Re: writeup - WAS Re: montréal meetup

Posted by Olivier Charbonneau on May 05, 2006; 8:49pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/writeup-WAS-Re-montreal-meetup-tp523p559.html

Greetings,

I am SO sorry I missed the meeting on Wednesday, I was retained at work. Librarians at Concordia U are also faculty, which means we have to help run the library AND "publish or perish" - great fun when you know WAY too much about arcane topics like copyright law :)

Now, I wanted to bring to the table the possibility of getting the Library world on board. In the past 2 years, I have worked hard to create structures within the Canadian Library Association and other groups so that members could propose some policy orientations. For example, please see www.infocommons.ca We are hosting a pre-conference (seminar) in Ottawa on June 14th on digital
copyright (http://www.infocommons.ca/wiki/index.php?title=2006_Pre-Conference). Registration deadline is May 15th for those interested in attending...

Mon initiative francophone est www.culturelibre.ca - maintenant juste un carnet virtuel, mais je songe à développer le concept...

Issues related to obtaining gvmt info and net neutrality (census website and Linux) are things right up the library community's alley. I can bring these topics to CLA and others, to try to build a position for the organisation. It may take a LONG time (months) before this position makes it through the decision process (committees, council, etc.), but my role is to see these through. If you can work towards a "declaration" or "statement of position" or "open letter" (en français aussi, parce que là, c'est pas que ça coûte cher à traduire, mais ça prends du temps et tout est une question de temps quand on est millitant), other advocates within organisations (like me) can "run with the ball" locally...

My two cents :)

À très bientôt j'espère !
Olivier



Grignon, Alain wrote:

My comments on the points listed below (for future reference, try using numbers so its easier to comment appropriately) :)

1. Difficult to find funding for this sort of thing but not impossible
2. I am a member of the Open Source GeoSpatial Foundation which has a small group of europeans in the same/similar boat as those in CivicAccess. Might be a potential ally to help promote access to GeoSpatial information. I've heard of reports written on the issue from the States as well as Canada which could help as well.
3. Before we go off and spend a lot of energy on creating a logo to identify ourselves, I think we would be better served to spend some time getting better organized, develop a charter or vision, specific objectives. Otherwise we risk getting dragged into too many battles that don't really help our cause in the end. Case in point, if Civic Access is mainly about gaining access to geospatial data from government sources, let us not get caught up in other things such as PDF vs. OpenDoc, lets concentrate all our efforts on the one thing we wish to accomplish. Doing so will help give more credibility to what we are doing and will also prevent CivicAccess from being labeled as a bunch of wyners (is that spelled right?? My french is showing :)).

Just my thoughts


Alain Grignon
Landslide GIS Specialist / Spécialiste SIG en glissements de terrains
Geological Survey of Canada / Commission géologique du Canada
601 Booth st. / 601 rue Booth
Ottawa, Ont.
Tel: [phone]
http://landslides.nrcan.gc.ca/


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] 
Sent: May 3, 2006 8:46 PM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] writeup - WAS Re: montréal meetup

That was fun.

People that attended:

Stephane Guidoin, Daniel Haran (Halifax), Dory Kornfield (geography masters + vol from WirelessToronto), Hugh (audio liberation - Librivox and Collectik), Ella (local blogger + flashmob instigator), Andrew someone (project manager + programmer).

Robin, Oliver and Judyth couldn't make it.

We thought it would be a really good idea to support Daniel's lawsuit against his city (Daniel is trying to get information about location of bus stops from Halifax).  Before the case went to court we could try to get as many people as possible across Canada to ask for that
info from their own city).  Project name: The Bus Stops Here!   ;-)

For the record, i'm not sure that steph think's it's a great idea. 
;-)  We might have to re-think it.

Other points:
-how can we make sure that this type of work (informing citizens) is funded / resourced?
-on the short term : building on small successes instead of tackling large projects -how can we coordinate with similar projects, potential allies -develop the philosophical/political/economic arguments so the rest of us can just copy-paste in our discussions, presentations, etc.
-branding - a civicaccess button/logo?  so that bloggers and sites like howdtheyvote could show support.  similar to creativecommons logo/button -use the wiki to tell some stories about problems around lack of access.  give examples -much aggrement that we all hate pdf's. with a deep and vengeful rage.
-looking forward to getting RSS feeds from howdtheyvote to put on local blogs.

Very fun - and suprisingly productive.

Mike

On 5/2/06, Michael Lenczner [hidden email] wrote:
  

1) most importantly - je croit que j'ai réussi à mon examen français.
:-)  Seulement parce que c'est un cours a un niveau très bas.

2) Le meetup va etre mercredi entre 17hrs-19hrs.  On va etre au moins
6:  Daniel, Robin, Hugh, Dory, Stephane (G), Judyth et moi.

L'endroit c'est Laika - 4040 St. Laurent.  Coin Duluth.

http://www.laikamontreal.com/

If you need to call for any reason, my cell is 514-708-5112.

mike

On 4/30/06, Michael Lenczner [hidden email] wrote:
    

Daniel (Haran) est içi à Montréal alors j'ai pensée que nous 
devrions profiter pour faire un premiére Montréal Meetup.  Si vous 
étes interéssés, svp de me contacter hor-liste et on va trouver un 
temp on commune pour se reunir.  Je sais que tout-le-monde est 
pressé, alors j'imagine qu'on va seulement étre 4-5 persons, même si 
on est plusieres à Montreal.

The location is definitely going to be laika, though ;-)

And wish me luck on my french exam tomorrow (2pm).  It seems that 
I'm going to need it.

(J'espère que nous aurons beaucoup de discussion en français sur 
cette liste. Particulièrement si si le sujet est lié au Québec.)

mike

      

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