently, openly and when\r\npossible, democratically. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt means not just being public but feeling public. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nBook store chains can imitate that feeling with local interest sections and\r\nstory times, Amazon can talk about \"community stake holders,\" but a\r\nmarketing concept will never be able to replicate the passion that flows\r\nfrom an institution that is truly an outgrowth of the people it serves. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThat passion, that sense of collective ownership, is your greatest\r\nprotection in the unavoidable battles ahead. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nRemember that the next time a management consultant tells you that the only\r\nway to save your library is to act more like a corporation, or to turn your\r\nlibrary into a bargain Barnes and Noble. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNot only won't it work, it will hurt you in the future when your users don't\r\nfight for you because they can't tell the difference between public and\r\nprivate space. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe best way to stay public is to be public - truly, defiantly, radically\r\npublic. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's your suit of armor. Wear it with pride. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nYou committed an act of faith in coming here to Toronto. Actually, it wasn't\r\nan act of faith, but a sober, clear-eyed judgment. I trust it is the\r\nbeginning of many more acts of practical bravery. Our times call for nothing\r\nless. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThank you for coming, thank you for being here - I really, really mean it.\r\n<\/p>