Canadian Government Trucking Generations of Scientific Data To the Dump 209
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.'"
This is goddamned appalling (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Seriously.
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You can't maintain an ideology built on premises that are designed to justify other premises of itself in the face of material evidence. The various hyper-conservatives around the English speaking world have decided(mostly in the space of 15 years) that eliminating the role of evidence is easier than shifting their positions a little bit.
The weird part to me is how it happened in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia all on pretty much the same time scale. I can't come up with any theories that don't seem
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Every dictatorial government in recent history has practised the art of "book burning". The current Conservative government is on a quest to stamp out science that doesn't match their policies. The environment, the poor, seniors, veterans and many are paying the price to "balance" the 2015 budget. Conveniently an election year.
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Only if they are quality checked after being digitised. Scans showing nothing but the holes in fan fold paper are common when scanning faint dot matrix printouts.
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Re:This is goddamned appalling (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is goddamned appalling (Score:5, Informative)
FTA: "A DFO scientist told the Star of recently trying to access several documents that were previously available in one of the closed libraries. They could not be found."
Re:This is goddamned appalling (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is goddamned appalling (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is goddamned appalling (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's a reason that they're dong it over the Christmas holidays and it isn't to get more publicity to brag about the digitizing.
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In 1000 years, the paper will still be there to tell its story if it is safely stored. Lets try that with digital media or format. I can't even do anything with data from 20 years ago. No disc reader, no software, no computer architecture capable of running the software (in some case this can be solved with emulators).
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under transparency, there is no "if" (Score:4)
What excuse does the Harper government have to burn first, ask "if" later?
Under transparency, there is no "if".
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These are copies that are being removed, there are two other libraries untouched.
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I'm wondering if "The people who use this research don’t have any say in what is being saved or tossed aside" should be read: "those old foggies that insist on paper copies of journals rather than electronic". They exist, at least they did in the early 2000's when I did RA work. Forcing people to learn electronic tools will help them find a much wider range of the relevant material far quicker.
Also another complaint: "The people who use this research don’t have any say in what is being saved or
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I agree. Part of it falls back to the archiving problem. How do you store your data for long-term recovery? Technology changes rapidly. If you had data stored on media from 30 years ago, you'd be wondering where to find a working reel to reel tape reader or floppy disk drive. Digital media degrades. All disks have a finite shelf-life. For giggles, when I still had a floppy drive laying around, I tried to copy an old version of Unixware. It was brand new still sealed box, that was always kept in
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We're aware of it, which means we're on to it.
I reckon, with projects like Wayback already operating (and already saving, among other things, my election results, which have since moved around a lot on the City Council's rubbish website, old company sites I've created, various iterations of my personal site, and some of my +5 comments here) that there's a chance this comment (if modded up!) WILL be available in 100 years' time.
If so, hello everyone! You're reading 100 year old bits and bytes! The real quest
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The Wayback machine (archive.org) is nice and all, but it doesn't guarantee longevity. Empires come and go, and things are lost to time. If archive.org loses it's funding, it could simply go away. It may be politically advantageous for such archives to disappear. Plenty of times in history, there has been mass destruction of records.
My mom is running into this following our family genealogy. Most family records for one line farther back than the mid 1400s are gone. A wealth of information has been l
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How much did the LHC cost versus how much practical and EXPLOITABLE knowledge did it give us? I'm not talking about pretty graphs and charts and "a greater understanding of subatomic particles and how the universe works". I mean real, useful knowledge that can be applied to industrial processes?.
(A few hundred year back:)
"Yeah, what is the use of stacking copper and zinc plates so you can make sparks? Why not invest in something useful, like making a better cartwheel or ways to make slaves last longer?"
You seem to forget that MOST inventions come from knowledge that, when discovered, at first seemed to be totally useless. When laser was invented, nobody had any use for it, and look where we are now.
Dissing elemental science just because you don't see any short-term use for it is just stupid and exp
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You may have been hearing about "sustainable fusion" for all of your life, but you've obviously not been letting much information penetrate into your skull if you think that it's got anything to do with the construction and continuing operation of the LHC.
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i have a mod stalker.
with people like...all the congressmen from Oklahoma ("global warming cant be real because God said so")...most of the house committee on science ("women's bodies have a way to prevent pregnancy from rape")...or Bachmann ("There is no proof Carbon Dioxide is bad for you. In fact, you need it, it's necessary for life.").... ...do you honestly think the anti science nuts in this country dont love this concept?
