Canadian Government Trucking Generations of Scientific Data To the Dump

sandbagger writes "Canada's science documents are literally being taken to the dump. The northern nation's scientific community has been up in arms over the holidays as local scientific libraries and records offices were closed and their shelves — some of which contained century old data — emptied into dumpsters. Stephen Harper's Tory government is claiming that the documents have been digitized. The scientists say, 'The people who use this research don’t have any say in what is being saved or tossed aside.'"

Comments

A war.

[hendrikboom]

There's a war on science in this country. It's a disaster. And it'll continue at least until the next election, which may be years away. I'm ashamed of what's happening to my country.

-- hendrik, a Canadian.

Re:A war.

[Wulfrunner]

Saving $500K/year AND getting people better access to information is a good thing.

Except that number is manufactured. Did you know that many governmental institutions rent space from themselves? For example, the library is in a government owned building, but the DFO has to pay premium rent for each square foot of space to one of these other Canadian government departments. Then there are the heating and power costs. Although the space has to be heated anyways regardless of its use, they factor that into the costs of operating that library. Do you think they employ an army of librarians? Or maids to dust the books? Or exterminators to hunt bookworms? No, the library is a storage space and if we have anything in Canada it's tons of space. The $500k figure might just be for rent, power, and heating most of which they will continue to pay to themselves even after the library is gone. You really have to have worked as a bureaucrat in Canada to understand this madness.

Secondly, if you have ever tried to get access to information, scientific or otherwise, from any Canadian federal, provincial, or territorial government website, you know that it is a crapshoot. Sometimes you hit a good site (or at least one that isn't terrible), and then for some reason they feel the need to change it next month and make it terrible so that it fits the nonsensical shitty guidelines constantly under development by CIOs and lawyers (of all people) who are completely disconnected from the reality of how their clients use their sites. Better access to information? They should have shipped it all to Google. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where those dumpsters went after all, because our bureaucrats are wicked sneaky sometimes.

Smoke & mirrors on user statistics

[ancarett]

Don't believe Shea's claims about the usage numbers. Those stats reflect people who requested help in using the libraries - relatively rare with specialized research collections where a host of users just get to work in what used to be showpiece collections. Many of these users came from the DFO institutions but also from outside, including academics, people in industry and other government employees. The provision of materials over the internet? Largely had to be digitized from library collections. Now we'll have neither the collections nor the librarians to do so.

The hasty closures and haphazard deaccessioning of these collections that represent substantial investments of taxpayer money over decades? Entirely the opposite of what conservatives claim to value - careful custody of a nation's heritage and citizen investment. (Canada's federal government is in the control of the Progressive Conservative party, hard at work muzzling the scientists supported by our tax dollars.)

From The Tyee's December 23 story on the topic, "What Driving Chaotic Dismantling of Canada's Science Libraries": Moreover records on library usage were overtly biased and based on who asked for help, said Burton Ayles, a retired director general for DFO who lives in Winnipeg and has used the Freshwater Institute library frequently.

"Most people that come in to the library don't have to request help. They just use the material. Just look at any regular library."

Re:This is goddamned appalling

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking idiot, NOTHING has been digitized. They are CLAIMING they are digitized, they have not actually BEEN digitized.

It's a cover story to allow the destruction of records that will allow drilling/mining/fracking companies to have completely uncontested applications for operating in the Canadian wilderness, because there will be no environmental records in which to make a negative assessment about the impact of such operations. That's the whole point. Erase the past to clear the way for the future.

Please use what's left of your pot-addled brain and actually THINK, for once in your life. If you read the facts on this story you'd know NOTHING IS BEING PRESERVED.