The Centre for Internet and Society
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Digital Humanities and New Contexts of Digital Archival Practice in India
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities-and-new-contexts-of-digital-archival-practice-in-india
<b>Puthiya Purayil Sneha attended and presented at a conference on 'The Arts, Knowledge, and Critique in the Digital Age in India: Addressing Challenges in the Digital Humanities' organised by Sahapedia and Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad on November 28-29, 2019.</b>
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<h4>Conference: <a class="external-link" href="https://www.digitalhumanities.in/">Website</a> (external)</h4>
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<h3><strong>Digital humanities and new contexts of digital archival practice in India</strong></h3>
<p><em>This is the abstract of Sneha's presentation on digital humanities in India and transitions in digitization and cultural archival practices in the postcolonial context. The presentation was part of a session titled 'Community and Knowledge.'</em></p>
<p>The last few decades have seen several large-scale efforts in digitalization across various sectors in India. In space of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) in particular, there have been several initiatives undertaken by state institutions, along with individual and collaborative efforts to digitize and make cultural heritage and educational content available online. The growth of new areas of research and creative practice like digital humanities has also brought to the fore the need for digital corpora, including new technologies and methods of research as ways to engage with cultural content through the development of digital pedagogies and creative practice.</p>
<p>Many of these questions are located in long-spanning efforts in digitization and digital literacy more broadly, which are still fraught with challenges of access, usage and context. While digitization and archival practice form a significant aspect of the discourse on digital humanities, there still exist a number of anxieties around its practice. Especially in the case of community-led efforts, such as archiving oral histories or GLAM initiatives with collaborative knowledge platforms like Wikimedia, challenges of the digital divide are persistent, reflecting also a larger politics around the growth and sustenance of cultural heritage projects and the humanities and arts more broadly. Drawing upon excerpts from work on mapping the field of DH in India, and ongoing conversations on the digital transition in cultural archives, this presentation seeks to understand the practices and politics of digitization and archival work today, and how it continues to inform the growth of fields like digital humanities in India.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities-and-new-contexts-of-digital-archival-practice-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities-and-new-contexts-of-digital-archival-practice-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppDigital KnowledgeResearchArchivesDigital HumanitiesResearchers at Work2019-12-18T10:32:07ZBlog Entry 35th SCCR: CIS Statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives
<b>Anubha Sinha, attending the 35th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (“SCCR”) at Geneva from 13 November, 2017 to 18 November, 2017, made this statement on the agenda for Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives on behalf of CIS on Day 3, 15 November, 2017. </b>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society, in agreement among
others, believes that an international binding instrument to govern exceptions
and limitations for libraries and archives is critical.</p>
<p>In several countries, their set of limitations and exceptions
do not serve all intended beneficiaries in a comparably equal manner. For
example, for the work of archives in India, there is very little that allows
such institutions to do in terms of making copies for preservation and
noncommercial dissemination. India, like many other countries here has a rich
cultural heritage – and doing any activities with old audiovisual material
involves identifying rightholders and clearing rights connected to orphan works and traditional
cultural expressions as well. Imagine the onerous task of an archive of
clearing all these rights in connection with appropriate agencies, and of
course clearing additional permissions from authors and performers. In our research, we discovered that most archives in India miserably fail on this front, causing valuable material
being locked in storage rooms for decades.</p>
<p>Needless to say, accessibility to this national wealth of knowledge
in archives also supports the mission of libraries, museums and educational
institutions and researchers.</p>
<p>So Mr. Chair, we strongly believe that an update to the
international copyright system via a binding instrument would serve many
countries well. It would empower all countries to fill in such deficiencies in
relation to libraries, archives, educational and research institutions, museums
and persons with disabilities.</p>
<p>Thank you, Mr. Chair.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaWIPOArchivesAccess to KnowledgeLimitations & Exceptions2017-11-15T13:35:02ZBlog Entry34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives
<b>Observers made the following statements on the agenda of limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives on 3rd May 2017. </b>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://www.ifla.org/">International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA): </a></strong><br />Thank you, Mr. Chair. We congratulate you
as leaders of body and looks forward to working with you to achieve the goals
of the in the interests of the national copyright system. We thank the Secretariat for
their hard work and IFLA is proud to have attended sessions of the SCCR
for many years and gratified that Member States understand and support the role
of libraries, archives and museums in promoting knowledge and the understanding
of diverse cultures.</p>
<p>As the U.S. states and its principles
document SCCR/26/8, exceptions and limitations facilitate the public service
role of libraries and are executives maintaining the balance between the rights
of authors and larger public interest, particularly education, research, and
access to information that is essential in today's society. But that balance
has eroded over time as rights holders have promoted fell ashes notion that
copyright is primarily or only about protection of rights not the public good.
In a world where information is increasingly borderless, as borderless as
broadcast signals, the idea that issues related to access to information are
local as one delegate astonishingly stated earlier this week is really
incomprehensible and misguided. This is not to say, however, that local or
national action is not needed as one element in the equation of access to
information. In this limited sense, we agree that the exchange of national
experiences in this body over the past several years has been helpful as have
been the studies commissioned by WIPO from Professor Kenneth Crews which
demonstrated the wide variation in exceptions and limitations existing in
SCCR's Member States, including their absence in numerous countries. We applaud
WIPO for commissioning these studies and urge that the Secretariat build on the
studies produced by professor cruise to develop a regularly updated searchable
database of exceptions and limitations for libraries, archives and museums to
be accessible across borders so that legislators and citizens who do not attend
these sessions can easily learn from other's experience on an ongoing basis. We
further recommend that SCCR capitalize on the past sharing of Member States'
national experiences and the suggested approaches in the Chair's chart of
SCCR/33 by creating a draft law on exceptions and limitations for libraries,
archives and museums in collaboration with all stakeholders so that there will
be practical outcomes for recent discussions in this body. Such a draft law
would draw on the committee's past discussions on the subject but not be
binding or prejudice in any way the outcome of the committee's own work. IFLA stands ready to work with its colleagues in the archival and museum communities
as well as with rights holders delegates to SCCR and the Secretariat to achieve
this objective. As for our recommendations or reactions to the Chair's final
chart from SCCR/33, IFLA supports this and we urge the Chair's chart be upped as a working document and certainly to the qua as an outcome of SCCR35. Finally
in response to the proposal by the Delegation of Argentina, SCCR/33/4, we hope
that the committee will request the Secretariat to prepare a study on issues
related to limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives and museums and a
cross-border context including digital uses. We are grateful to the Member
States that have placed and maintained limitations and exceptions for libraries
and archives on the SCCR agenda and look forward to continuing these
discussions. These outcomes will affect access to information and knowledge for
people throughout the world. Thank you, Mr. Chair.</p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="http://www2.archivists.org/">Society of American Archivists:</a> <br /></strong>Thank you, Mr. Chair, I will try to be
brief. The Society of American Archivists, North America's largest professional
archival organisation looks forward to working with you and your Vice Chairs.
Our members manage billions of primary source works from across the global. SAA
believes in the importance of WIPO's work because copyright is central to the
mission of archivists. Archivists collect and preserve all types of creative
works for one reason only, use. Most archived works, however, have never been
in commerce, but people globally need them to maintain their culture, identity,
protect Human Rights and support innovation through new creative works. If such
works cannot be made available digitally, however, and across borders, they
might as well not exist. Archivists and librarians are conscientious about
copyright, but sometimes strict adherence to the law conflicts with our
collections and our mission. For example, a 1970's collection of over 120
interviews of legendary jazz musicians are available for on site study in the
archives of the U.S. research library, but, their general usefulness has been
hobbled by unbalanced copyright law because the original copyright assignment
mentioned neither derivative works nor the yet to be invented Internet. As a
result, risk averse librarians and lawyers were unwilling to allow zing tall
accessibility of the interviews. Although jazz cannot thrive without taking
risks, an archivist's obligation to the future requires that we minimize risk.
That's why we need reasonable exceptions to deal with the streams ambiguity
inherent in our collections. Copyright is already perceived to be under attack.
Can WIPO afford to torn away allies such as archivists? We have a very positive
public approval rating from the very people that you need to reach. To keep
archivists on board the development of exceptions for archives must remain on
SCCR's agenda. To this end the committee's work should continue based on the
previous Chair's chart and that chart should become a working document for the
committee. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Centre for Internet and Society</strong>: <br />Thank you, Mr. Chair. CIS works on issues of access to knowledge and other digital
rights in India. I would like to share with you my experience which highlights
the difficulty of building digital archives in India. Mr. Chair, earlier last
year the government of India embarked upon the important project of digitizing
the cultural audiovisual material stored in government and private collections to store material for preservation purposes,
and set up a virtual network of these repositories to offer online access. My
organization has been assisting them in this crucial public service mission. These works are oral traditions, dance,
music, theatrical practices, cultural practices – all of which lie largely
inaccessible and languishing in several small and large collections in India.
