[Bp_localcontent] Call, Tuesday 12th August

[Stuart Hamilton]

Dear Colleagues

Just a quick update on today’s call on local content. Many thanks to Michael, Glen, Martha, Sylvain and Wale who participated, and Sorina who hosted.

We managed a quick recap of where we are with regards to the preparation of the session in Istanbul, and the forthcoming draft being prepared by John Laprise on local content. 

In terms of subject talk, an interesting point was raised by Michael regarding ‘needed’ or ‘potential’ policies as opposed to existing ones - perhaps we have lost a little bit of momentum at this point in the conversation as a result of there not being that many policies out there for enabling the creation of local content. It was suggested that maybe the BPF session in Istanbul could move through a discussion of what does exist into a concluding section on what really should exist, based on what we do know.

I made several references to the post on the list this week by Alastair at the European library, and wondered if, as someone who works in the European library sector, there might actually be a lot more policies out there than we realise - perhaps we are looking in the wrong place. After all, the EU has been funding regional programmes on digitising and making available national content through libraries and archives for many years, as have Member States. Glen gave us an example from France - EINA, an archiving organisation - whereby a government mandate allowed EINA to archive French video and radio broadcasts. This, coupled with Alastair’s comments on the phrase ‘local content’ not being recognised in his sector, made me think there might be policymaking going on in the area we are looking at, but just using different terminology.

Of course, we should not just limit ourselves to the library and archive sector. Martha shared that in Colombia there are many more experiences to choose from regarding the production of local content, but there are not policies driving them - yet they are happening nonetheless. She raised the need for more articulation in a policy sense, and also referred back to the difficulty of defining the issue - which made me wonder: if it can’t be done easily in a group of experts, how easy will it be for policymakers?

We did limit ourselves to about 30 minutes of chat due to a low turnout. In terms of next steps, Susan and I will confer with John to give you an update on the draft outcome document, and we’ll also discuss the session format and panellists and get back to you on that. More soon.

In the meantime, please do not hesitate if anything more springs to mind in terms of policies, success stories and unintended consequences. All of the information we can share will be useful for John’s document.

Kind regards,

Stuart

Stuart Hamilton
IFLA Director, Policy and Advocacy
IFLA Headquarters
The Hague
Netherlands

00 31 70 314 0884
stuart.hamilton at ifla.org