Today, January 26th is Australia Day. This means everyone is
having a day off work, and in this ‘free’ time we can reflect how lucky we are
to live in our nation and celebrate this. The benefits and privileges of living
in Australia
I was very interested to read some new research last week
which set out to rank countries on their level of ‘Freedom’ and give them a
score out of ten. The research is published in the book ‘Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom’, which was released on 8 January 2013 by the Fraser Institute. Chapter 3 by
Ian Vásquez and Tanja Štumberger gives ‘An Index of Freedom in the World’.
Freedom is looked at in four areas: Security
and Safety; Freedom of Movement; Freedom of Expression; and Relationship
Freedoms. The authors say:
“We have tried to capture the degree to which
people are free to enjoy the major civil liberties—freedom of speech, religion,
and association and assembly—in each country in our survey. In addition, we
include indicators of crime and violence, freedom of movement, and legal
discrimination against homosexuals. We also include six variables pertaining to
women’s freedom that are found in various categories of the index”.
The categories in detail are:
I. Security and
safety
A. Government’s threat to a
person
1. Extrajudicial killings
2. Torture
3. Political imprisonment
4. Disappearances
B. Society’s threat to a person
1. Intensity of violent conflicts
2. Level of organized conflict
(internal)
3. Female genital mutilation
4. Son preference
5. Homicide
6. Human trafficking
7. Sexual violence
8. Assault
9. Level of perceived criminality
C. Threat to private property
1. Theft
2. Burglary
3. Inheritance
D. Threat to foreigners
II. Movement
A. Forcibly displaced populations
B. Freedom of foreign movement
C. Freedom of domestic movement
D. Women’s freedom of movement
III. Expression
A. Press killings
B. Freedom of speech
C. Laws and regulations that
influence media content
D. Political pressures and
controls on media content
E. Dress code in public
IV. Relationship
freedoms
A. Freedom of assembly and
association
B. Parental authority
C. Government restrictions on
religion
D. Social hostility toward
religion
E. Male-to-male relationships
F. Female-to-female relationships
G. Age of consent for homosexual
couples
H. Adoption by homosexuals
The country which has the best freedom in the world and comes
top in the Freedom Index is New
Zealand Australia
comes 4th and the UK
The countries which lack freedom and are bottom are Zimbabwe 123rd; Burma/Myanmar 122nd;
Pakistan 121st;
Sri-Lanka 120th; and Syria
The report is fascinating and I suggest you read it. You
might be wondering why I think this study has any relevance for librarians or
archivists. Being a librarian I most commonly associate Freedom with ‘Freedom
and Openness of Information’. I was
originally reading the study to see how Freedom of Information or Open
Government had been scored and ranked. However this was not included in the
study, perhaps because it wasn’t thought of it, or it was simply too hard.
It follows that if a country is very free then a lot more
information will be generated both commercially and by the Government. This is
likely to be in the public sphere at time of creation and then remain in the
public sphere when it gets passed on/purchased/made accessible by National
Archives, Libraries and Research Institutions.
If information is not publicly accessible then countries
with a high Freedom Index score have Freedom of Information (FOI) Acts. This
enables members of the public to request to see information. USA Australia
and New Zealand followed in
1982, and the UK
Most of the top ranked countries in the Freedom Index are
involved in a movement known as ‘Open Government’ which started in about 2009
and basically builds on the Freedom of Information Act principles. Open Government aims to
make a concerted effort to release reports, research, statistics and data sets
into the public domain and be transparent; to involve the citizens of the
country in decision making based on the fact they would have equal access to
the same information as policy decision makers; AND for citizens to help with
information creation, collation, dissemination and interpretation.
In June 2009 the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
announced that Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the Internet) would work with the
UK Government to help make data more open and accessible on the Web in the UK
On his first day in Office in January 2009 Barack Obama
issued a Memorandum on Transparency and
Open Government, instructing the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) to issue an Open Government Directive, which would direct agencies
to take specific actions regarding transparency, participation, and
collaboration.
