Latest / UK Column Radio / How To Be a Globalist Librarian

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How To Be a Globalist Librarian · UK Column Radio

0:12
I don't know how many of you watched UK column news on Monday
0:15
when I talked about the Sustainable Development Goals
0:18
and how they tie into scientific research and libraries and
0:22
universities. And so I had a comment from
0:25
Charles actually saying that he thought that this was
0:27
particularly interesting and useful information.
0:29
So he suggested that I go into a little bit further into some of
0:33
this with libraries for this talk.
0:36
So I've, these are things I've been aware of for a while.
0:39
There's some new things that I found this week.
0:41
I went far into this rabbit hole and I will try to keep it as
0:44
surface level as possible. If there's anything else about
0:46
libraries or education you'd like to talk about during the
0:49
question and answers, of course, I'm, I'm certainly happy to
0:52
address anything related to this.
0:55
So Sandy Adams and I have been, unfortunately, she's not here
0:59
today. It's actually her birthday this
1:01
weekend. So happy birthday to Sandy.
1:03
So she's away celebrating with her family, which is lovely.
1:06
She, she and I have been talking a lot recently about sustainable
1:10
development goals and, and education and in particular, and
1:13
how this all ties in together into the 2030 agenda.
1:17
So I'm assuming that most of you who are here, if you watch UK
1:21
Holloman, if you're here at this event, you are aware of the
1:23
sustainable development goals and our, our reporting, which
1:28
has shown that basically whatever they say is the
1:30
opposite is true. So sustainable means
1:32
unsustainable, right? So they are trying to unsustain
1:35
us at whatever level at the top that we're trying to talk about,
1:39
right? So if they're saying we're going
1:41
to protect life underwater, it actually means we're going to
1:43
kill the fish, right? So we have to really be careful
1:47
of what they're saying because it's inversion of language that
1:50
they use is actually they're they're doing the opposite
1:53
usually of what they're telling us or they try to make it sound
1:55
like it's really nice. And that's something that we
1:57
have to be really careful with is what's actually going on
2:01
beneath this language that they're giving to us, because on
2:03
a surface level it sounds great, but what are they really trying
2:07
to do? So I'm going to talk in
2:09
particular today about libraries and the the sort of the
2:13
globalist organization that runs libraries and how they have
2:17
contributed to these sustainable development goals.
2:20
In particular, Sustainable Development Goal 16 is the one
2:24
that apparently they see libraries fitting into under the
2:29
most, although they see libraries relating to all
2:31
seventeen goals and that we can all contribute to them as good
2:34
librarians. Well, not me anymore, but
2:36
previously other librarians that still exist in the system that
2:39
we are able to contribute to all seventeen goals because we have
2:43
such a role to play in education and knowledge and and and
2:46
getting things out to the world and access to information.
2:49
But what is actually going on underneath all of this?
2:53
So the short version of the title of Sustainable Goal 16 is
2:58
peace, justice and strong institutions, Which of course
3:02
sounds lovely, doesn't it? Sure who does?
3:04
Who doesn't want peace and justice?
3:06
And strong institutions. However, if you read some of the
3:09
language, and these are things, I know this is being recorded.
3:12
So if people need to see these details later, you can always
3:15
look at them later on, but they're on the slides anyway.
3:18
Goal 16 is about promoting peaceful and inclusive
3:21
societies. So inclusion means exclusion,
3:24
doesn't it? Right.
3:26
Think about myself. Think about what inclusion
3:28
actually means in this day and age.
3:30
Providing access to justice for all and building effective,
3:33
accountable and inclusive. Second word in the second
3:37
inclusive in the same sentence. Institutions at all levels,
3:41
people everywhere should be free of fear from all forms of
3:44
violence and feel safe as they go about their lives, whatever
3:47
their ethnicity, faith, or sexual orientation.
3:52
So we're talking about including everyone.
3:54
Just that's OK. It sounds good at a surface
3:56
level, but those of you who are aware of the sort of the
3:58
equality, diversity, sorry, equity, not equality, equity,
4:02
diversity and inclusion agenda that has perfaded all employers
4:06
and institutions in this country, you will know that it
4:08
is not all as nice and lovely as it sounds.
4:12
There are. I don't know how much you've
4:14
looked into the actual UN policies.
4:17
This is directly from the the United Nations website.
4:20
The targets and all of all of the sociable development goals
4:23
have these different targets and indicators and outputs and what
4:27
we want to do by 2030. So there are several of them
4:30
listed here. They have a lot to do with
4:32
violence and stopping violence, stopping abuse, exploitation,
4:36
trafficking. Again, that all sounds great,
4:39
but it's all about, you know, basically treating everyone the
4:42
same. So it's kind of this idea of
4:44
everyone is equal, which depending on what you call it,
4:47
there is academic debates about is it Marxism, is it communism?
4:51
Is it socialism? You know what, what is behind
4:54
that? But essentially, basically
4:55
saying that everyone has to be treated the same, which is why
4:58
they're funneling money from, you know, wealthier nations like
5:01
the UK, at least historically, to other countries in the name
5:05
of climate finance. And so there's channeling money
5:07
through, you know, City of London and, and the banking
5:09
system to Africa. And then African nations are in
5:12
another sort of less affluent nations in the past.