Sounds like Rainbows End. (Score:1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End
He who fails to learn from history... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is doomed to repeat it.
Does anyone else get the impression that we're on the downside of civilization?
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It's quebec, they have been marching steadily backwards for decades now.
Re: He who fails to learn from history... (Score:2)
Blame Canada!
Sorry... Couldn't resist.
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Sadly, for some number of years now.
Re:He who fails to learn from history... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Very true.
But in my lifetime I've watched some rights and freedoms erode, I've watched a general trend towards people being anti-science and willfully stupid, I've watched what I can only describe as a troubling rise in the role of religion in law, and governments increasingly just focused on expediency instead of the law.
These are not things I consider to be positive trends.
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Which would be January 1914. And they were right [wikipedia.org].
The fact is, history has ups and downs. The West is currently on a slippery slope towards doom. It might end up in a disaster of epic proportions like the game of one-upmanship did 100 years ago, or it can be halted, like the Cuban missile crisis was. But right now, governments and corporations are competing in which can increase surveillance faster, political decisions with f
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Only for the 99%
Re:He who fails to learn from history... (Score:5, Funny)
... is doomed to repeat it.
Does anyone else get the impression that we're on the downside of civilization?
It's hard to learn from history when the records of it have been shredded.
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It's hard to learn from history when the records of it have been shredded.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-- George Orwell (1984)
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Yup. We didn't learn from electing conservatives last time (Lyin' Brian), so we gave them a majority again. Maybe it'll stick this time.
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I think many people have, throughout the history of civilization, gotten that impression, yes.
And, one imagines, most especially when their particular civilisations were in decline. Not that we would know what that feels like.
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... is doomed to repeat it.
A far better quotation is:
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The quote is:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it -- George Santayana
Ah! But the real question is which song was it from: She's Not There, Oye Como Va, or Black Magic Woman?
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Lots of smoke, little fire? (Score:4, Informative)
Clearly there is a lot of smoke and hot air being generated, not sure if there is really much of a fire.
That’s no way to treat a library, scientists say [thestar.com]
Their internationally renowned collections have been transferred to the two federal aquatic libraries that remain, in Sidney, B.C., and in Dartmouth, N.S. ...
Gail Shea, minister of fisheries and oceans, accuses critics of spreading “serious misinformation.” Her department insists there will be “no changes to the size or scope of the collection.”
In a statement emailed to the Star by her spokesperson, Shea said no more than a dozen nonemployees visited each library annually. And more than 95 per cent of documents provided to users were done so over the Internet.
“It’s not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people actually used,” Shea says, explaining the government’s main reason for consolidating the collections. The closings will save $443,000 in 2014-2015, according to government estimates. .....
The research, Ayles argues, “is effectively lost because it’s no longer accessible. It’s like stuff in your grandfather’s basement.”
So the data hasn't disappeared, it's now in another library where it is less convenient to access.
Re:Lots of smoke, little fire? (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. Even the former Torie Minister of Fisheries says this is nuts along with most every other decision this government has made when it comes to the fisheries. This government has exactly one aim, to sell tar, I mean oil, gotta be politically correct.
They've pissed away the budget surplus while claiming to be conservative and much better fiscal managers. They've sold or allowed to be sold much of the tar, whoops I mean bitumen sands to China. They import foreign workers at a never before seen rate, not to do IT as they don't believe in it but to work at McDonalds and Tim Hortons and force wages even lower while Chinese investors drive the cost of living up. They treat a 38% win as an overwhelming mandate and cry about how it is undemocratic for the majority to vote against them and prorogue Parliament whenever they feel like it because, you know, democracy.
Sorry I don't have any assistants to help me get links, I'm in Canada so only have a dial-up connection.
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They've sold or allowed to be sold much of the tar, whoops I mean bitumen sands to China.
So?
Do you have a preference as to where Canada sells its petroleum products?
Keystone XL was mostly about getting Canadian oil to the Gulf of Mexico for easier shipment to China.
Canada is also looking at making deals with India for oil sales.
I imagine you have and opinion on that as well?
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Keystone XL was mostly about getting Canadian oil to the Gulf of Mexico for easier shipment to China.