Since, the Indian copyright Act does not contain an exception for the purposes
of preservation by an archive; the entire project has suffered high costs in
terms of money and time. Money, because the project had to get expensive legal
assistance to set up processes to obtain rights clearance from all the
performers who were a part of the works and copyright holders- some of which
are orphan works, thereby compounding the problem. Further, partnering
organizations also expressed legitimate fears of supplying their works, in case
of a potential copyright and related rights violation that could implicate them
with civil/criminal liability.</p>
<p>In such a scenario, for the benefit of other states to
update their standards corresponding to this international legal instrument as
well, it would indeed be useful to adopt the proposals mentioned in the document <a class="external-link" href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_26/sccr_26_3.pdf">SCCR/26/3</a> that
address these issues, and others. Thank you.</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ica.org/en"><strong>International Council of Archives</strong>:</a><br />Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And the ICA congratulates you on your election and that of your Vice Chairs and we look forward to working with you. Archival institutions exist throughout the world. Governments, organisations and individuals create records to provide evidence of their actions to document their rights and obligations and to preserve their heritage. Archives acquire and preserve these documents and make them available for all to use as the raw materials for cultural, academic, social and scientific research. The nature of archival material presents a particular problem. Archives hold billions of copyright works that were not created or intended for commercial purposes. Because they were never published, the rights holders for such works cannot be located. For these reasons, collective licensing is not a workable solution. The archival mission to make their holdings available for research is ham strung by a web of inconsistent copyright laws that have failed to keep up with social and technological development. In this body systemic discussion of the eleven topics, archivists provided a rich array of real life examples that clearly demonstrate the need for exceptions, for mutual recognition by Member States of exceptions and limitations to copyright that would permit archives everywhere to serve an international audience. The results of that excellent work was summarized in the Chair's informal chart on limitations, exceptions for libraries and archives. Every creator benefits from the work of his or her predecessors. Knowledge of that earlier work comes largely from libraries and archives. Many of the rights holders represented in this room could not have created their works without us. Why would creators not wholeheartedly support exceptions for archives and libraries that would only benefit their work. Regrettably, we continue to hear assertions from some groups that national solutions are suffer. It should be abundantly clear by now that national solutions are far from sufficient. We need solutions that apply in a global network environment. And in that regard, Mr. Chair, the Chair's informal chart on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives prepared at the end of SCCR33 refined and clarified the topics to be addressed and provides a practical approach to continue to move this initiative forward. We would support our IFLA colleagues called to have it adopted as a working document of the committee, and we would also support IFLA's call for a study of cross-border issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.</p>
<p><strong>German Library Association: </strong><br />I congratulate you on your election as a
Chair and I speak on behalf of German Library Association representing 10,000
libraries in Germany. Libraries and archives face a problem. There is a high
level of the international copyright protection, on the other hand, there is no
such uniformity in limitations. Limitations like the ones fixed in the already
mentioned Chair's informal chart, for example, for preservation, lending,
document delivery, are the basis of library services. But limitations and
exceptions are like a patchwork of different national legislations. For every
library service crossing borders that means to act legally library staff has to
know about the limitations and exceptions not only in their own country,
country of origin but also in the country of destination of that service.
Respective to the German library index and university libraries in 2016 around
60% of the acquisitions were electronic in technical universities the portion
of electronic acquisitions is even much higher. These numbers in international
comparison are even low. We can assert that research libraries are digital more
than they are paper based. In the electronic world, the problem is resources
usually are only available after agreement on license stipulations formulated
by the rights holders mostly. That means contracts are concluded. Contracts
eventually can override the limitations and exceptions. This committee might
agree on in one form or the other. The objective of facilitating cross-border
library teaching and research services could be achieved by introducing an
international mandatory instrument on limitations and exceptions. Another track
to facilitate cross-border use could be the introduction of principles of
harmonizations combined with a rule of mutual recognitions like proposed in the
document of the Delegation of Argentina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ifj.org/"><strong>International Federation of Journalists: </strong></a><br />The International Federation of Journalists congratulates, again, the Chair and Vice Chairs on their election and the members of the Secretariat for their diligent work. We represent about 600,000 journalists in 140 countries worldwide north and south. The International Federation of Journalists, of course, understands ts essential role of libraries and archives specifically we fully support them having the freedom to have copies for preservation. The International Federation of Journalists has repeatedly called for libraries and archives to have proper direct funding to do this themselves and not to be forced to subcontract digital archiving to commercial operations. The honorable representative of Brazil referred earlier this morning to the potential to extend the outreach of libraries and archives in unprecedents ways.. Of course, this, the making of works available on the Internet, for example, and on its successes is an important supplement to the vital role of libraries and archives in the education and training of many including journalists. But when it comes to libraries and are executives making copies of works available off the premises, that is is it not, a publishing operation? The International Federation of Journalists believes that the solution to this issue is collective licensing and necessarily capacity building to insure that efficient Democratically controlled collective licensing is available in all Member States and can deal with cross-border issues as the collective licenses that already exist already do. Many of those 600,000 journalists particularly those who focus on international reporting are poorly paid. Where there is such collective licensing it makes important contribution to their economic survival as independent professionals with their own essential contribution to make to the recording and preservation of our culture from within our cultures and not relying on foreign reporting. Thank you.</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://keionline.org/"><strong>Knowledge Ecology International</strong></a>: <br />Thank you, Mr. Chairman and congratulations
for your election. And for your Co-Chairs'. One thing I just wanted to mention
as related to libraries is in addition to the excellent studies that have been
done by Kenneth Crews and other people that have looked at library exceptions,
I thought it might be interesting to have the chief economist or other people
involved, but certainly the chief economist to look at the economics of the
library industry. I think that we look at libraries as part of the research and
development infrastructure for a country, not only as places people go to read
novels, but an essential part of the competitiveness and ability for a country
to have a strong high tech sector but also play an important role in the
development. And it would be interesting to know what the assessment is because
we hear it from other industries all of the time. They talk about the number of
jobs in the film industry or the number of jobs. It would be interesting to
know how many people are employed in different countries in the library sector,
but also what contributions the library sector makes to the economic
development of the country, and what challenges they face on pricing. The last
point I wanted to make is that clearly there is a set of issues that it's
really hard to reach on census on, and there is other areas where it's easier,
I would think, to reach consensus on. This discussion of the archiving and the
preservation of documents is a pretty good case. Certainly the making available
of what's put into, what's archived and preserved in terms of documents, it's
more challenging to reach consensus on that than it is to insure that people
have adequate exceptions to merely do archiving and preservations. And I think
that it would be unfortunate if in looking at their wide range of issues that
are facing libraries, recognizing that there is a very inadequate set of
exceptions in many countries according to the studies that have already been
done, that people don't move forward in areas where consensus could be reached
such as preservation and archiving because there are other areas that are more
controversial. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/www.eifl.net/" class="external-link">Electronic Information for Libraries</a></strong>: <br />Thank you, Chairman. I'm speaking on behalf
of the Electronic Information for Libraries and I would like to thank you for
giving me the floor and congratulate you upon your election to Chair this
committee. I would also like to congratulate your Vice Chairs. We would like to
thank the African Group, GRULAC, Asia-Pacific Group and the other delegates for
having spoken of the interrelationship between the Sustainable Development
Goals and the establishment of access to libraries and archives because emphasis
is placed on access to information. Ladies and gentlemen, the Internet is
global, but legislation on copyright stops at borders and that is why we are
here today. Digital technology has changed the world, which people have access
to information. Today the way we study and learn in fact means that people do
not have full access. We believe that copyright is important, and that
limitations and exceptions are crucial for a modern information infrastructure
as well as for open access and other licensin wills. We are very pleased that
other countries have modified proposals on copyright.. We are pleased that some
countries have expanded their exceptions or introduced new ones. However, some
countries who are updating their law are not enough to resolve a broader
problem, the demand for cross-border access to information for research
and culture. And the need to insure that nobody is left behind in access to
knowledge means that there is say need for this aspect to be taken into
account. There are specific issues which were compiled in a document and
submitted to this committee and I would like to invite you to read it. There
are printed copies available, but it can also be found on line. It begins with
the Internet is global. We also support IFLA's and ICAS interventions and we
hope that progress will be made swiftly in the SCCR in this issue. We thank you
very much for your attention.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/icom.museum/" class="external-link">International Council of museums (ICOM)</a>:</strong><br />Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity
to address this important agenda item.. The international Council of museums
represents important 36,000 museum professionals world wide. We are here, Mr.