5:16
So we're all being treated equitably so that we all have
5:19
the same amount of nothing and we'll be happy about it in five
5:22
years. Yay.
5:23
OK, So what I want to focus on here, though, for my talk is 16
5:29
A, which is to strength. Well, there's 1610 and 16 A 1610
5:34
says ensure public access to information and protect
5:37
fundamental freedoms in accordance with national
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legislation and international agreements.
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SO16A in particular. 16 sorry, 1610, I've been up since 3:00 AM
5:47
16/10 is the one that the library associations, the
5:51
International Federation of Library Associations, which I'm
5:54
going to talk about in depth, directly contributed to this.
5:58
So what are they actually saying when they're talking about
6:01
access to public access to information?
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Well, this has to do partially with their target 1610 and
6:09
sustainable development goals. So who has ever tried to do a
6:13
Freedom of Information request in this country?
6:16
How did it go for you? Was it difficult?
6:20
Not difficult. Well, that's surprising.
6:22
Anyone else wasn't difficult. Well, that's good because that's
6:27
not been my experience. And, and, and one of the one of
6:30
the things that is interesting about Freedom of Information
6:32
requests is that you have to hit a certain spots.
6:35
You guys must have done them much better than I have ever
6:37
done because you can't ask for too much because then they say
6:41
it costs too much money. You either have a threshold, I
6:43
think it's £600 which was set 20 years ago, which is still £600,
6:47
and if it costs more than £600 in staff time or resources, they
6:50
won't do it. If it's too broad, they won't do
6:52
it. If it's too generic, they won't
6:54
do it. We've been giving Freedom of
6:56
Information requests for libraries to find out what
6:59
they're doing in these decolonization projects and
7:02
access to information that children shouldn't be seeing
7:05
that I reported on consistently. And we get very vague answers
7:08
back from the universities and the libraries and they claim
7:11
that they haven't done this or they don't hold this or you've
7:13
asked for too much. It's the same with the Fidelity
7:15
Residential School cases. So maybe the things that I'm
7:18
doing are too controversial. Maybe you've done things that
7:20
are easier to answer, but here this was written evidence
7:23
submitted to Parliament around SDG 16.
7:26
These are media related organizations and they said that
7:30
in 2000 when the UK started using the Freedom of Information
7:33
Act or when they tried to put into place they had problems.
7:36
But although it was meant to be instrumental in speaking truth
7:39
to power, does that sound like a real government term?
7:41
Truth to power? And and it has been met with
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fierce criticism from both government representatives and
7:47
civil society organizations for complexity and ministerial veto
7:51
power to block information requests, among other issues.
7:54
So if they decide that they want to block it, they they can
7:57
essentially, but they've tied this back to in this report,
8:00
Parliament on SGG target 1610, which is the one I read to you.
8:05
Fundamental freedoms vital for democracy and good governance,
8:07
such as freedom of expression, which we've been talking about
8:10
today on online safety and censorship and all of these
8:13
things and access to information which is ATI these are they are
8:18
curved, exacerbates corruption and allows for complete impunity
8:21
for violations of the law and human rights.
8:24
Consequently, citizens become disenfranchised and have a low
8:27
trust in government. Well, that's surprising.
8:30
A feeling of further decline in civic space and democracy.
8:33
The achievement of SDG 16 and other SDGS are severely impeded.
8:37
That's not good for them and any related initiatives can easily
8:42
be misdirected and fail. So this is what's going to
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happen is if we don't follow these SDGS, then you know,
8:49
apparently civil society will fall apart.
8:52
So this gets into the IFLA organization, which is the one
8:55
that I mentioned, which is the International Federation of
8:58
Library Associations and Institutions.
9:00
This is the, you might have heard me if you've heard my
9:02
reporting previously on libraries Sillup, which is EU KS
9:06
version of this. And all of the National Library
9:08
associations fall under IFLA. So Sillup is the Chartered
9:12
Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
9:15
They took my charter ship away from me essentially when I when
9:17
I had to resign, when I was going through my cancellation
9:20
process. They have reciprocal agreements
9:22
with organizations like the American Library Association.
9:26
And actually, the reason that I'm allowed to be or was allowed
9:29
to be a professional librarian in the UK is because of
9:32
reciprocal agreements that kind of fall under these
9:34
international standards. So they all kind of work
9:36
together. And the last few and current
9:39
presidents of the American Library Association have been
9:41
Marxist, but but self declared Marxist lesbian was 1.
9:45
Emily Jervinski. There's also been the non binary
9:49
have been the last few Ala presidents.
9:52
So they're all right in the middle of of pushing that
9:55
particular agenda. The things that I talked about
9:57
related to the things that are they're being placed in front of
10:00
children. So here's what Ifla said about
10:05
Goal 16, SDG 16. The the entire name of Goal 16
10:10
is much longer than the one on the Pretty Little cartoony
10:12
graphic. Promote peaceful and inclusive
10:15
inclusive societies for sustainable development, Provide
10:18
access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and
10:22
inclusive, again, inclusive institutions at all levels.
