We Are LIANZA: Winston Roberts
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In this column, we talk to members from all walks of life and stages of their careers to see who and what makes up LIANZA.
Winston Roberts is a Senior Advisor at the National Library of New Zealand dealing with national and international stakeholder relations. Since joining the National Library of New Zealand in 2001, Winston has contributed to government digital strategy development, promoted projects in support of public libraries, literacy and book development, liaised with UNESCO and represented New Zealand at the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005. He has made a career of finding collaborative solutions through networking across regions and cultures – putting professionals in touch with each other. Winston was the Secretary of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (2006 to 2010). He continues to be active in the Regional Section of IFLA for Asia-Oceania and in various other IFLA groups. Winston has not only been one of the most active IFLA figures in New Zealand but also in the global library field for many years. In doing so, he has made a major contribution to international librarianship and richly deserves his recently awarded IFLA Scroll of Appreciation. LIANZA congratulates Winston on receiving this significant international award! |
Kia ora Winston and thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed for Library Life.
Before you came back to New Zealand you worked for IFLA, can you tell our readers about your role there and how you have continued your connections with IFLA?
I actually began working a little for IFLA in 1980, while I was employed at the British Library Lending Division (BLLD). I was a volunteer French/English simultaneous interpreter and translator at annual IFLA congresses from 1980 (Manila) through to 1987 (Brighton). Later, after working at the British Library in London (the Reference Division in the British Museum, and Bibliographic Services in Sheraton Street), I was seconded full time to the office of the IFLA UBCIM Programme, as Programme Officer. (UBCIM = Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC).
In 1990 I was appointed to the position of Coordinator of Professional Activities, based at IFLA HQ in The Hague. I hurriedly started to learn Dutch and moved house. I did that job for 8 years: it consisted of managing relations with IFLA Sections, advising Section committees and officers, on everything from funding their projects to writing their reports to standing for election to interpreting IFLA statutes and rules of procedure, and especially: collaborating with other Sections across IFLA and other organisations outside IFLA.
I was also the IFLA HQ liaison with UNESCO PGI, the General Information Programme for what we now call the GLAM sector, and I travelled regularly to UNESCO in Paris to advocate for biennial funding for IFLA projects and report on what we had achieved with previous funding. That funding was essential to complement IFLA’s own resources and other funding streams.
Before you came back to New Zealand you worked for IFLA, can you tell our readers about your role there and how you have continued your connections with IFLA?
I actually began working a little for IFLA in 1980, while I was employed at the British Library Lending Division (BLLD). I was a volunteer French/English simultaneous interpreter and translator at annual IFLA congresses from 1980 (Manila) through to 1987 (Brighton). Later, after working at the British Library in London (the Reference Division in the British Museum, and Bibliographic Services in Sheraton Street), I was seconded full time to the office of the IFLA UBCIM Programme, as Programme Officer. (UBCIM = Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC).
In 1990 I was appointed to the position of Coordinator of Professional Activities, based at IFLA HQ in The Hague. I hurriedly started to learn Dutch and moved house. I did that job for 8 years: it consisted of managing relations with IFLA Sections, advising Section committees and officers, on everything from funding their projects to writing their reports to standing for election to interpreting IFLA statutes and rules of procedure, and especially: collaborating with other Sections across IFLA and other organisations outside IFLA.
I was also the IFLA HQ liaison with UNESCO PGI, the General Information Programme for what we now call the GLAM sector, and I travelled regularly to UNESCO in Paris to advocate for biennial funding for IFLA projects and report on what we had achieved with previous funding. That funding was essential to complement IFLA’s own resources and other funding streams.
IFLA Congress Munich 1983. Winston on the right as a simultaneous French English interpreter
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What achievement are you most proud of in your work for IFLA?
Well, it was good to be able to find resources to help us carry out our projects, which in many cases were also joint projects with UNESCO. But what I am most proud of having achieved (I believe) over the years is constant advocacy to IFLA members for collaboration across the whole organisation, thinking laterally, maintaining and strengthening good relations and professional/cultural understanding between IFLA colleagues in the ‘North’ – Canada/US, but particularly in Europe (the UK, the EU and the former Soviet Union) – and the developing countries in the ‘global South’. I provided constant advice and support to national host committees wondering where to start with organising the huge IFLA congresses. I advocated to their national authorities for a better understanding of the benefits that IFLA’s work can bring them. |
In some cases, it helped that I could speak to IFLA ‘regional’ colleagues in their languages, in other cases it helped to be able to explain to them that, despite appearances, I too was from the New World aka the colonies... Put simply, it helped that I had been brought up in New Zealand, and travelled, and was prepared to meet IFLA colleagues from all cultures with an open mind.