No. It was for easier shipment to high volume refineries. Now afterward, I suppose they could sell it in China or they could sell it in the largest oil market in the world which these refineries happen to be in the middle of.
Re:Lots of smoke, little fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't selling bitumen to China, though if we have to buy gasoline produced from that bitumen from China it is a problem. The problem is China owning the majority of the bitumen sands. And yes if India was buying up all the oil producing land and companies in Alberta I'd have a problem with that.
The other problem I have is selling raw product instead of adding value here. Even the Keystone pipeline was bad that way as it leaves us dependent on US refineries on the Gulf coast.
We're a major oil producing nation and gas is $1.30 a litre and the local refinery (the last one left) which is located at the end of a pipeline (Kinder Morgans) has to buy foreign oil as the Chinese have already claimed our production.
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"... selling raw product instead of adding value..."
Mod parent up. Inco is another example of this. There's a pattern of this government and short term thinking. They're messing with the housing market, selling rights to resources and resource extraction companies, crushing scientific debate and discipline.
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They ship to China via the Gulf of Mexico? Are there no ports in BC, Washington, Oregon, or California?
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They're not selling the raw material to China. They're shipping it to the Gulf coast where there are oil refineries and easy shipping to China. I imagine that the economic effect for Canada is about the same as it will be for the U.S.: our gas prices will increase once the tar sands begin getting turned into fuel for export. We get to deal with the ugly side effects of using the damned stuff (fouled water suppplies from spills, increases in cancer downwind from the refineries, etc.)
This has been in the new
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And how much do you trust electronic storage? In my 15 years of computer use I have had a hell of a lot more hard drives fail than books. Put them in shipping crates and leave them some where dry. Even if they sit there for a thousand years they may still be useful to some one else after we are all gone. No one thinks about the REALLY long game.
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Even if they sit there for a thousand years they may still be useful to some one else after we are all gone. No one thinks about the REALLY long game.
I've read quite a bit of reasearch that suggests dumps packed so tight that nothing in them decomposes...
So a dump might well be the best place for them.
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In a statement emailed to the Star by her spokesperson...
OK, who do you trust? The spokesperson for a minister with no scientific background and who has no idea what actually happens on the ground, or the scientists who have spent their entire careers working for below-market pay just because they love the pursuit of knowledge?
And come on, a savings of $443k a year for a federal library with over a hundred years of data? That paltry savings is just a drop in the bucket for the federal budget. That's the cost of around five people per year, when it probably cost h
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Smoke & mirrors on user statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [thetyee.ca] supported by our tax dollars.)
From The Tyee [thetyee.ca]'s December 23 story on the topic, "What Driving Chaotic Dismantling of Canada's Science Libraries" [thetyee.ca]: 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."
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The Tyee article [thetyee.ca] you link to does paint a very different picture, but I also have to wonder how even handed it is given some bits like the passage below:
Many scientists, including Hutchings and world famous water ecologist David Schindler, compared the government's concerted attacks on environmental science to the rise of fascism and the total alignment of state and corporate interests in 1930s Europe.
"You look at the rise of certain political parties in the 1930s," noted Hutchings, "and have to ask how could that happen and how did they adopt such extreme ideologies so quickly, and how could that happen in a democracy today?"
Fascists? Really?
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Fascists? Really?
Really. Instead of caring about things like human rights and serving the people of Canada, now the government only serves [some] businesses. A good example is diplomacy where we've historically pushed for more human rights. Well no more. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-new-foreign-affairs-vision-shifts-focus-to-economic-diplomacy/article15624653/ [theglobeandmail.com]
This government is also doing the usual fascist things such as pushing nationalism, law and order where the idea is to expand the police state a
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No not really. You've successfully used three different sources two of which are known for excessively strong anti-conservative leanings, for the sake of being anti-conservative. Both the CBC & G&M have an axe to grind. The CBC doesn't even try to hide it's bias, while the latter it's a thin veneer. As for foreign radicals going after the pipelines, oilsands, and all the rest? You bet and you'd best believe it happens. I was in sour gas alley, and you might remember the case about the guy who
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The primary source of information here are the scientists who are up in arms about this, not the news agencies who are reporting on it.
When the scientists say that they cannot find the papers they went looking for anymore, I'm going to believe them on that, not the government.
Unless you're saying that all those scientists are also anti-conservative. But then again, at this point, they kinda have a reason to be.
