"The struggle is over differing conceptions of communications -
            as commodity transmission or as community, culture, and personal
            participation."

 Heather Menzies, Author, Whose Brave New World

Stories on information policy and information technology have been big
news over the past year.  But if you don't read the business pages you
might have missed them.  Unfortunately, decisions on the new technologies
are made on marketplace criteria and not  social criteria.
These stories include corporate buyouts and mergers such as the mega
deals of Bell Atlantic's takeover of GTE and SBC's takeover of Nynex and
Ameritech. Here in Canada, B.C. Telephone and Telus merged, with 26% of
the combined company being owned by GTE.  America OnLine and Netscape
merged. In the entertainment industry, Seagram acquired Polygram records.
In the publishing, Bertelsmann recently announced the takeover of Random
House.

The last few years has also seen the privatization of the Internet in
both Canada and the U.S. and the recent privatization of Domain Name
registration.

The Microsoft anti-trust trial, and continued concerns about Intel market
domination and pricing strategies, point to increasing apprehension about
how concentrated and vertically integrated the computer,
telecommunications, and entertainment market is becoming.

In a recently published book" Reconvergence: A Political Economy of
Telecommunications in Canada", Dwayne Winseck argues that "de-regulation"
was less about increased competition than it was a shift from
"public-interest regulation" to "corporate interest regulation".

In both the U.S. and Canada, legislators and regulators are concerned
that de-regulation of telecommunications has not lead to the competition
in local telephone and cable that was promised, and that information
activists saw as unlikely.  Present and potential competitors are
disappearing through mergers and takeovers.  Local telephone competition,
when it arrives, will be concentrated in the major urban centres and for
large corporations.

Many community organizations submitted briefs to the CRTC hearings on
High-Cost Serving Areas.  The CLA pointed to the conflict in the
Telecommunications Act between Section 7(b) which encourages high quality
telecommunication services in both urban and rural areas and 7(f) which
fosters increased reliance on market forces, arguing that rural and
isolated areas would fall further behind in the competitive market
environment that had been created.

Local telephone service continues to increase in cost with no noticeable
increase in quality.  A March 1998 Health Canada- funded study on
"Nutritional Vulnerability and Food Insecurity among Women in Families
Using Food Banks" mentioned that some of the women gave up their phones
as a strategy to deal with food security.  Recently, Rogers increased
basic cable charges by $.90 per month, citing the inclusion of the CTV
News and Sports channel as a reason,  offering no options to the public.
The CRTC admitted it had no control over these increases and promised to
look into future options.

At the government policy level, E-Commerce is touted as a panacea for the
economy.  Federal Minister of Industry John Manley is spearheading the
Canadian Electronic Commerce Strategy which includes privacy legislation,
cryptography policy and e-commerce test sites.  In addition, the Federal
government hosted the October OECD Ministerial Conference on Electronic
Commerce and appointed a high-powered Electronic Commerce Task Force.

Many initiatives are underway to make Canada the most wired country in
the world by the year 2,000, but these initiatives are mainly directed
towards increasing business competitiveness and increasing the potential
mass of online shoppers.  They don't reflect social needs.

All this activity contrasts sharply with the Federal government's
commitment to develop a Universal Access Policy by December, 1997.  Any
movement towards a Universal Access Policy  has disappeared.  Various
funding initiatives such as VolNet, Community Access Project (CAP) and
Urban CAP provide some initial seed funding to create access sites and
have helped many libraries secure Internet workstations.  However, the
lack of ongoing sustaining funding has meant that many access sites
disappear after their initial funding.  Many libraries have had to
re-direct funds from other budget items such as physical collections to
fund the ongoing costs of Internet access.

There is no question that libraries are provide the most important public
access to the Internet and are the social institution most likely to
provide some equalizing influence on access.  A recent Ekos Research
Associates survey for CLA showed that 79% of Canadians felt that public
libraries were appropriate public access sites.

Paradoxically, while more people use the Internet, the gap between the
information rich and information poor widens.  Like most of the new
entertainment and telecommunications packages, the marketing of increased
bandwidth and high speed access is targeted at the top 20-30% income
earners.

Earlier this gap was based on the ability to purchase a microcomputer,
the speed of the modem, and Internet Service Provider charges if a
community network was not used.  With the advent of multi-media, graphics
intensive Web sites, full-motion video and the marketing of ISBN, ADSL,
and cable @home at $30 - $40 per month to provide the bandwidth, low-
income individuals cannot hope to achieve comparable access.

Modern telecommunications is more like a transmission belt to individual
homes.  Both ADSL and the cable @Home packages provide 2-3 times as much
bandwidth into the home as out of the home.

Access continues to be confused with interaction and participation.
Issues such as the need for training of trainers and the public,
encouraging new voices in Internet content, recognition of the barriers
to access for women, minorities, the poor and the under educated have
received only token recognition.

Perhaps most ominously, government policy-makers and corporate
decision-makers see the implementation of information technology as a way
to reduce or eliminate the human component (worker).  Earlier arguments
favouring computer technology, in contrast to the current reality,
pointed to increased access to information, increased social
participation, improved quality of life and a shortened work week.

Many have seriously argued that the Internet would replace the skills of
librarians and teachers.  The education system is now under particular
pressure to introduce the benefits of computer enhanced instruction and
the teacher-less classroom despite the lack of strong empirical research
that demonstrates the educational benefits of computers over humans.

The theme of Information Rights Week, "Put People in the Picture'
highlights the humanistic tradition of libraries.  It speaks to our
belief in the richness and complexity of social life and the value of
individual development and fulfilment.  It values knowledge, wisdom,
culture, and democratic participation in society.  Putting People in the
Picture points to values outside the current emphasis on the market and
on information technology.  It rejects "dummying down" the learning,
educational, and knowledge creation process so it conforms to marketplace
profitability and the limits of current information technology.

As librarians, the Information Rights Week theme reminds us that
recognition of libraries  as Internet access points is but a small step
to assuring equal access to telecommunication and information resources
for the public.  Universal access does not exist, nor is there any
government support for it.  Equality of access recedes with each
corporate merger and marketplace strategies overwhelm the small pockets
of public space on the Internet.  As we lobby for short term capital
grants to introduce Internet or small digitization projects, we must be
active in the larger political picture.
 

Brian Campbell, February 1999