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You also worked at the British Library early in your career, how did that experience shape your approach to librarianship?
Thinking back, I am grateful to the British Library Lending Division (BLLD, as it was then) and to its Director, the legendary Maurice Line, for encouraging me to learn the basics, then to do postgrad library study at Sheffield. They were internationally-minded, principled supporters of IFLA activities; and they were practical and solution-oriented (document supply is not less noble than historical bibliography, and it has a direct economic impact). In contrast, I owe it to the British Library generally for teaching me the joys(!) of AACR2, UK MARC and Blaise (and Precis), also for giving me the opportunity to work on the reference desk in Panizzi’s domed Reading Room in the Museum (showing awed visitors where Karl Marx et al used to sit). Working in a ‘universal’ national library, with vast collections in sciences, newspapers, film, AV materials, as well as the humanities – I saw the importance of digitising the catalogues of the great national libraries, using a new technique called OCR. It was a time when the present era of democratic access was just opening up. I also realised the importance of preservation. From small-scale practical measures applicable in all libraries to the huge debates (at that time) about expensive mass deacidification in hopes of combatting the ‘slow fires’ of decaying paper collections. It was a good feeling to be engaged in the library profession at a time of such fundamental change. You have worked hard to build an understanding of the importance of engaging in policy and advocacy work. Your close work with Internet NZ has meant not only that the digital and library fields are better connected but has also supported libraries globally, notably through the inclusion of Internet access in libraries as a key action line from the World Summit on the Information Society process. Can you tell our readers more details about this?
I started working at the National Library of New Zealand in 2001, in the Strategy, Policy and Communications directorate. I discovered that the ITU in Geneva was planning a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) at the request of the UN General Assembly. Keen to monitor the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), my IFLA antennae twitched. I put it to the National Librarian, Chris Blake, that New Zealand needed to be involved and that the Department of the National Library was well placed to advise other government departments on the issues. He agreed, and his successor Penny Carnaby also agreed. I was asked to be the lead official in the New Zealand delegation to the Preparatory Committees working to set up the first WSIS. I went to Geneva five times in 2003, working under the overall guidance of the NZ ambassador to the UN, Tim Caughey. I consulted in Wellington, prepared briefs with MFAT and MED colleagues, went to the PrepComs, defended our positions following my briefing papers, and reported back in Wellington, through several iterations. |
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At each PrepCom in the Plenary room at the Palais des Nations in Geneva I was the sole NZ delegate, and also the sole national delegation that was in fact a national library representing a member state of the UN: bread and butter stuff for MFAT but less so for an official from another Department. Through weeks of plenary drafting sessions in real-time, I went toe-to-toe with all the other delegations building up line by line and paragraph by paragraph the two documents destined to be voted on at the summit, as the official Outcomes Documents. One was the ‘Statement of Principles’, the second was the statement of how the principles would be implemented, and carried forward to the second summit.
The ‘Geneva Principles’ reaffirmed UN principles on human rights, freedom of expression – to the displeasure of some of the national delegations present which found such reaffirmation superfluous. The Principles covered access to information, education, intellectual property, the rights of indigenous peoples, protection of cultural heritage, international and regional economic development. In sum, they affirmed the relationship |
WR with the IFLA Regional Standing Committee for Africa business meeting in Dakar Senegal 1993
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between the developing ‘information society’ and economic and social development. I argued strongly for the inclusion of ‘New Zealand wording’ in all of these parts of the text, and for expressions reflecting New Zealand values. My brief was not to propose anything radically new, but to defend our values and argue against any ‘forces’ trying to propose negative wording.
The aim of the ITU was to take account of the growth of the Internet, since the 1990s. The brief that I discussed with the MED was clear that NZ supported transparent, democratic and multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet. I was glad to have Frank March, one of NZ’s best Internet policy experts in Geneva working on policy at the ITU, he and I and other policy people consulted frequently. Similarly, I found that IFLA as an observer NGO had people in town, so I consulted with them. And I consulted with national delegations who appreciated New Zealand’s positions and were willing to speak in support of them in the plenary sessions, especially those from developing countries and others who were opposed to the control of intellectual property, and of the Internet, by a few.
The aim of the ITU was to take account of the growth of the Internet, since the 1990s. The brief that I discussed with the MED was clear that NZ supported transparent, democratic and multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet. I was glad to have Frank March, one of NZ’s best Internet policy experts in Geneva working on policy at the ITU, he and I and other policy people consulted frequently. Similarly, I found that IFLA as an observer NGO had people in town, so I consulted with them. And I consulted with national delegations who appreciated New Zealand’s positions and were willing to speak in support of them in the plenary sessions, especially those from developing countries and others who were opposed to the control of intellectual property, and of the Internet, by a few.