Chair, to give our voice to museum professionals for this important agenda
item. After consultation with the international museum community and in keeping
with the results of the WIPO study on exceptions and limitations on copyright
for museums ICOM joined forces with our library and archive colleagues to
pursue exceptions to copyright for the benefit of libraries, archives and
museums as enumerated in the Chair's informal chart that provide for exceptions
for all three. This pursuit is not intended to disrupt markets, but instead is
targeted to instances where museums and indeed libraries and archives are
unable to carry out their often shared mission. ICOM was very pleased that the
Canadian delegation called for a museum study in 2013 while at the 26th session
of the Standing Committee on copyright and related rights. The study
on exceptions first draft was distributed and presented at the 30th session of
the SCCR in 2015. The study distributed business WIPO provides a broad basis of
understanding of the status of exceptions for museums within WIPO Member States
and provides for the basis for ICOM's continued advocacy of exceptions for
museums. The purpose of our intervention today is to signal that ICOM is
committed to the belief that a harmonized approach towards libraries, archives
and museums is both possible and necessary to achieve the overall objective of
obtaining operational exceptions for materials and cultural heritage
collections at the international level. [..] there are many instances where
museums, libraries and archives cross mandates given the nature of distinctive
collections. Libraries hold collections that include artifacts more
traditionally aligned with museum collections or have accessioned collections
that include unpublished materials often found in archives. Museums hold archival
collections, have libraries within museums, and include study collections as
part of their overall collections. Museums like archives nay oftentimes include
a vast array of artifacts in their collections and include materials that have
often been published and unpublished. At the same time, libraries, archives and
museums face the same obstacles created by copyright law in trying to fulfill
their respective missions being education, public interest, access to
collections and communication of scholarship. This is particularly true when
museums are examined not simply as stewards of art collections but as stewards
of historic scientific and natural collections as well. The similarities are in fact magnified when we examine the collections we face with our 20th century collections. Museums, libraries and archives face similar challenges in preserving, exhibiting and providing access and communicating about art collections. Thank you, Mr. Chair for the opportunity to address this important issue.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/httpwww.eblida.org/" class="external-link">European Bureau of library, information and documentation associations</a></strong>: <br />Mr. Chair, we congratulate you and the Vice
Chairs on your elections to office, and thank you for inviting the European
Bureau of library information and documentation associations which is the voice
of libraries in Europe to take the floor. The consolidated libraries and
archives studies in the SCCR30 and the museum study both from 2015 reveal that
the national frontier-based approach to copyright with regard to libraries,
archives and museums now in disarray, too disparate and stuck in the pre-Internet era. In the E.U. this has been the justification of proposal of
mandatory cross-border exceptions to copyright. Yet in face of the ever
expanding world wide web. National copyright laws are in need of constant
modernization to allow institutions to function optimally in an international
cross-border online environment. Now that the detailed discussion of the topic
has been summarized by the previous Chair's SCCR/33 document. We offer
practical suggestions for moving forward. First, we suggest that this committee
establishes the principles to inclusion in the note for overarching
international copyright framework for copyright exceptions and limitations
affecting libraries, archives and museums. The proposals made by the US
delegation in 26/8 offer useful guidance that can shape the content of the
committee's work. A comprehensive and effective solution for libraries should
set standard for and protect national copyright exceptions that impact on the
functions of these institutions, including preservation of materials and
content, copying for document delivery in any format including cross-borders.
Lending of works including remotely. Protecting limitations and exceptions for
override by contract terms and by holding partially inaccessible can due to
legal protections of TPMs. Making orphan works available on line to the public,
text and data mining of legally accessed coven tent. Acquiring work including
by importation and protecting libraries, archives and museums and staff
accounting for them in good faith for criminal or civil liability for
unintended copyright infringement. There are various ways in which the
committee can support work. And could be usefully adopted by this committee.
Secondly, in line with the EU's call for guidance to Member States, we would
welcome efforts from the Secretariat to further inform our discussions. In line
with the Poe proposal from Argentina which correctly addresses the need for
minimum set of exceptions and limitations nationally and the solution for
cross-border issues this what the E.U. itself is seeking to do domestically. We
would welcome a study on cross-border issue as a basis for further discussion.
In order to provide further guidance to Member States, this committee could
request the Secretariat to convene an expert group first and foremost of
library archive and museum copyright experts as well as copyright academics,
lawyers and relevant stakeholders to support the commissioning and tasking of
an agreed expert to develop modern WIPO draft law for libraries, archives and
museums. Finally this committee might wish to request that the Secretariat
provides a useful tool to assist its work by creating online publicly
accessible database of copyright exceptions and limitations. Additionally since
the pace of change in copyright law affecting the library, archive and museum
sector is to fast moving the committee might request an annual report from the
Secretariat of changes to nationals and practices in copyright and related
rights. Thank you for your attention.</p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="http://sitio.innovarte.cl/">Innovarte Corporacion:</a></strong> <br />Thank you very much, Chairman. We would
like to congratulate you upon your election. We would like to thank the excellent work on studies on libraries and archives.
The proposal to work with the aim of a treaty on exceptions and limitations to
copyright to protect the balance and legitimacy of the system for copyright and
related rights with regard to libraries and people with disabilities is
something we have been discussing in this committee since 2004 starting from a proposal which came from Chile. As discussions of the Marrakesh Treaty has
shown that provisions on copyright to protect categories of people who are
threatened or under mined by a lack of exceptions is not only possible but good
and it shows a means to protect libraries, archives and possibly also museums.
In this regard, we would like to request the members of the committee in good
faith to consolidate all of the work done based on the text which has already
been considered, the informal summary of the Chair of the committee as we have
seen it's based on textual proposals either for treaty or another form of
instrument which was proposed by various delegations including Brazil, India,
the United States and many others. We propose that the committee would adopt
this text without any prejudice to what form the work might take in the future.
We believe on another point that the proposal from Argentina is particularly
useful since it seeks to come up with a solution to the obstacle, namely, the
lack of harmonization of rules on libraries and archives at international
level. We believe it is a compliment to what has already been worked on by the
committee with regard to principles and topics which are necessary for
exceptions other than a national level. It should be subject to greater
analysis by this committee, thank you very much.</p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation: </a></strong><br />Thank you Mr. Chair. The EFF work supports the work of libraries and archives which have become more relevant in the digital age and which are more challenging now. The updating of exceptions and limitations are an important way to insure that libraries and archives are equipped to meet these two challenges of fulfilling missions in the digital age. In an ideal world EFF sees norm setting as the only way to ensure that WIPO members provide a basic level of modernized limitations and exceptions for libraries, however, we recognize that members do not have the appetite for norm setting in this area at this point in time for various reasons. In that light, we do support the proposal IFLA has made for a draft law and searchable database on library limitations and exceptions. This strikes us as a workable compromise that does not commit members to hard norm setting but which would be a useful interim step towards the harmonization of limitations and exceptions for libraries worldwide. Finally and on a different topic, I would like to express EFF's hope that in the next SCCR session time will also be made available for NGOs to make statements about the broadcast treaty. Thank you very much.</p>
<p><em>Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service. </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaAccess to KnowledgeCopyrightLibrariesArchivesWIPO2017-05-30T05:55:43ZBlog Entry34th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Discussion on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-cis-statement-on-the-discussion-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives
<b>Anubha Sinha, attending the 34th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (“SCCR”) at Geneva from 1 May, 2017 to 5 May, 2017, made this statement during the discussion on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives.</b>
<p>Thank you, Mr. Chair.</p>
<p>CIS works on issues of access to knowledge and other digital
rights in India.</p>
<p>I would like to share with you my experience which highlights
the difficulty of building digital archives in India. Mr. Chair, earlier last
year the government of India embarked upon the important project of digitizing
the cultural audiovisual material stored in government and private collections to store material for preservation purposes,
and set up a virtual network of these repositories to offer online access. My
organization has been assisting them in this crucial public service mission. These works are oral traditions, dance,
music, theatrical practices, cultural practices – all of which lie largely
inaccessible and languishing in several small and large collections in India.
