Communiqué from LIAC following the meeting of 13 March 2008
Community Partnership Funds and Broadband Challenge Funds
LIAC agreed that future funding needs to be sustainable, scalable, and sharable and strongly advocates for any remaining funding to be used to ensure the fund’s sustainability and/or to evaluate learnings from the projects.
Digital Broadcasting: Review of Regulation and Broadcasting and New Digital Media: Future of Content Regulation
LIAC discussed the proposed regulation in depth and has submitted a response to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s discussion document. There was considerable concern about the mismatch between the discussion paper and both the Digital Strategy and the Digital Content Strategy. A copy of the submission is available here.
Identity Management
Representatives from the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Education presented to LIAC on current developments in regard to federated identity within the Government sector. This issue will be an important one in the future in terms of trusted access to online information in NZ, particularly government-held information.
Public Libraries and protection of “public space” in the digital realm
Commissioners discussed the potential benefits that might be provided by public library legislation and agreed to commission further research on the protection and enhancement of public space, including public libraries.
Prison library service
LIAC was pleased to hear the National Library and the Department of Corrections will be joining forces soon to improve library services in New Zealand prisons. Although aware of the issues surrounding Internet access in prisons, LIAC notes the Aotearoa People’s Network is a managed network, and could potentially be provided to prisons as a way of resolving some Internet access issues.
Aotearoa People’s Network
The managed service provided by the National Library of New Zealand has been extremely well received by the public libraries and communities in which the Aotearoa People’s Network is being installed. LIAC considers it to be a good model for community/public/private sector partnerships.
The cost of broadband remains an issue. The Aotearoa People’s Network costs each subscribing public library $1500 a month in broadband fees. This is an unsustainable cost for small libraries and their communities; LIAC notes a similar situation applies in the United Kingdom where broadband funding is not guaranteed.
Now the infrastructure is in place, with more public libraries around New Zealand scheduled to join the network, the next step is to develop a community ‘content’ repository to preserve and share local stories and to create exciting new content.
LIAC congratulates the National Library’s Aotearoa People’s Network team on an excellent start to what is hoped will be a nationwide network.
Digital NZ
The National Library briefed LIAC on the set up of Digital New Zealand. LIAC fully endorses the aims and objectives of Digital New Zealand but is concerned about funding priorities for digital content in New Zealand. The disparity between the amount of funding allocated for free-to-air broadcasting material and that provided for the creation of other digital content (eg Digital New Zealand’s digitisation programme) seems incompatible with the digital age where content takes many forms and format and media boundaries are fluid and dynamic.
LIAC believes a broader approach should be taken to the Digital New Zealand governance structure and proposes that a broadcasting perspective be added to the newly established Steering Committee.
The Government’s ‘Coming home’ theme to mark the 90th commemoration of Armistice Day is an excellent opportunity to utilise the collections of galleries, libraries, archives and museums for public benefit. Digitising content around such a strong theme will undoubtedly capture people’s imaginations and spark creativity.
Brian Pauling
LIAC Chair