10:26
And this is to realize access to information fully.
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Everyone needs both access and skills to use information
10:32
effectively. As outlined in the Lyon
10:34
Declaration on Access to Information and Development,
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which is another separate but related document.
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Libraries have the skills and resources to help governments,
10:41
institutions, and individuals communicate, organized structure
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and use information effectively for development.
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Now, when I became a librarian 25 years ago, I thought I was
10:52
just going to help organizations, people, etcetera,
10:54
find and access and use information.
10:56
I didn't know I was going to be doing it on behalf of the
10:58
globalists. So this was, I'm gonna just go
11:03
into a little bit of the history of showing how IFLA has been
11:07
instrumental for the past 10 years, actually a bit longer
11:11
around developing Agenda 2030. So this goes back to 2015 when
11:15
they were working on the 2030 agenda saying the new, the 2030
11:20
Agenda is an inclusive. How many times if we had, if we
11:23
had drinks in here, if your drink every time I said
11:25
inclusive, you guys would be on the floor by now.
11:28
Integrate a framework of 17 goals, spending economic,
11:32
environmental and social development.
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By achieving this agenda, no one will be left behind.
11:37
Libraries are key institution to help achieve the goals.
11:40
So there's that inclusivity, there's the everyone ends up in
11:43
the same place. That's the the idea of, you
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know, what they're doing of kind of spreading things around and
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and so on. So we're we're kind of seeing
11:50
what's what's going on there sort of politically.
11:53
And they talked about access to information as being an
11:55
important part of SGG 16, which of course I believe in access to
12:00
information of any type, not just misinformation.
12:04
I am the antidote to Mariana Spring, by the way.
12:07
So what what they said as an example, in this 2015 report of
12:10
what libraries can do to promote SGG 16, they talked about
12:14
helping the World Bank, The World Bank Group's strategy to
12:18
extreme poverty by 20-30. The World Bank Group provides
12:21
both staff and the global community with access to
12:24
relevant information and services in order to foster
12:27
knowledge transfer, good governance, and economic
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development. This was not about helping, you
12:33
know, illiterate adults learn to read.
12:35
This was not about helping children learn to read.
12:38
This was not about helping people use a computer for the
12:40
first time. The the kinds of things that I
12:43
thought that I was going to do when I became a librarian.
12:45
So this was the example that they showed of how they're going
12:49
to contribute to Agenda 2030 is by helping the World Bank.
12:52
That was kind of their case study example in this report.
12:56
So these are some slides that I just want to bring you back to.
12:59
These are from Monday's news, so forgive me if you've seen these
13:02
already, but just as a reminder of how this is actually playing
13:05
out now, like currently, this is from the University of
13:08
Strathclyde, which is where I used to work.
13:11
And they have this, every UK university has one of these sort
13:14
of, they call them information portals, where all the published
13:17
research and data sets now have to be deposited legally,
13:22
according to the UK government, that everything has to go into
13:24
the systems when you publish, when you publish the paper, when
13:27
you get grant funding, when you have data sets, they all are
13:31
required to go into this. And it's something called open
13:33
Science, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute.
13:36
What you see here is on the front page, the home page of
13:39
this research portal is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals,
13:43
right? You see all the little pretty
13:44
Carcini life below water, all the wonderful things we're going
13:47
to do because you have to, in this day and age when you do any
13:52
research for university in the UK, you have to align your
13:56
research to at least one sustainable development goal or
13:58
you are not allowed to do the work it is required to put into
14:02
the system. So here is this was the same man
14:06
I used on Monday, but he's a great example because he's doing
14:08
so well. This is Professor Paul Rogers,
14:10
who's actually professor of design.
14:13
Now, you wouldn't think that necessarily.
14:14
OK, so design sounds like a creative type.
14:16
Maybe, maybe Ben Rubin could work with him, right?
14:18
No, He's contributed, according to his profile on the university
14:22
research portal, he's contributed to all 17
14:25
sustainable development goals in in wonderful ways.
14:28
So that's. Yeah, I know.
14:30
And what they've done with some of my research that I deposited
14:33
into this system when I still worked for them, they've gone
14:36
back retroactively and added sustainable difficult goals to
14:39
research that I did when I was not even aware of what they
14:41
were. So that's how important it was
14:44
to them that I don't even work for them anymore.
14:46
And this was worked out, I did 5 or 10 years ago and they're
14:48
going back just to make the point.
14:51
This was one of the, So what happens is I said you have to
14:55
put individual pieces of, of your work into the system.
14:58
This is something a book that Professor Rogers contributed to
15:02
called Chronicles of Care, a design history of the COVID
15:06
virus. So he helped, did he help design
15:09
the virus? Was that like a, was it a vanity
15:10
project? Like what was this?
15:12
Right? So we over here you see that
15:14
he's contributed to SDGS 389 and 12 by doing this, this work and
15:20
this was a contribution and I think it was an entire book that
15:23
he edited and contributed to. It said the COVID crisis and the
15:27
design interventions that the authors have catalogued in this
15:29
book proved definitively that design does care cares about the
15:34
COVID virus. The authors documented this as
15:38
it evolved every day. Look at these dates from the 1st
15:42
of January 2020 to 31st of May 2020 inclusive.