Since, the Indian copyright Act does not contain an exception for the purposes
of preservation by an archive; the entire project has suffered high costs in
terms of money and time. Money, because the project had to get expensive legal
assistance to set up processes to obtain rights clearance from all the
performers who were a part of the works and copyright holders- some of which
are orphan works, thereby compounding the problem. Further, partnering
organizations also expressed legitimate fears of supplying their works, in case
of a potential copyright and related rights violation that could implicate them
with civil/criminal liability.</p>
<p>In such a scenario, for the benefit of other states to
update their standards corresponding to this international legal instrument as
well, it would indeed be useful to adopt the proposals mentioned in the document <a class="external-link" href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_26/sccr_26_3.pdf">SCCR/26/3</a> that
address these issues, and others.</p>
<p>
Thank you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-cis-statement-on-the-discussion-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-cis-statement-on-the-discussion-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaCopyrightArchivesAccess to KnowledgeWIPO2017-05-15T10:35:36ZBlog EntryThe Zen of Pad.ma: 10 Lessons Learned from Running Open Access Online Video Archives in India and beyond
https://cis-india.org/raw/the-zen-of-padma
<b>Sebastian Lütgert and Jan Gerber, the co-initiators of, and the artists/programmers behind the pad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive) project will deliver a lecture at CIS on Wednesday, February 03, 6 pm, on their experiences of learnings from running open access online video archives in Germany, India, and Turkey. Please join us for coffee and vada at 5:30 pm.</b>
<p> </p>
<img src="http://cis-india.org/raw/the-zen-of-pad-ma-10-lessons-learned-from-running-open-access-online-video-archives-in-india-and-beyond/leadImage" alt="The Zen of Pad.ma - Lecture by Sebastian Lütgert and Jan Gerber, Feb 03, 6 pm" />
<p> </p>
<h2>The Zen of Pad.ma</h2>
<p>Eight years after the launch of Pad.ma and three years since the inception of Indiancine.ma, Sebastian Lütgert will take a closer look at some of the strategies -- decisions and decision making processes, foundational principles and accidental discoveries -- that may have helped make these projects sustainable. While most of the lessons begin with concrete questions related to software and technology, most of them will end up pointing beyond that: towards a general theory of collaboration, towards strategies against premature separation of labor, and towards a few practical proposals for successful self-organization on the Internet.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Biographies</h2>
<p><strong>Sebastian Lütgert</strong>, media artist, programmer, filmmaker and writer, lives and works in Berlin. Co-founder of Bootlab, textz.com, Pirate Cinema Berlin, Pad.ma and Indiancine.ma. Lecturer at the Academy of the Sciences in Berlin, various publications on cinema, copyright, radical subcultures and the politics of technology.</p>
<p><strong>Jan Gerber</strong>, video artist and softwate developer, lives and works in Berlin. Co-initiator of Pirate Cinema Berlin, Pad.ma and Indiancine.ma, author of numerous Open Source software projects, most recently Open Media Library. Involved in a variety of open-access archive projects around the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/the-zen-of-padma'>https://cis-india.org/raw/the-zen-of-padma</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppPracticeDigital HumanitiesDigital MediaOpen AccessResearchers at WorkEventArchives2016-01-28T08:25:18ZEventCIS's Statement at SCCR 24 on Exceptions & Limitations for Libraries and Archives
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-statement-sccr24-libraries-archives
<b>This was the statement delivered by Pranesh Prakash on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, at the 24th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights on the issue of exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives.</b>
<p>Thank you, Mr. Chair.</p>
<p>We would like to associate ourselves with the statements made by International Federation of Library Associations, Electronic Information for Libraries, Knowledge Ecology International, Conseil International des Archives, Library Copyright Alliance, Computer and Communications Industry Association, and the Canadian Library Association.</p>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society would like to commend this house for adopting SCCR/23/8 as a working document on the issue of exceptions and limitations on libraries and archives. This issue is of paramount interest the world over, and particularly in developing countries. I would like to limit my oral intervention to three quick points, and will send a longer statement in via e-mail.</p>
<p>First, we feel that this committee should pay special attention to ensuring that digital works and online libraries and archives such as the Internet Archive, also receive the same protection as brick-and-mortar libraries.</p>
<p>Second, we are concerned that we have been seeing some delegations advancing a very narrow interpretation of the three-step test. Such a narrow interpretation is not supported by leading academics, nor by practices of member states. A narrow interpretation of the three-step test must be squarely rejected. In particular, I would like to associate CIS with the strong statements by IFLA and KEI to maintain flexibilities within exceptions and limitations, instead of overly prescriptive provisions encumbered by weighty procedures and specifications.</p>
<p>We have comments about parallel trade as well, drawing from our experience and research in India, and will send those in writing.</p>
<p>Libraries and archive enhance the value of the copyrighted works that they preserve and provide to the general public. They do not erode it. Exceptions and limitations that help them actually help copyright holders. The sooner copyright holders try not to muzzle libraries, especially when it comes to out-of-commerce works, electronic copies of works, and in developing countries, the better it will be for them, their commercial interests, as well as the global public interest.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-statement-sccr24-libraries-archives'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-statement-sccr24-libraries-archives</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshAccess to KnowledgeCopyrightFair DealingsIntellectual Property RightsArchivesWIPO2012-07-25T10:54:38ZBlog EntryArchives and Access
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access
<b>The monograph by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto, is a material history of the Internet archives. It examines the role of the archivist and the changing relationship between the state and private archives for looking at the politics of subversion, preservation and value of archiving. By examining the Tamil Nadu and Goa state archives, along with the larger public and state archives in the country, the monograph looks at the materiality of archiving, the ambitions and aspirations of an archive, and why it is necessary to preserve archives, not as historical artefacts but as living interactive spaces of memory and remembrance. The findings have direct implications on various government and market impulses to digitise archives and show a clear link between opening up archives and other knowledge sources for breathing life into local and alternative histories.
</b>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Archives and Access">Download the Monograph</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaRAW PublicationsPublicationsHistories of InternetResearchers at WorkInternet HistoriesArchives2015-04-17T11:06:20ZBlog EntryRe:wiring Bodies - Dr. Asha Achuthan
https://cis-india.org/raw/rewiringdoc
<b>First draft of the monograph on "Rewiring Bodies" by Dr. Asha Achutan; format for Microsoft Office users</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/rewiringdoc'>https://cis-india.org/raw/rewiringdoc</a>
</p>
No publishernishantPublished under a Creative Commons LicenseCyborgsCyberculturesArchivesDigital subjectivitiesResourcesHistory2011-09-21T07:23:44ZFileOpenness, Videos, Impressions
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/OVSreport
<b>The one day Open Video Summit organised by the Centre for Internet & Society, iCommons, Open Video Alliance, and Magic Lantern, to bring together a range of stakeholders to discuss the possibilities, potentials, mechanics and politics of Open Video. Nishant Shah, who participated in the conversations, was invited to summarise the impressions and ideas that ensued in the day.</b>
<p></p>
<p>The notion of free and open is under great debate even under
that, and I think even when you side with a camp, there are going to be further
splinters. There are many ways of defining the free and open, and I think that the
tension, rather than being resolved, needs to be sustained and creatively
perpetrated to keep an internal checks and balances on not getting carried away
with it. All the groups did indeed circle around this in different,
often tangential ways – that there is need to define, variously and almost
endlessly, in defining the context of the free that we are dealing with.</p>
<p>Open video, in that matter, has gone through different
iterations, and I think it is nice that different stakeholders have defined it
variously, and also looked at the problems that it might lead to. However, for
the sake of synthesis, I am going to let you have your own idea of free and
open but instead look at five key words which have emerged, in my selective
hearing, through the day: <strong>Access, Archive,
Share, Remix, Repurpose</strong>. And it is these five that we need to now
imbricate these concepts across different thematic that emerged in the groups
today.</p>
<p><strong>Access</strong> has been one primary question that almost everybody
dealt with; Access has its legacies in the Open and Free culture movements,
where technological access, dealing with questions of open standards and
content, of bandwidth and infrastructure. More interestingly, in an emerging
information society like India, there are other concerns of language, access,
privilege, bandwidth, education etc. To
contextualise access and to put it into different perspectives is something
that different participants have voiced the need for.</p>
<p><strong>Archive</strong> is a preoccupation with most people because
archiving has close relationships with knowledge and subsequently retrieval and
usage. If knowledge is being digitised so that it is made accessible to
different people, there are older questions of representation, voice,
empowerment, participation, ethics, privacy, ownership etc. Crop up. In
education archiving has to do with the curricula building and knowledge
production. In networking, collaboration and film making, it is the kind of
issues that pad.ma is trying to tackle with. It also leads to notions of
access, distribution etc.</p>
<p><strong>Sharing </strong>is what is almost defining the spirit of the Open
and Free culture movements. There is a need to understand and explore what
sharing means. When does it infringe laws and what kind of regulation needs to
be advocated so that sharing becomes possible. How does one overcome questions
of piracy, stealing, IPR etc? More interestingly, what do we share and who do
we share it with? Tools by which sharing
leads to innovation? How does it lead to new participation and learning
practices and pedagogies? What kind of open distribution models and networks
can be built up?</p>
<p><strong>Remix</strong> has been of great value because it means that you are
being converted into some sort of a stakeholder or a contributor to the
process. Networking and nodes, network-actor, collaborator , peer 2 peer – the
possibility of looking at questions of internet and digital traces is
interesting. Or imagine that the act of sharing is also a remix. Sometimes just
putting it into new contexts, making it available to newer constituencies, etc.