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which are known for excessively strong anti-conservative leanings
I'm always amused when conservatives appeal to the "they're just biased" defense when defending their own constructed world of spin. Saying that the CBC has an obvious liberal bias flies in the face of academic media analysis, but I'm sure you think the universities are "just biased" too. And you have the truth.
It seems that Idiot America [amazon.com] has come to Canada.
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So you don't think that us Americans have any interest at all in plans for the transportation of toxic tar sands across our land and aquifers? I'd be more riled up if American environmental groups were not supporting their counterparts in Canada.
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No not really. You've successfully used three different sources two of which are known for excessively strong anti-conservative leanings, for the sake of being anti-conservative. Both the CBC & G&M have an axe to grind.
The Globe and Mail endorsed the Conservatives in the last three elections. So I'm not sure in what circles they are known for disliking them.
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Fascists? Really?
fascists were book burners too.
The article is just saying that that is Hutching's opinion.
Re:Lots of smoke, little fire? - Yes, fire indeed. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually this is a BIG deal.
The purpose of these department of fisheries and oceans (DFO) libraries was not for the general public to access them - they were for government scientists in these research centres be able able to proper research and be able to do studies on climate/fish-habitat change over time, which includes looking up past materials and reports. For a "non-employee" to access, these government libraries actually requires a fairly lengthy application process.
In the past, governments have relied on these scientists to give them accurate reports on what is happening in the environment, so the government could make informed policy decisions based on facts. Without good research materials this is very hard to do. (or maybe that's the point...)
One of the greatest losses will be "grey materials" - reports that are hard to find because they were never "officially published", and may not exist in any other library. Or they may exist elsewhere, but it requires a lengthy wait to locate the materials and have them shipped assuming the other library will lend them out. Reports are now coming in that very few of the materials are actually being scanned, and most are just being thrown out.
The move is especially disappointing because the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (a politician) is saying this move will save "$443,000" over one year. This is the same federal government that spent $9 million dollars last year on advertising to make people feel better about their cell phone bills.
And, yes I'm Canadian. It's not a good situation.
(name withheld)
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If it's all just "alarmism", then why get rid of the evidence?
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Inaccessible? Because they suddenly don't have the Internet in Canada, which according to the article, is how 95% of the documents in that library were being requested anyway? Seems to me they've
Not 95% of documents (Score:5, Informative)
95% of requests were over the Internet, rather than in person - no surprise there, it's more accessible. We have no idea how many of the documents were available to be accessed this way, though.
No wait, we do. FTFA:
In late December, as outrage over the library closings grew, her department posted answers to 19 questions online [dfo-mpo.gc.ca]. It gave the total size of the print collection as 660,000 items. Some 30,000 departmental publications are available online and more documents are being digitized. But many books can’t be digitized due to copyright laws.
So only 4.5% of documents are available online (assuming departmental publications == print collection, which I'm not sure about). Too soon to start throwing out entire collections, it seems - if ever.
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Heh, angry much? Calm down, man. I couldn't even decipher your point, there was so much RAGE in the way.
Our leader (Score:1)
Should have called Google first! (Score:2)
Google could have archived all that data like no one else on the planet. Canadian universities and libraries should have called them in before the obviously incompetent people showed up (or maybe save places not visited yet). Reminds me of the phrase: "We are from the government and we are here to help you."
Re:Should have called Google first! (Score:4, Interesting)
As if the government would give any warning, there's a reason it was done over the holidays. The PMO (Prime Ministers Office) has an iron grip on the government and nothing is said or done without their say so. This from a government that ran on being open and transparent and more democratic and yet make Obama look very open and non-authoritarian.
Anthropology (Score:2)
I think they've already named all the spiders.
A war. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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The single-minded focus on the (tar sands) economy has demonstrated that the current Canadian Government has lost touch with what's important to the Canadian people.
Re:A war. (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [canada.ca] 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.
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I wonder with all the recent NSA reveals if somebody has finally realized just how extremely stupid that decision was. Sigh, it's not easy being the younger retarded brother (not mexico, we both pick on her) constantly being taken advantage of by the bully brother.
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Did you miss the part where the scientists who tried to access some of the papers that were claimed to be digitized found out that they weren't (and are gone now)?
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Welcome to the downward spiral my friend. You can take a seat right behind the US.