15:46
Now, we didn't start wearing masks until July, right?
15:49
Or they tried to make us wear masks starting in July because
15:51
part of what they talked about in this chapter is how they
15:54
designed the masks and all the stickers they put all over the
15:57
place. This was all part of their
15:58
design work and they wrote about in the book, right?
16:01
Then they looked at all of this care and caring for the point of
16:04
view of design, and by the sheer volume of design interventions
16:08
they have documented, illustrate that design is good in a crisis.
16:13
So 4 out of 17 goals hit. You know, there's your next
16:17
promotion case right there, right?
16:19
That's probably why this guy's a professor, Steven.
16:22
So, so go back to libraries. And so of course, libraries run
16:26
those systems. They manage all those systems.
16:28
I had colleagues that worked on that system at the University of
16:30
Strathclyde, including some of my former students that were
16:32
doing it for their placements and students that went to work
16:35
for them and worked for these systems.
16:37
So I know them very well. So IFLA, so we're just to
16:41
forward ahead here. This is from 2018.
16:44
IFLA now has a yearly Green Library Award.
16:46
And at the end of this talk, I'm going to reveal the winner of
16:49
the 2025 Green Libraries Award. I bet you can't wait for that.
16:53
So this is a report from 2018 talking about how, once again,
16:57
how are they now that they would have actually contributed to
16:59
developing how libraries will contribute to the St.
17:02
GS? What are they doing with them
17:04
now that they're in place? So this is a 2018 report talking
17:08
about their sort of yearly work that they do.
17:11
So this, this in 2018, they did a, a survey talking to different
17:16
people about what they should be doing with, with the SDGS.
17:20
And they are saying that since libraries are part of the
17:22
sharing economy, this can include purchasing books.
17:26
And as we'll see, a lot of the books that they're also
17:28
purchasing for children. I don't report on this a lot,
17:30
but part of the books that they're, that they're buying for
17:33
children is to scare them about the climate crisis, right?
17:35
So if they're not already confused about what gender means
17:38
when they're young, they're already worried that we're going
17:40
to die because the planet is going to boil and they're not
17:42
going to make it to adulthood. So this report just to some some
17:48
points from it. It says the green library
17:50
movement began in the 1990s with the focus on buildings,
17:55
sustainability literacy. So it's not just about reading
17:58
literacy. It's not just about Computer
18:00
literacy. It's all those now we have to
18:02
have be literate about sustainability, having knowledge
18:05
and skills to advocate for resilient social, economic and
18:08
environmental systems, working with children and young adults
18:11
in order to build the habit of sustainability early in life.
18:15
Right. So now we're the kids are going
18:16
to be terrified that they they can't open a package or throw
18:19
something in the bin. It's going to kill the planet.
18:22
University libraries supporting the research related to
18:25
sustainability, which we've just shown from those examples from
18:28
my former employer. So that's 2018.
18:32
In 2020, there was, this was published as a working group,
18:36
the European Libraries and Sustainable Assessment towards
18:39
SDG Indicators in European Libraries.
18:41
This was a committee that fell under IFLA, the International
18:45
Association. And so this was some interesting
18:49
points that came out of this. And this kind of ties into some
18:52
things that were mentioned in the news together with certified
18:55
information. So we can't have that fake
18:58
information. Certified information libraries
19:01
do store historical pieces of misinformation.
19:04
I didn't know that was allowed, right.
19:07
I should go back to the library world.
19:09
Anti revolutionary or revolutionary pamphlets
19:11
including falsehoods or overly distorted facts, Flat Earth
19:15
conspiracies or very simply obsolete theories that were
19:20
falsified by successive scientific advances.
19:23
Well, that's all part of history, right?
19:24
Just because somebody thought one thing and then we still need
19:27
to keep it documented. Metadata about these documents
19:30
are offered in a neutral way by library catalogs, which cannot
19:33
be considered in any way. Weapons against disinformation.
19:37
What does that mean? Secondly, however, information
19:40
literate they are and in libraries, information literacy
19:43
means this is how you determine what sources are useful to use.
19:47
The actually my very first job in libraries, after I got my
19:50
qualification, my first job title was, if I can remember it
19:53
correctly, instruction and information literacy
19:56
technologist, and I just thought I was going to be a librarian.
19:59
So I have this job title with 20 words in it.
20:02
So users are willing to come to a well informed and objective
20:06
judgement about societal, political or scientific events
20:09
should go through the following steps.
20:11
So first, you should access a library.
20:13
Good idea. Peru's documents, including fake
20:16
news. I thought we were throwing that
20:17
out because we're gonna look at it now.
20:19
Verify fake news against opposite truths.
20:22
So as as Rosemary Jenkinson, the author that that I interviewed
20:26
earlier this week for UK column Your Truth is the Wrong Wrong
20:29
Kind of Truth, which is the theme of her novel Verify faked
20:33
news against opposite truths or principle of falsification.
20:37
These conditions, never fully satisfied, are always time
20:40
consuming. I don't even know what that
20:43
means but I thought it was interesting.