can also be looked upon as remixing. Remix as a knowledge production aesthetic
and mechanics seems to have emerged.</p>
<p><strong>Repurpose </strong>is my additional reading of something that perhaps
needs no mention to this group, but nonetheless needs flagging. The fact
remains, that the technology is not a solution in itself. It is a tool that
enables the solutions which one is seeking for. The processes, paradigms,
protocols and practices are indeed shaped and mediated by technologies and
there are new solution possibilities which are produced. However, there still
seem to be anxieties, concerns, questions and problems which are cropping up
and need to be addressed outside of technology but within technology ecologies.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/OVSreport'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/OVSreport</a>
</p>
No publishernishantConferenceOpen StandardsArtWorkshopDigital AccessFLOSSOpen ContentArchivesOpennessOpen InnovationMeetingOpen Access2011-09-22T12:23:13ZBlog EntryArchive and Access: Digitisation and Private Records--The Case of the Regional Archive
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/tamil-nadu-archives
<b>This is the first in a series of posts by CIS-RAW researcher Aparna Balachandran on the Tamil Nadu Archives (TNA), looking at different aspects of their functioning in order to think about the issue of access in relation to regional archives in the country. More specifically, these posts will engage with the relationship of the TNA with the ways in which history is thought and written about in the Tamil region, both within the academy and outside. These posts are part of the CIS-RAW project 'Archive and Access'.</b>
<p></p>
<p>One of the less known functions of state archives in India is the periodic acquisition of records from the general public at regular intervals. These are in the form of voluntary contributions that are solicited through advertisements for particular kinds of private collections, depending on the nature of the archive and what its administrators think is a useful and appropriate addition to it. On our visit to the Delhi Archives we were explicitly informed that this was a place for collections or documents pertinent to the interests of the Delhi Archives, but the Delhi Archives were emphatically not interested in what was of 'national significance'. Materials of the latter kind, we were told, were to be given to the National Archives of India. Unfortunately since the person in charge of the acquisition of manuscripts was away, we were not be able to obtain more information about how contributions are determined to be of importance to the Delhi archive or not and the process by which they are obtained, or see a list of what in fact had been obtained in this way over the years.</p>
<p>The Delhi Archives appear to function quite autonomously as far as the acquisition of records of this kind is concerned; the TNA on the other hand works through one of the Regional Committees for the Survey of Historical Records. These Committees, whose members include the Assistant Commissioners and Collectors of District Record Offices in different parts of the country, are the decision makers as far as private records are concerned; a registry of these records is maintained at the National Archives. According to the Citizen’s Charter of the TNA, the Committee’s aim is to 'to survey and collect the rare records of historical administrative, legal and fiscal value in the hands of private persons to strengthen the history of India and to bring to light such records… to preserve them for posterity'. These records have to specifically pertain to the period before 1947; examples of contributions that would be welcome include 'palm leaves, copper plates, letters of high dignitaries, deeds, correspondence volumes, books, journals, etc., relating to the freedom movement, photos, any assignment of lands to the East India Company, or the British, religious customs, endowment of property to any charitable purpose, deed of Zamins, Polygars, Newabs, Samasthanams, Rajas, any notable events in the British Rule, etc'.</p>
<p>The acquisition of materials of this kind at the TNA ceased at least twenty years ago. The TNA does keep a list of these materials, and after some pleading, I was able to take a look at it (although the names of many of the contributors are now missing). They include for instance, the Pudukottai Residency records; various zamindari records including for instance, Sengampatti and Ramnad; Portuguese documents (Regimento Auditorio; Ecclesiastico de Archbispado Primacial de Goa Eda Sua Relocao Anno 1810); a collection of papers relating to the late Chief Minister and film actor MG Ramachandran (MGR); autographs and photos of nationalist leaders as well as sundry Hindi and Persian documents. The person in charge of these records explained that the criterion for accepting contributions was above all, their age. He mentioned the fact that many a contributor was turned away when they had collections pertaining to the post Independence period (the MGR papers being, of course, an exception to this rule). The issue of regional relevance that was emphasised in the Delhi Archives was not brought up here at all. It is interesting that after the linguistic re-organisation of South India, there was an attempt, following an assumed political and linguistic logic, to separate and distribute the holdings of the TNA to Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. This logic does not extend to the private holdings which are required to be of national rather than regional significance.</p>
<p>
One problem that clearly surfaced in the course of my looking at the acquisition of private records by the TNA is the lack of any sort of formal legal arrangement between the families that possess collections and the institutions who wish to acquire them. This is particularly important because these collections often possess sentimental or other kinds of value for the families, which have to be acknowledged and respected even as they become part of public repository. The issue of digitisation also throws up various points. At a very basic level is the issue of conservation. While the TNA is digitising its holdings, private records are left untouched. It is unclear why this is the case; in all likelihood, it is because they are not considered a part of the TNA’s holdings. The archive is merely their guardian (this for instance is also true of land records which do not fall under the digitisation scheme because the TNA is merely “housing” these documents for the government). Given the eclectic nature and often geographically and linguistically diverse range of the private records at the TNA (and other regional archives), there is no doubt that users of archives would benefit greatly from online catalogues of these collections. And finally, while the official British themselves occupy little space in the public imagination of Madras, the range of private records the TNA possesses might well attract new users, both scholarly and lay, to the colonial archive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/tamil-nadu-archives'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/tamil-nadu-archives</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaDigital AccessArchives2011-08-23T04:32:07ZBlog EntryArchive and Access: Documents in the Time of Democracy
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/documents-in-the-time-of-democracy
<b>This is the seventh in a series of blog posts documenting Aparna Balachandran, Rochelle Pinto, and Abhijeet Bhattacharya's CIS-RAW project, Archive and Access. In this entry, Rochelle Pinto introduces a sub-set of posts that will look at the political significance of public access to official documents on the internet. </b>
<p></p>
<p>Contemporary conflict over land brings
together issues of land ownership, legal documents and technology in ways that
make us examine the circulation and political significance of documents and
information. If we assess the relevance of documents as evidence or as
verifiers of truth in the midst of political battles over land, we are led to
doubt the apparently inherent democratic promise of digital technology. Even
where internet technology is accessible, for instance in the modernised
villages of Goa, our belief that public access to official documents through
the internet is a democratic gesture can be questioned. It would appear that
this form of circulation or display need not have great political significance
for contemporary movements, let alone the question of whether it has the potential to function as a politically liberating force. This implies that while there is a fulfilment of
democracy in a technical sense, the political significance of a particular
document and of the public domain in which it circulates can only be gauged
from the way in which a dispute over land or over ownership of property, or
about membership within a village, foregrounds one kind of document over
another and constructs different kinds of public. In the case of current
disputes in Goa around land that is, or was held by village level communidades
or gaunkarias, there is not even a stable or singular legal meaning attached to
the range of documents that circulate among the competing authorities and
parties to these disputes. In fact, tracing the life and path of the different
legal documents that are necessary to argue a case involving communidade land
involves a tangle of authorities, repositories and disputing groups. The sense
of publicness that is raised by internet technology requires us to question the
kind of politics that endows the document and its publicness with political
meaning.</p>
<p> In a national and possibly international
situation where anti-state claims on land are often non-legal (whether in the
form of ethical arguments or armed rebellion) the current conflicts over land in Goa are
local in the sense of having specific attributes. Special Economic Zones (as
also other prior forms of transnational economic flows) propagate a delinking of life, labour, and capital from
any fixed political entity, in as far as they claim immunity from national
laws. Against this, the diverse claims on land in Goa (whether as familial disputes,
environmental conflicts, livelihood arguments, belongingness and historical
claims of being indigenous), raise overlapping claims and arguments
about the relation between legality and politics, the use of internet
technology within resistance movements and rights over land that are outside the
domain of private property. All of these resonate with similar conflicts
ongoing in other parts of the country, with some differences in the kinds of
opposition generated. </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The overall thrust of the argument made here is that
movements that are pitted against the state or the multinational entities it
supports straddle various forms of state power. Currently, we tend to see these
divided into the formal exercise of power through law, regulation, and systematization,
and the exercise of power through non-legal and non-state entities and means.