"digitized" (Score:2)
Stephen Harper's Tory government is claiming that the documents have been digitized
320x200 jpegs stored on 5 1/4" floppies is good enough for anyone!
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Stephen Harper's Tory government is claiming that the documents have been digitized
320x200 jpegs stored on 5 1/4" floppies is good enough for anyone!
Single sided or Double sided? I still have my C64 disk notcher for the single sided drives...
FOI (Score:2)
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I guess you missed the whole part where this story is not taking place in the United States...
The documents have been digitized (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's all ones and zeros now.
Harper - 1
Science - 0
An enemy of the people . (Score:5, Insightful)
Harper has GOT to go . He's not only a foe to science but an enemy of the People of Canada.
Digitised? (Score:2)
and the mistakes weren't picked up when they could be easily corrected either... no double checking was being done of the scanner settings or the operator feeding it in before the button was pressed to start scanning.... It wasn't until the digitised copies were being proof r
Utter B*** S*** - Blame Apathetic Scientists! (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's the story:
a) "the people" insist the government to scale back on spending, so they do.
b) departments cannot get $$ to build additional storage and so have to scale back holdings
c) the task is passed to the librarians who themselves have been subject to staff cuts. Why? Because a scientific department will cut 'superfluous staff', like librarians, before they cut 'necessary' staff, like scientists.
d) the librarians left have to scan what they must (can't scan it all because of $$/time limits) and
But they haven't digitized the material (Score:5, Informative)
They've only said that they have. I realize that it's considered poor form around here to read the article before commenting but...
Re:But they haven't digitized the material (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure they digitized it. Now was that face up or down on the flatbed scanner? I can never remember.
Re:Wouldn't be an issue.. (Score:5, Informative)
It does seem sad that digitizing books leads to destruction of physical copies. I hope they are earnestly being offered to other libraries beforehand.
The point here is that the books are _not_ being digitized, and it is the _only_ copies which are being destroyed [thetyee.ca]. This isn't the public library getting rid of their extra copies of "Fifty Shades of Gray", it's decades of scientific data being sent to dumpsters or outright burned. In many cases the destruction has been done without any attempt at identifying or recording the books being destroyed, so we may not even be able to know exactly what has been affected.
Re:Wouldn't be an issue.. (Score:5, Insightful)
not to mention the fact that a lot of this research was paid for by the tax payer. This is knowledge that Canadian citizens have a right to access
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The point here is that the books are _not_ being digitized,
Make them prove that it has been digitized, and/or that copies exist elsewhere. In the US, any Tom Dick or Harry can get a restraining order, I'm sure there must be similar capabilities in Canada.
But the point is we only have some hand wringing allegations from one source that claims they are not digitized. Lets sort that out factually before we get all maudlin about it.
It costs money to store them (Score:4)
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Well, there is a flip side to that too [youtube.com]
Yep (Score:2)
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I agree, the idea of the summary titling is offensive. And not just to trucking! Notice the use of the "dumps"?
What is wrong with dumps? I take dumps all the time! Probably about one per day, but sometimes a bit more t
Re:I don't normally bitch about headlines but, (Score:4, Funny)
what does this mean, "Trucking Generations of Scientific Data To the Dump" ?
Tricky. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it means that they're taking recorded scientific data, sticking it in a truck and then driving that truck to a dump. In truth they might actually be putting the data in a skip (or dumpster for you North Americans) then lifting the dumpster on to the back of a truck then driving that truck to the dump, rather than loading the data directly into the truck. The headline is admittedly unclear in this aspect.
Presumably after the trucking (with or without a skip) they then empty the truck/skip into the dump rather than return it to the depot full of data or simply park the truck (with or without a skip or possibly just the skip alone) at the dump in perpetuity. I admit that this part is implied but I feel it is not an unreasonable inference.
Is trucking something to somewhere meant to be a pejorative
Yes. It would be much more acceptable if the data was delivered to the dump by an army of bike couriers. Then there would be no complaints whatsoever.
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D'ont be an idiot , he's throwing all environmental data , studies and work that shows how polluting the petroleum industry is.Every shred of data that shows the effects of pollution , all the data that would allow the future governments to make decisions about the activities of companies versus keeping the environment life sustainable is going etc .. Do not be naive .. he is an enemy of the people serving his rich industry masters.