20:45
So here's a connection between what an examples from this
20:48
report of what libraries can do to put these into place.
20:51
So we have targets for SDG 4. So for example, by 20-30, I'm
20:57
sure all girls and boys have access to quality early
21:00
childhood development care and pre primary education so that
21:04
they are ready for primary education.
21:06
The library as an output has a book start, which is a program
21:10
to help with this. They work with daycare centers
21:13
and child healthcare centers. The outcomes is that children
21:16
score higher on language tests and they have a better
21:19
vocabulary. So you know, that would be easy
21:22
to sell to a librarian, right? Because, well, that all sounds
21:24
good, right? Like, yeah, let's help kids
21:25
learn to read. That sounds like a good idea,
21:28
but, you know, but then that turns into, well, we're going to
21:32
tell them how to not make the planet boil.
21:34
We're going to tell them they can change their gender or
21:35
change their species as long as we can get them to read and put
21:38
the material in front of them. Then the librarians are
21:40
thinking, oh, it's all part of the same plan.
21:42
It's all great and we're all going to be what we need to be
21:44
by 2030. So here's the online Computer
21:48
Library Center, which is OCLC is one of the major library
21:52
providers around the world. They actually own the rights to
21:55
the Dewey Decimal System, if that's what you think of when
21:57
you think of libraries. They actually own the Dewey
21:58
system now. They did a a survey in 2021
22:03
asking librarians around the world which SDGS they thought
22:06
they understood and which ones they could contribute to.
22:09
And they found for the most part 4810 and 16 and 17 were the top
22:16
ones. So that includes education, work
22:18
and economic growth, reduced inequalities 16 which includes
22:22
the access to information and partnerships for the goals.
22:25
And here's just some of the survey results of the
22:27
percentages of both public and academic librarians who thought
22:31
that they would be able to contribute to these SDGS.
22:34
So the the scores are actually pretty high.
22:36
And in the conclusion, they said whether explicitly or
22:40
implicitly, libraries are contributing to all 17 of the
22:43
SDGS. And in some cases, library
22:45
activities are associated with strategic planning for the
22:48
libraries. But for the most part, they are
22:50
just taking as part of their mission as library that
22:53
libraries themselves are contributing to Agenda 20-30.
22:56
But they should continue to plan for it.
22:59
IFLA has an Environment, Sustainability and Libraries
23:03
section. This is a large group within
23:05
IFLA itself, and they are the ones really focusing on showing
23:09
how libraries on the world are putting this into place.
23:12
Here's one example. June 2025, the Biblio Green High
23:16
School library in Italy. So what other imagery do you see
23:19
in there? Along with being green, we see
23:21
the rainbow, don't we? Right.
23:24
So that's a wonderful example. That is actually Greek
23:29
divinities. That was their way of teaching
23:31
Greek divinities to high school students was with the rainbow.
23:34
I don't know what that relationship is.
23:37
Seeds have changed environmental education resources from Spain.
23:39
So we see things like picture books, selling a a guide to
23:43
children's literature, the environment and the SDGS.
23:45
So we're teaching SDGS and and climate crisis to young children
23:49
through picture books, Climate change resources guide for ages
23:52
3 to 18. So on a little bit more recently
23:56
we have the tool Kit for Libraries development and the UN
23:59
20-30 agenda. Again, just telling libraries
24:01
exactly how they can do these things and put these little
24:04
programs into place within their libraries.
24:07
And this was just published last month, June 2025, an entire book
24:13
on libraries driving education for sustainable development.
24:18
So this is specifically promoting the UNESCO Agenda
24:21
2030. So that's the education part of
24:23
the UN. And there's an there's a 500
24:26
page book of ideas of how libraries can do these things.
24:30
So I just thought we would take a look at the table of contents.
24:34
Some of these chapter names are really interesting.
24:37
Empowering communities sustaining the planet.
24:39
The role of libraries of the introductory chapter library LED
24:42
for education for sustainable development, data information
24:46
literacy for sustainable development, arts based
24:48
sustainability from New York to Malawi.
24:51
OK, incentives for open science and advancing sustainability.
24:55
A German perspective. So what open science means is
24:57
that we're trying to make research available for free,
25:00
which is what what the UK universities are doing with
25:03
putting things into their repositories means that we don't
25:05
have to pay publishers to access a lot of things.
25:08
However, it's all agenda driven, right?
25:10
So if you do something really interesting or off the wall,
25:13
you're not allowed to share it because it doesn't align with
25:15
the SDGS, which means you literally cannot put it on the
25:17
repository. So it's free, but it's all
25:21
driven by whatever the government will fund, which
25:24
aligns with the SD, GS and so on.
25:26
Or other things that are talking about the climate crisis or
25:30
information needs of LGBT people in libraries, which is funded
25:33
all over the place right now. For example, public and school
25:37
libraries nurturing young environmental stewards, a
25:40
citizen science corner in an Australian school library.
25:43
So they're teaching children they can be scientists without
25:45
any scientific training. But only if it's going to
25:47
promote the green agenda. Creating green libraries in
25:50
Colombia, cultivating sustainability in Hungary.
25:53
Libraries striding towards a sustainable society in India.