The widely perceived illegitimacy of the state requires it to engage in two
forms of political representation – the one consolidating its use of
governmentality through law, the other effecting its sovereignty through a
substantive exercise and demonstration of power. The appearance of legality and
the lacing through of all political processes with due procedure and due
documents is important to sustain some measure of governmentality, while the
domain of substantive politics requires that rule be maintained through overt
coercion and expropriation. The two domains are not disconnected. The ability
to amend laws by an act of government, without due discussion or consensus
gives the state infinite licence to bolster its acts of violence with legality.
The gap between these two domains provides an element of unpredictability and
turbulence that generates the frisson of excitement for viewers (as against the
sufferers) of Indian state politics. For, the sheer existence of forms of
governmentality implies that those equipped to do so will demand the fulfillment of the liberal project
that the state claims to be bound by. The Right to Information movement and the
innumerable human rights reports and people’s courts are instances of the state
being called to order within its own terms. If these calls threaten to
jeopardise interests beyond a certain threshold, then substantive violence is
enacted, more often than not exceeding the bounds of legality. Those who oppose
the state but whose opposition is articulated within the terms of
governmentality find themselves condemned to demanding justice or the restitution of truth
over decades. The success of the state
however lies in its ability to negotiate both these forms of power, allowing it
to insert itself into dominant global currents in politics and economy, while
keeping its house in order at home. This gap and its bridging is made visible
through a range of events, patterns and pronouncements. The unstable status of the
document as the locus of truth and evidence, in the context of legal and political conflicts
reveals this gap. Differing forms of punishment and justice are not the only markers of ill-fitting forms of power. Ethically admissible claims that are not based on rights, made by non-state entities that have no legal recognition are also caught on the side of all that lies outside the domain of modern statecraft. Internet technologies that work to make what was hitherto hidden or inaccessible more 'public' are necessarily inscribed within this network of quasi-legal, legitimate, illegal and illegitimate entities and practices.The working of technology then has
to be understood through the idea of governmentality as a language of control and
subversion. This is further qualified by the fact that the discourse around
writing and regulation has always been viewed with suspicion by those who stand
outside its circle of power.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/documents-in-the-time-of-democracy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/documents-in-the-time-of-democracy</a>
</p>
No publisherrochelleDigital AccessArchives2011-08-02T05:45:44ZBlog EntryArchive and Access: The Inalienable Right to the Archives - Entering the Capital
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-inalienable-right-to-the-archives-entering-the-capital
<b>This entry complements the prior discussion by Aparna Balachandran of the Delhi State Archives and its status as a repository of records. Her discussion compares the place of the user and that of the document in the Delhi State Archives as opposed to in the National Archives. This post by Rochelle Pinto discusses questions relating to the National Archives of India and other archival entities. </b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Though one approaches all state archives with
apprehension about possible obstacles in the way of research, it would be a
mistake to think that all have the same self-perception or anxieties as the
Delhi-based <a href="http://nationalarchives.gov.in/">National Archives of
India</a>. The NAI, one of the largest repositories of colonial and
post-independence records, is overseen by the Ministry of Culture, but also, by
default, by the Home Ministry. Since it is the repository of ‘non-current records’, the NAI becomes the recipient of
de-classified documents and receives directives from time to time from the Home
Ministry regarding restrictions to be placed on public viewing of documents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This fact generates an over-hanging awareness of potential reprimands and memos
that could issue from these Ministries, asking for explanations for why certain
documents were released. A direct result of this is the pro-active censorship
of materials such as maps of disputed territories or documents that ‘may incite
communal disharmony’ by the archival staff themselves. One member of the staff, for
instance, disallowed the reproduction of a map of the Tibetan region on the grounds that it would ‘jeopardise the geo-political interests
of the country’, and recounts how he was responsible for withholding certain documents
that were asked for in the Emergency period, that would have impacted the then
office of the leader of the opposition, Charan Singh.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The NAI thus sees itself as
closely wedded to the state and as a responsible guardian of potentially
impactful documents that would have dire consequences in the wrong hands. No
other state archive quite sees itself as the official concealer of the state’s
dirty linen, and the Delhi archive, in that sense, is the apex institution in the
degree to which it alone manifests emotions displayed typically by state
archives across the country: secrecy, responsibility, control, paternalism,
righteousness as the arbiter of access. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is in direct contrast to the functioning and world view of many of the
archivists, who in fact declare that the archives are technically open to all
citizens, and are a public repository. This legal fact is predictably enough
mediated through other legal qualifications about sensitivity and interests of the
nation, and looped through a relay of permissions solicited from various
authorities. A search for a conspiracy of concealment would draw a blank in
most state archives. What works is a sort of relay of apprehensiveness and bureaucratic
lag, with most staff looking over their shoulders to watch who sees them hand
over any document from a list of publications available in their bookshop, to a
list of documents acquired from the British Library through official exchange
agreements. Save those who are higher up in the hierarchy and more secure in
their positions, acquiring information could necessitate an RTI application
purely to surmount the anxiety generated by informal questioning. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Archivists themselves are aware of this. They point to the fact that the
maximum difficulty is encountered at the gate, where it can take a full
half-hour or more to get past the security, get a daily pass issued, etc.
Senior members of at least two prestigious archives in the capital pointed to
the security guard’s authority at the gate as being the biggest hurdle to
accessing the archives. Some point to the ‘caution exercised by the hatchet’ at
the Ministry level, even before documents arrive in the public domain. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Pramod Mehra, the Assistant Director of the Archives indicates that little
has changed since 1923 in the form of record-keeping, a consciousness brought
in by the colonial government. The strife over public access can be recounted
from the time of the colonial government with differing views exercised by
changing governor-generals. The archives, he states, function as a mediator
between the creating agency such as the Ministries, and scholars. But, he
insists, all who carry bona fide documents proving their identity as citizens
have an inalienable right to enter the archives. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Technically therefore, there seem to be sufficient spaces for intervention
by users, and in fact, as the earlier post states, the increase in the number
and kind of users has in itself forced an expansion in the categories of users
permitted. It would appear that this is the trend everywhere. Where archival
records accidentally have non-historical functions, as in the Delhi Archives,
the archive alters eventually to accommodate users and it would seem that
generating such users and uses is the easier way to pragmatise the question of
access. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The other mechanism is to find hooks within the system through which to
enable access. Take the case of the Central Secretariat Library which is housed
within the Secretariat complex in New Delhi. The Library sees itself as a
repository of government records and documents, open to government employees by
right, for any research they may want to conduct. As a transition from the
colonial period, this library stores official documents that pertain to the
past of the current state. Since the library views itself as open to the public
for generalised reading, there is not much anxiety over making older books and
documents available. A student working on the North East, for instance, will
find it cumbersome to enter the National Archives and to access maps of the
region which may be far more easily traced in the Central Secretariat Library.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">What is of even greater interest is that this is the library that holds any
document acquired by a foreign entity in collaboration with a state
institution. So, for instance, the online Digital South Asia Library, a
consortium that is housed by the University of Chicago website, collected a
range of literary works in Indian languages based on the compilations of a
national librarian. A copy of this collection lies with the Central
Secretariat, as do microfilms that have been received as part of an exchange
programme with the British Library. The current director of this Library
appears only too willing to encourage collaborations from historians towards
the cataloguing of these collections, which once again are closed to the public
merely because adequate cataloguing procedures are not in place. In an
interview that appeared to open doors, he insisted that generating public pressure
around the significance of the collection would work as a persuasive force,
as evidence that the funds allocated for digitisation or preservation are in
fact needed, and that an audience exists for such material. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It seems as though appealing to abstract principles of access, citizenship
and rights calls forth nameless and immovable blocking mechanisms inbuilt
in the state, whereas tinkering with minor functions that do not invoke
its broader raison d’être allows one to enter unnoticed.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-inalienable-right-to-the-archives-entering-the-capital'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-inalienable-right-to-the-archives-entering-the-capital</a>
</p>
No publisherrochelleArchives2011-08-23T04:42:13ZBlog EntryArchive and Access: The Delhi State Archives
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-delhi-state-archives