In Australia
in 2009 the Government 2.0 Taskforce
recommended that Australia
At this time I had a particular interest in the Australian
Declaration because it was relevant to me in my day to day work at the National
Library of Australia. It said among other things:
“Collaboration with
citizens is to be enabled and encouraged. Agencies are to reduce barriers to
online engagement, undertake social networking, crowd sourcing and online
collaboration projects and support online engagement by employees…”
In 2011 the New Zealand Government made a Declaration of OpenGovernment.
After these dramatic declarations by the USA , Australia
and New Zealand Brazil ,
Indonesia , Mexico , Norway ,
Philippines , South Africa , United
Kingdom , and United States
(but not Australia or New Zealand
·
deliver a concrete action plan, developed with
public consultation
·
commit to independent reporting on their
progress going forward
At last check 60 countries have now joined with 47 having delivered action
plans and 13 working on them. However Australia
and New Zealand
The UK
Perhaps the Freedom Index had trouble ranking Open
Government, so how would you do it?
Interestingly last week Craig Thomler reported in a blog post
that he had attempted to rank countries by comparing the number of open data
sets they had released through their national government open data sites. He has relied on the ‘open data’ provided on
the USA Open Data site to do this and notes that the results are a bit dubious.
Data.gov lists 41 countries as having open data websites, out of almost 200 countries.
Government Open Data sites include:
The ranking results of countries providing Open Data via
Government Data Sites in January 2013 are:
1. US (378,529 data sets)
2. France
3. Canada
4. Denmark
5. United
Kingdom
6. Singapore
7. South
Korea
8. Netherlands
9. New
Zealand
10. Estonia
11. Australia
Is this really right thatAustralia Australia
Is this really right that
8 portals I know of where I could
look. Also many more individual sites that offer their own data sets. The
portal sites listed below either publicly list or actually make available
Australian data sets.
Australian Data Set Portals
Number of data sets included as at 26 January 2013
53,000: National Library of Australia Trove Service, mostly from the University sector
31,000: Research Data Australia, from
the Academic and Research sector
1,124: Data (Department of Finance), from Federal Government Agencies.
466: Atlas of Living
Australia, from Research Institutes
250: Data.nsw.gov.au,
from State Government Departments
78: Data.qld.gov.au,
from State Government Departments
72: DataACT www.data.act.gov.au, from State
Government Departments
This takes the total figure of Australian open data sets to between
50,000 - 94,000 depending on the duplication, if any, between these sites, and
possibly moves us up to fourth position in the rankings. Duplication… that makes me want to put my
librarian hat on again. Wouldn’t it be
good if the Australian Government took on the bigger challenge and picture for data sets by
utilising the knowledge and delivery services of the National Library and
National Archives of Australia. they could develop an open data set portal that
co-ordinated, listed, delivered and was searchable for ALL Australian data
sets, rather than each sector (Government, Research Institutes, Commercial,
Academic, Libraries, Archives) attempting to develop its own portal. This would much better serve the citizens of Australia
This evening the televised 5 minute 2013 Australia Day Address from the Governor-General talked about the importance of looking for answers to big questions, saying the
internet is often our first stop. She spoke about significant research and how
changes in technology and access to information can assist with ideas and
innovation which often translates into economic growth. Everything she said
applied to opening up data sets.
The take home messages for Australian and New Zealand Librarians and Archivists about the implications of being up there in the top of the Freedom Index and Open Government rankings are that it means:
·
Our digital collections will grow rapidly with
this explosion of open and free digital data.
·
We must further develop our search and discovery
and delivery platforms to keep up with Google and ensure we maintain our
relevance in digital society.
·
We need to take a lead in the Open Data movement
– most especially by being involved in development of open data portals.
·
We must campaign for Digital Legal Deposit and
make it a reality for Australia
as it is in New Zealand
·
Libraries and Archives are founded on freedom of
information, equal access and openness; this is our tour de force.
Happy Australia
Useful Extra Reading