25:57
Green libraries as catalyst for sustainability in Slovenia.
26:00
Green libraries meet the arts in Spain.
26:02
Sourcing it everywhere. Academic libraries empowering
26:05
students for sustainable future. Information literacy and
26:08
academic libraries championing sustainable development and
26:11
academic libraries in East Africa.
26:13
Sustainability agenda. And this is a university in
26:16
Germany. Gottning University.
26:17
Inspiring a new generation and Spanish university library
26:20
sustainability education. Cultivating change student
26:23
driven sustainability projects leveraging open educational
26:27
resources from sustainable educational built in
26:29
Switzerland. Same thing over and over again
26:30
for 500 pages. And finally how we do education
26:33
for library information science students in the Philippines.
26:38
Are you all ready for the big reveal?
26:39
The 2025 winner of the Ifla Green Library Grand Scale
26:44
Project award. Everyone ready for it?
26:47
It was just announced last week in Kazakhstan, which is where
26:50
the annual conference was, right?
26:52
Who? Like I had all these former
26:54
friends of mine all over Facebook.
26:55
I had to go into Kazakhstan. I'm so excited we have the James
27:00
Baldwin Library SD GS inside a sustainable project in Paris.
27:07
It was the exemplified sustainable and inclusive urban
27:11
renewal located in a hybrid eco design facility shared with the
27:15
refugees home. It serves as a vibrant community
27:17
hub promoting reparative justice, which is that whole
27:20
idea of apologizing for who we are as as people in certain
27:23
countries. So that's that's important in
27:26
France and supporting marginalized groups, including
27:29
refugees. It's environmentally conscious
27:32
design features green roofs, solar panels and biosource
27:35
materials, earning labels such as I don't know what this means.
27:38
E plus, C minus and renovation. BBCA.
27:42
The library offers inclusive take a drink inclusive programs
27:46
for diverse communities. Take another drink.
27:48
Diverse, including deaf and LGBTQIA plus people.
27:53
Partners with organizations. While further operational
27:56
improvements are possible, the library stands as a model of low
27:59
carbon design and social engagement.
28:01
So that is the Green Library of the Year.
28:06
Yeah. The build.
28:07
Sorry. Yeah.
28:09
Such a beautiful building. If you like dystopia, it's
28:11
great. Yeah.
28:12
Yeah. So just to bring us back to the
28:15
UN once again, and I don't know, not sure if we've reported on
28:19
this or not, but we probably should if we haven't.
28:22
The Sustainability Development Goals Report 2025 from the UN
28:25
was just released in July. So that's the latest update on
28:29
what we've been doing to promote SDGS worldwide, according to the
28:33
UN. At the bottom, without, we can
28:35
ignore all the language at the top, but at the bottom, Antonio
28:38
Guterres, who's the Secretary General of the UN says with just
28:41
five years to reach the Sustainable Development Goals,
28:44
we need to shift into OverDrive. Right.
28:49
So this is from again the UN page key message.
28:55
A decisive 5 year countdown starts now.
28:58
So as I've reported previously, we're really not doing very well
29:01
with them though, because it says here, just like I've
29:03
reported a few months ago, only 35% of SDG targets with
29:08
available trend data are on track or show moderate progress.
29:12
Nearly half are moving too slowly or making only marginal
29:14
progress while 18% have regressed.
29:17
So even though there's this huge push, I think the only positive
29:20
message I can bring out of this is that we're not doing very
29:22
well. But I think that's quite a
29:23
positive message actually. But they're still trying.
29:28
And this is just my last slide here and then I'll I can take
29:30
some questions. This is again there.
29:32
The which is interesting about this is that from that 2025
29:35
report on on SDG 16, which is the the 16-10 about the access
29:41
to information, peace, strong justice, strong institutions.
29:44
If you read the bullet points here, it talks a lot about
29:46
violence and conflict and access to justice and urgent action is
29:51
needed to protect lies and restore trust through peace
29:54
building justice reform and account.
29:56
So you know, it's all, it's all a lot of fear mongering
29:59
language. I don't really see anything in
30:00
there too much about access to information, although some of
30:03
the, the, the things I've read about this is that they're
30:06
talking about access to information includes stopping
30:10
the murdering of journalists, which really terrified me.
30:14
I don't know. I don't know if that was, you
30:16
know, but I thought it was interesting to say, well, if we
30:18
don't do this, we're going to the, the journalists are going
30:20
to be killed. So I don't know, I don't know
30:24
what that means. But anyway, so that's just my
30:28
overview of this topic. I know it was really quick.
30:31
I hope it was helpful to see because I think it's good to
30:33
take a specific example of 1 industry, the library industry
30:37
and show exactly how these things are being put into place
30:40
in one area. And I'm sure that we could do
30:43
1000 more because it's everywhere.
30:45
But with that, thanks for your attention and I'm happy to take
30:47
any questions. Thank you, Diane.
31:04
Very informative. Language is clearly very
31:07
important and I've noticed the Joe public start using words
31:12
like misinformation, malinformation.
31:14
And you've mentioned inclusivity.