<b>In this, the fifth entry in a series on the CIS-RAW Archive and Access project, Aparna Balachandran reports on two state archives located in Delhi, the National Archives of India, and the Delhi Archives. </b>
<p>Less visible than the National Archives of India is Delhi’s other state archive, the Delhi Archives. Unlike the NAI, which is located in Janpath at the heart of Lutyen’s Delhi, the Delhi Archives share a dilapidated building with the Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management, in a corner of the Qutub Institutional Area. The Delhi Archives were set up in 1972 to house documents and other material pertaining to the city of Delhi from as early as 1785, consisting mainly of the records of the Delhi Resident, and post 1857, the Commissioners’ Office. The collection is certainly not vast, but includes gems like the Mutiny Papers, the 600 page document on the trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar, papers on the post-rebellion demolition of Chandi Chowk and records on the setting up of Imperial Delhi.</p>
<p>Like the NAI, the Delhi archives are presently suffering from a lack of both funds and staff; the library, for instance, is in a state of complete disrepair. But we were assured by Sanjay Garg, who is in charge of the research room, that the archive itself is in good functioning order. The process of cataloguing its scattered Persian and Urdu records is underway, as are efforts to digitise the entire collection, about which I shall presently say more. From the very beginning, one of the important mandates for the setting up of the Delhi Archives was the acquisition of material “of interest” to Delhi (although the grounds for adjudgement seem fairly unclear) from other archival collections. We were told that records are regularly acquired from the Haryana and Punjab State Archives, and from the NAI; in addition, when funds allow, a historian is dispatched to the British Library to decide on what should be acquired from there. The Acquisitions Department also sends out a call in the papers at intervals for information about personal and family collections; sadly, we could not glean more information about this process because the person in charge was away on vacation.</p>
<p>In 2006, the Delhi archives launched an ambitious and much heralded project to digitise its entire collection; the process was still underway in early 2009. Documents, maps and photographs are being scanned and the visitor can access these on the two or three computers that are available for the purpose. Unfortunately, the computers are equipped with a search engine that is both difficult and cumbersome to use as well as being excruciatingly slow. This technology was developed by and borrowed from the NAI, where the online index is so ridden with misleading spellings as to make it practically unusable. Our brief use of the search engine at the Delhi Archives did not seem to throw up any glaring mistakes here at least – or perhaps we were dazzled by the visual materials now available online. Maps, the earliest going back to 1803; photographs including those of nationalist leaders; landscapes, cityscapes and monuments shot by colonial photographers; and hilariously, photos of the archive staff posing in the library stacks and offices are now all there to view with a mere click of the mouse. For a hundred rupees apiece moreover, the user can go home with the images of her choice on a pen-drive or a CD. </p>
<p>It is notable that the users that the Delhi State Archives and the NAI get are extremely different, a fact that impacts the way the two places function, particularly in terms of access. We were told at the research room at the NAI that the variety of users it gets has increased both in numbers and in diversity, so much so that a few years ago, archive officials decided that the category of “bonafide” user had to be expanded to include the non-academic user. Previously, access to the NAI was largely restricted to scholars armed with documentation proving their credentials; now, any citizen with some form of state identification is allowed access. While the bulk of users are still most certainly academics, the archive, or the idea of the archive, looms large in the public imagination. There are for instance, many novelists and film-makers who use the NAI. Not all are happy with their experience; some leave disappointed because the dry colonial records do not reveal, or immediately reveal the stories and detail they seek. The launching of state schemes - like the extension of martyrs pensions - that require written evidence from the archive also triggers off an increase in users. As more people and events are defined as part of, and co-opted into the National Movement, claimants to familial connections soar. We were told for example, that there was an influx of enquirers from certain villages in Haryana after a few families were able to substantiate their claims of being descendents of INA soldiers. Last year, the government agreed to grant the status of freedom fighters to the victims of the Jalliawala Bagh massacre in 1919 resulting in the arrival of those claiming to be descendents seeking evidence for the same (a complicated situation because of the vast discrepancies between the reported numbers of those killed in the British and Indian lists).</p>
<p>Interestingly, one case had a direct impact on the archival policy on access to documents. In the 1990s, with the increase in the number of heritage hotels in areas that included the former Princely States, claimants to land soared, with the NAI and the Home Ministry being dragged to court in several cases. As a result, the Accession Papers of the Princely States were made unviewable (a mystery was thereby solved when I repeated this information to a historian friend, frustrated that she was not allowed access to Dewas records from the '50s for some unknown reason). Interestingly, the largest category of new users consist of descendents of indentured labourers who left India in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to places like Mauritius, Jamaica, British Guiana, Trinidad and Fiji who want to trace their family histories. This is no easy task – these migrants appear in the lists that the colonial state kept of passages, medical examinations, births, deaths and marriages but were referred to by their first names only. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/BOOKPARTII14.jpg/image_preview" alt="border map delhi archives" class="image-inline image-inline" title="border map delhi archives" /><br /><br />The profile of users at the Delhi Archives is quite different; most are non-academic and the number of scholars there could be as small as one or two a month. The non-academic user is also of a particular kind. Employees from various Delhi government departments are occasionally dispatched to the archive to refer to old files. But more importantly, the Delhi Archives are home to Delhi’s muncipal land records. A fifty to a hundred people a day arrive to look at, and make photo-copies of land records in order to settle disputes, make claims etc. The process is simple and routine and perhaps it is the fact of its being an everyday legal office that makes the Delhi Archives far simpler to access than a scholarly archive like the NAI. Entry to the NAI for instance, involves an arduous process of registration and verification; there is no such scrutiny at the Delhi Archives. Materials like border maps that are deemed as posing a threat to national security cannot be accessed at the NAI. Browsing through the maps at the Delhi Archives, we came across several border maps, a few of which we bought copies of that we can now presumably reproduce, disseminate or enlarge to hang on a wall.</p>
<p> <img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/MEMORANDA_2.jpg/image_preview" alt="border map two delhi archives" class="image-inline image-inline" title="border map two delhi archives" /></p>
<p>We asked Sanjay Garg whether there was a policy at the Delhi to disallow the viewing of any of its records. Yes, he said, if the material was a threat to the nation’s safety. Had such a restriction ever been imposed? No, he answered.<br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-delhi-state-archives'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-delhi-state-archives</a>
</p>
No publisheraparnaDigital AccessArchives2011-08-23T04:43:39ZBlog EntryApplications to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment under the Right to Information Act
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/rti-applications-to-the-ministry-of-social-justice-and-empowerment
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society filed two applications to the MSJE under the Right to Information Act seeking certain information relating to the implementation of the National Policy for Electronic Accessibility and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). </b>
<p></p>
<p>In January 2009, The Centre for Internet and Society filed two separate Right to Information (RTI)
applications with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE), New Delhi. The first
application was addressed to Shri K. S. Sawhney, Director, MSJE, seeking information
on </p>
<ul><li>The utilization of 3% funds of each department
of the Central Government towards welfare of disabled persons, as specified
under the eleventh five year plan from January 2008</li><li>The detailed rules and
guidelines and the monitoring mechanisms set up under each ministry as per this
plan <br /></li><li>Other RTI applications which had been previously
filed in this regard </li></ul>
<p>The second application was also to the MSJE
enquiring about measures taken to ensure that government web
sites were made accessible to persons with disabilities. Information was requested regarding</p>
<ul><li>The nature and outcome of surveys on government web sites for checking
accessibility</li><li>The criteria used for measuring accessibility</li><li>Details of the
circulars issued to different departments and ministries in this regard. <br /></li></ul>
<p>With regard to the first application, MSJE responded broadly that information pertaining to the allocation
of funds should be obtained from the concerned ministries/departments, the
Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance directly and not from them. The Ministry
mentioned that the process of formulating guidelines was still underway and
that the Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities (CCPD), the Central
and State Governments were empowered to monitor the progress of the same. The
Ministry was silent on the enquiry about previous RTI applications filed in
relation to the above matter by other persons.</p>
<p>In response to the second application the
Ministry wrote that communication regarding the provisions of the UNCRPD had
been circulated to all Ministries for implementation. The Ministry also
admitted that no efforts had been made in this direction and since the CCPD was
the body which was responsible for checking the accessibility of some
government web sites, the application from CIS had been forwarded to CCPD for
relevant action.</p>
<p>To read the application on allotment of funds, click <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/uploads/msje-funds-application" class="internal-link" title="Application to MSJE on fund allocation">here</a>; to read the department's response, click <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/uploads/response-from-msje-on-fund-allocation" class="internal-link" title="Response from MSJE on fund allocation">here</a>.</p>