31:16
Sustainability is one that's really struck with me walking
31:20
years ago through streets of London and every restaurant or
31:23
every advert seems to have that word sustainable.
31:26
Do you know how these keywords get into the system so quickly?
31:31
So they seem to go from nothing to everybody is talking about it
31:35
like a buzzword, sort of where it comes from and who's driving
31:38
that. I mean if it were me, I would
31:40
actually look to Brian. I know Brian is not until 5:00,
31:43
but I think it has a lot to do with these behaviour change
31:46
plans that, you know, the starting with the Mindspace
31:48
document and Behavioural insights team is that they have
31:52
found ways to use language to change behaviours.
31:55
And obviously the word sustainable sounds great, but
31:58
actually when you look at it, it's, it's, it's nothing to do
32:01
with that. And, and, and so I think using
32:04
these words over and over again, especially when they mean the
32:06
opposite of what they're saying and inverting the language, but
32:09
we hear it all the time. It's kind of like how we, you
32:11
know, we were hearing stay home, save the NHS.
32:14
This is, I think it's the same program, honestly.
32:17
It's just different words and and a different way to terrify
32:20
us and to submission. Yeah, makes sense.
32:23
Thank you. Yeah.
32:27
Good question. Up to a few years ago, the
32:31
libraries were a scene of Drag Queen Story hour.
32:35
Yeah, going on like every 5 minutes.
32:37
Oh yeah, suddenly over the last, I'd say 1 1/2 years, a sudden
32:42
stop just before the election, Actually before the general
32:46
election here last year. Nothing really.
32:50
Not during the general election, not I think there was one or two
32:55
after the general election, but then nothing at all.
32:58
And the libraries have not been a focus for that.
33:01
And I think it's because they, they've probably done, they've
33:06
probably got that programming in quite successfully by it being
33:10
able to have those drag queen story hours in the beginning.
33:15
They knew not many will turn up. It's probably the people, I, I
33:19
think it was parents who were paid to turn up to, to actually
33:22
bring their kids to that and and so on.
33:25
I think it was is part of a a wider agenda of just getting the
33:29
message out and programming that way.
33:33
I, you know, I wonder if it was a bit of trying to normalize the
33:36
whole thing, like the, the, the wider issue, because I work
33:39
consistently with, I hear from parents who are concerned.
33:43
I work with groups like the Scottish Union Free Education,
33:45
which I'm on the board for Protect and teach, who's worked
33:49
Kathy Mudge with Protect and Teach has been on with me on
33:51
the, on the channel and, and we still meet every couple of weeks
33:56
because we're working on these Fois to see what the libraries
33:59
are admitting to. But we also have some, some
34:02
moles that are coming in and leaking us book lists of the
34:06
books that are still in the libraries.
34:08
And that doesn't seem to be stopping.
34:11
I think parents are not aware of it.
34:13
And, and when a parent does become aware of it, they usually
34:16
get in trouble with the school. That happens frequently, right?
34:19
Like you don't have the right to say what your child is reading,
34:22
right. And the other thing that's
34:24
happening is, I think with say, the increase of electronic books
34:27
and how they're accessing books, that they're not going to be
34:29
sitting on the child's kitchen table, right, Because they're,
34:32
they're in their iPad or whatever they are.
34:34
So it's it's more more difficult and a lot of the free books that
34:37
are on Amazon Kindle, for example, a lot of these are
34:40
books are available for free, including I always use the
34:44
example of the boy who wanted to be a deer, which says it's a
34:47
picture book saying, oh, look, he decided he wanted to be a
34:49
deer and he told his family and his parents were happy for him.
34:52
And now he's a deer and life is so much better.
34:55
And they're so inclusive, right? So it's, you know, maybe that
34:59
was a way to, you know, kind of get that internalized within
35:03
parents minds. And I mean, you do see the
35:07
videos of the smiling parents who think it's great that their
35:09
kid is twerking on the stage with these people and you like
35:12
what's what is going on in their minds, right?
35:15
But yeah, I think it's it's something that now that it's
35:18
kind of been accepted and rainbows are everywhere and
35:21
every month is Pride month now. And it's now acceptable to put
35:25
this in front of your children. So.
35:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
36:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so.
36:37
No, absolutely the and and and she's talking about the just
36:40
repeating, but as Charles asked, the gradual does that decline of
36:43
civil society that has happened over the past several years.
36:47
And I would actually say that, and I, I mentioned this to
36:51
Charles in a meeting a few days ago when I was working on this
36:53
talk. This idea of openness and open
36:55
science, I think contributes to it as well.
36:58
Like it sounds great once again. Oh, let's let's have access to
37:00
information that's wonderful, that sounds great.
37:03
But on the other hand, the information that is accessible
37:06
is controlled and captured, right.
37:08
So that means that if you can't, if you can't literally put your
37:11
work into the system and you work at a university and you do
37:14
the kind of research that I would do if I was still back
37:16
there and it wasn't allowed, it wouldn't be open, wouldn't be
37:19
available to anybody because I wouldn't be allowed to do it.
37:22
So it's very disingenuous. And but that's, that's how
37:25
they're controlling language and controlling access to, to shape
37:28
this narrative that they want. Absolutely.
37:38
I've overwhelmed everybody. I'm sorry, Charles.
37:39
I'm going. To ask you a question, Dan, a
37:45
quick one in the well, no, OK, let's put it the other way
37:51
around. In terms of predictions.
37:53
If, if we consider that the course is not being stuck to
37:57
now, how do you anticipate 2030 panning out in terms of the PR
38:04
splurge on what's happened and and why?
38:07
I know it's a big one, but perhaps just pick out the
38:09
specifics from this. How?
38:11
How will it be marketed, right? Well, I, I think that's an,
38:16
that's a really interesting question because this open
38:19
agenda, they're using technology and, and, and I guess Mike would
38:23
use the word technocracy to promote this openness.
38:26
And as the technology increases, the, the more control that we
38:30
get. And I think that's what we're
38:31
getting to is we're going to have five more years of, of more
38:34
control. If we look at, I always say,
38:36
like if you look at what happened in 20-20, that would
38:39
not have been possible even 10 years prior because we didn't
38:41
have the technology in place to do that.
38:44
So five years later, they've advanced it even more with all
38:47
of this because now we've had five years of what we've had the
38:50
last five years. And now Antonio Gutierrez saying
38:53
we're going to accelerate for the next 5 years.
38:56
So I think it's going to be, it's going to be control in the
38:59
name of openness, right? So again, they're inverting
39:02
language. And what we're seeing at the,
39:04
what I've been speaking about in, in different talks about
39:06
libraries I've done in different places over the summer is that
39:09
we see this with children, how they're, they're, they're
39:11
putting this in front of children in the name of
39:13
inclusivity. Well, the decolonization stuff
39:16
that I talked about frequently means that they're destroying
39:19
and, and getting rid of the Western history and civilization
39:22
and culture and, and putting these other things into place in
39:25
the name of inclusivity. So they're doing all of this
39:27
too. And, and they can use other
39:29
digitization products and technologies and advances in
39:32
computing and faster Internet speeds to put this all in front
39:36
of us. So I think the next five years,
39:38
if they do accelerate, I mean, I still think that even though if
39:41
they're going to accelerate, they're still going to fail
39:43
because we saw how badly they're doing.
39:45
But they're certainly going to try.
39:47
And I think it's on each and every one of us who are here
39:49
today to do something that you can, however small it is, talk
39:53
to your school, talk to your local university, see what your
39:56
children or grandchildren are reading.
39:58
And if you don't like it, you have to say something.
40:00
Because if we don't, they're going to just continue to run
40:03
over us. But we're we're, we are much
40:05
larger in numbers than they are. And I always say that's strength
40:08
in numbers. So I think we just have to spend
40:10
the next five years pushing back.
40:12
I don't know if that answers your question, Charles, but
40:18
yeah, can we get the mic back there, please?
40:21
Because I'm not sure I can hear over the over the techno beat.
40:29
Hi, I've noticed over this summer they've been ramping up
40:34
the climate change narrative with the amount of heat we've
40:37
been having recently. I noticed on like a day like
40:40
this may be a bit cooler. They don't ever mention it.
40:43
It's always for in 20, three, 2425° we're in the heat wave.
40:50
So what I wanted to ask was, do you think that they've been
40:54
successful with this propaganda that you're getting from the BBC
40:59
day in, day out about? It we, Brian and Ben and I were
41:01
just talking about that a couple of weeks ago in the news about
41:03
the red heat maps. You know, when it's 23 and it's
41:06
bright red or it's, you know, verging on purple, whatever it
41:09
is. The thing is though, is that I,
41:12
I think if they're trying to get to the children, which clearly
41:14
they are, which we can see through the libraries that the
41:18
children don't have, the memory that we have is that they will
41:21
think 23, Oh my God, bright red. We're going to, we're going to
41:24
boil because they don't remember that it's actual, you know, as
41:27
as Charles has said before, an actual summer day in Britain.
41:32
That's, you know, that's what we expect this time of year.
41:34
But if we can get to the younger generations, which are the ones
41:37
who are getting to the most terrified, they don't have that
41:42
history to remember that that that's what it's supposed to
41:44
feel like in July. So that's what I'm afraid of.
41:47
And now that we're starting them with, you know, age 3 and
41:50
younger with these picture books about sustainability and climate
41:52
change in addition to the LGBT agenda, then this is what
41:56
they're growing up with because they, as you know, Patrick was
41:58
saying earlier, they don't remember anything different.
42:02
Sorry, yes, Brian says. Home education.
42:06
Yeah, I don't have children, but if I did, I would certainly do
42:09
that myself because I wouldn't put my if I had children, I
42:12
wouldn't put them through that. I guess I do home educate my
42:14
children because I have two dogs and they never leave the house
42:17
without me. Does that count?
42:22
I think that will have to be the note upon which we end.
42:24
But it's a very +1. And Brian's quite right to bring
42:27
out the the value of home education, which of course, is
42:30
the way to get round all of what Diane I think is talking about.
42:33
But Diane, thank you very much indeed, not just for a wonderful
42:36
talk. It's coming all the way here
42:38
from such a long a long way away.
42:39
Thank you.