<p>To read the application on steps taken to ensure accessibility of government websites, click <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/uploads/application-to-msje-on-web-accessibility-measures" class="internal-link" title="Application to MSJE on web accessibility measures">here</a>; to read the department's response, click <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/uploads/response-from-msje-on-web-accessibility-measures" class="internal-link" title="Response from MSJE on web accessibility measures">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/rti-applications-to-the-ministry-of-social-justice-and-empowerment'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/rti-applications-to-the-ministry-of-social-justice-and-empowerment</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaArchives2011-08-17T08:50:22ZBlog EntryArchive and Access: The Archive and the Indian Historian
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-archive-and-the-indian-historian
<b>This post is the second in a series by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto. It comes to the question of how we can extend some of the questions and concerns that have arisen around contemporary archives to the documentary archive. It argues that the conventional understanding of the print archive as a fragile, irreplaceable national cultural legacy is a limited one and tries instead to rethink questions of ownership and access, issues thrown up in sharp relief by the digital archive.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>If we could eavesdrop on informal conversations between historians on their use of state-owned archives outside of metropolitan centres, we would probably chance upon a rich trove of stories. Many of these would have to do with the tragi-comic experience of accessing, finding and handling precious material that is sure to not survive the conditions in which it is stored. The uppermost thought and feeling when working in a small archive in India, therefore, is usually an anxiety about the mortality of the document.Yet, the conditions of preservation are scarcely the only concern when we approach the question of the archive here. In fact, without embedding the archive in the many questions surrounding it, it is unlikely that issues of preservation can be broached fruitfully. <br />Of late, a proliferation of questions and concerns around contemporary archives has foregrounded some of the assumptions underpinning print archives.* These could be seen as a development on the perspectives that have disrupted the sanctity of the historical document in itself. The place of the archive has been assailed from many quarters, whether from the Foucauldian suspicion of the logic of the archive, or from the critiques of history that point to the divide between history and memory, public and private, or, from the subaltern perspective, between history and other ways of experiencing time.</p>
<p><br />One strand of this critique that emphasises the constructed nature of the archive, as against viewing it as a precious and accidental trace, also emphasises the variety of users and uses that open archives enable.** Archives of the contemporary that allow users to catalogue, edit, comment and add their own data pose some challenging questions to more conventional approaches to archiving.</p>
<p><br />If we could typify a ‘conventional’ approach, it would be one that sees manuscript and paper archives as a source for researchers alone, or as a pedagogic appendage, or as a national legacy, held permanently in safekeeping away from those whose psyche it is supposed to buttress. For the historian-researcher, the view of the archive as a precious and irreplaceable trace from the past is an instinctive reaction to handling an ‘original’ document. It is that instinct that makes the question of whether or not the state can and should be a repository of the archive a tortuous one. If we revisit the print archive with questions emerging from contemporary archivists, it is still difficult to detach oneself from the compelling fragility of the document. Its potential transience in fact reinforces the idea of its accidental survival from a ‘different’ time and space, and the need to restrict its handling to a careful few. The historical document in an age of mechanical reproduction threatens to remove from the historianś grasp the experience of handling the original.Yet most historians would probably agree that as a generality, taking an average archive into consideration, the state’s role in preservation could until recently be summed up as exercising tight control over disappearing documents.</p>
<p><br />Most of the conceptual questions that are implicit in the critique posed by contemporary archivists are not new to historians. However, efforts to extend this to the material existence of the archive have not had the same success, and this is where there seems to be a gap between what contemporary and non-contemporary archivists are able to do. A very different picture is conjured up by the contemporary archive with the potential access it offers to non-specialist users. The uses and needs that emerge from non-specialists cannot be imagined in the context of the state archive. Often, though this is not usually made explicit, the imagination of the contemporary archive, dislodged from the sanctity of the national, pedagogic or academic ideal, implies a digital format and the increasing possibility for the user to recategorise and signpost different aspects of a collection.</p>
<p><br />While archives of the contemporary are not necessarily celebratory, and often indicate the differential access and rights of digital publics, they nonetheless do not address those areas that the conventional historian is most familiar with.*** All of these skirt around the relatively unreachable government archives, or privately held collections. The transition from print to digital format does not ensure that issues of state ownership, access and generating potential different users for archives will be addressed. In fact the Indian historian who is the bridge between the University and the state archive can only too easily imagine continuity across the transition to another technology.</p>
<p><br />On another note, the transition to digital technology and private ownership has actually presented the historian in India with a further quandary. The digital archive in a well-funded private university setting such as can be found in the US, or in a state institution as in the UK enables holding organizations to use digital technology to ‘complete’ their archival collections, drawing in private collections from countries that cannot afford preservation and enhancing their own closed holdings. While such institutions cannot have access to Indian state archives, it is an indication that technology alone does not resolve questions that require another sort of intervention.</p>
<p><br />The question at hand:<br />It may be well to set aside a nationalist perspective here, for it can be argued that those forbidden by the Indian government from accessing pertinent archives are well served by the fact that these exist elsewhere. The issue here is that while currently the archives continue to be housed and controlled by national institutions, we probably cannot retain this nationalist perspective to address the question of archives anymore. Aside from being positioned between two approaches: a rapid acquisition policy with respect to private holdings, and a relatively inaccessible state policy, we could also be seen as the (illegitimate?) repository of other national holdings. For instance, the Central Library in Goa at one point in time was the holding library for Portuguese empire in the ‘East’ or the Estado da Índia. It therefore has a large collection of official government publications from Africa. Communities disaffected from the nation see their archival holdings as illegitimately if safely housed in dominant regional libraries. Each area could possibly produce varying positions vis-à-vis the nationalist perspective and not just about illegitimacy of ownership. These will be rendered untenable if one sustains a singularly nationalist perspective on the archive What is at issue is that we currently have a restricted number of print archive models at hand. The most dominant are the stateist and the knowledge economy model. </p>
<p><br />The knowledge economy model seeks to make a single repository such as a well-funded University library the single largest holding of historical material; an asset into which other Universities can buy. As an instance, we could cite the South Asia projects of the University of Chicago, which, while it makes funds available to rescue private collections from disappearance, also has a centralizing vision that converts archival collections into a private asset.**** How do we, as historians of India (and perhaps necessarily Indian historians) situate ourselves with respect to these two models?</p>
<p><br />Quite simply, we, as an assorted group of users, don’t have the resources to buy private archives, and would be opposed to (in any case untenable) state control over these. As a first move, there is a need to shift from seeing ourselves in relation to the state archives alone, or as a relatively silent entity positioned between the state and the knowledge economy, dependent on individual research grants for access overseas archives. <br />We could instead consider the possibilities that technology holds out to enhance control, centralization and exclusivity, or to dissipate it. We could focus on questions of access; on who potential users are; on mutually recognized open access policies between institutions, and on finding interest groups and archive-related projects and other contexts for use of the archives.</p>
<p><br />A discussion on state and private collections may have to consider different approaches and collate different kinds of information to be able to intervene in defining the possibilities of archiving. Most fundamentally, these approaches would stem from considering who the current owners – economic, ethical, political – of these archives are, and who they could possibly be, what could take and what routes of dissemination they could have?A conceptualization of a notion of commons, or public good may be a beginning point to envisage who owns the archives, who cares for them, who uses them, and how. </p>
<p><br />*By contemporary archives we refer to those housed by SARAI in Delhi or the recently launched Pad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive), an open access video archive that allows users to catalogue, edit, comment and add their own data.<br /><a class="external-link" href="http://www.appadurai.com/publications_01-pres.htm">**See for instance, Arjun Appadurai’s ‘Archive and Aspiration’</a><br /><a class="external-link" href="http://www.altlawforum.org/PUBLICATIONS/document.2004-12-18.3173123566">***See Lawrence Liang, ‘Global Commons, Public Space And Contemporary Ipr’</a><br /><a class="external-link" href="http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/urlc/urlcabout.html">**** See the proposed Urdu Research Library Consortium into which members can buy shares. </a><br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-archive-and-the-indian-historian'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/the-archive-and-the-indian-historian</a>
</p>
No publisheraparnaArchives2011-08-23T04:44:44ZBlog Entry