The Executive of CDNL Conference of Directors of National Libraries meeting in Gothenburg Sweden August 2010 during the IFLA Congress Photo by Ross Becker
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In the Plenary room at each session, I intervened whenever necessary to defend the New Zealand brief, on the basis that the position on Internet governance supported by NZ was the most open and progressive, striking a balance between civil society and the state, and the most likely to favour regional economic development.
I put it to the assembly many times that ‘libraries’ should be written into the text as the neutral providers of access to information, defenders of freedom of expression, supporters of education, preservers of information including digital information – in the information society. I put it to the delegates that if they did not follow those arguments, then their proposed construction of the Information Society would end in ‘digital amnesia’. At that, there was silence. On all the text, like all the national delegates I was editing into the microphone, repeating, defending words, clarifying, compromising, agreeing with other submissions when it was tactically advantageous, proposing words to break deadlocks. |
In the end, we got our way on the texts that mattered most: the importance of balanced democratic governance of the Internet in the ‘information’ society was clearly acknowledged in the principles, the place of libraries as ‘information’ spaces is written into the Geneva Principles, and rights that were being attacked were reaffirmed. Action Lines were agreed and allocated to various UN agencies for implementation together with non-government stakeholders.
Then in December 2003, the Minister of Communications arrived for the first WSIS – he was MED’s Minister and was well informed about the negotiations. The two outcomes documents were approved, and the member states agreed to meet again in two years to discuss further developments in Internet governance and how to implement it.
In 2005, I was asked again to go to Geneva for a new series of PrepCom meetings to set up the second WSIS, to be held in Tunisia. I was accredited to lead a small delegation of officials and NGO advisers at the summit and delivered the NZ address which I had written for the Minister.
At that summit, all policy and technical issues around the construction, operation, regulation and development benefits of the Internet were thrashed out as far as could be done in an assembly of member states. One of the key outcomes was the decision to set up an annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF), to give all parties (government, civil society, industry) regular opportunities for discussion of public policy matters raised by the governance of the Internet as it grew and developed. Another key outcome was the decision to consider a post-WSIS process, in which progress with the WSIS Action Lines would be monitored, and the outcomes would be discussed at an annual WSIS Forum (and reviewed in five then in 10 years, perhaps at a 3rd World Summit).
The WSIS Forum continues, but there has been no 3rd Summit. Progress with the Action Lines was regularly monitored and at the review in 2010, it was found to be slow. The MDGs clearly had not been achieved and an alternative process was decided upon. Following wide consultations, the UN brought representatives of all stakeholding sectors together in New York in 2015, and they created the programme of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which member states aim to achieve by 2030.
Then in December 2003, the Minister of Communications arrived for the first WSIS – he was MED’s Minister and was well informed about the negotiations. The two outcomes documents were approved, and the member states agreed to meet again in two years to discuss further developments in Internet governance and how to implement it.
In 2005, I was asked again to go to Geneva for a new series of PrepCom meetings to set up the second WSIS, to be held in Tunisia. I was accredited to lead a small delegation of officials and NGO advisers at the summit and delivered the NZ address which I had written for the Minister.
At that summit, all policy and technical issues around the construction, operation, regulation and development benefits of the Internet were thrashed out as far as could be done in an assembly of member states. One of the key outcomes was the decision to set up an annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF), to give all parties (government, civil society, industry) regular opportunities for discussion of public policy matters raised by the governance of the Internet as it grew and developed. Another key outcome was the decision to consider a post-WSIS process, in which progress with the WSIS Action Lines would be monitored, and the outcomes would be discussed at an annual WSIS Forum (and reviewed in five then in 10 years, perhaps at a 3rd World Summit).
The WSIS Forum continues, but there has been no 3rd Summit. Progress with the Action Lines was regularly monitored and at the review in 2010, it was found to be slow. The MDGs clearly had not been achieved and an alternative process was decided upon. Following wide consultations, the UN brought representatives of all stakeholding sectors together in New York in 2015, and they created the programme of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which member states aim to achieve by 2030.
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When I returned from the first WSIS, the National Library asked me to take part in discussions to put together the new Government Digital Strategy. That was published but never implemented, mainly due to the change of government. Restructuring of some public service departments meant that the National Library and MED were no longer in a position to follow up on the work that had been done on the Information Society. The most that we in the NLNZ could achieve was to follow the advocacy work done by IFLA which continued to monitor UNESCO’s work on the WSIS Action Lines, particularly those on Access to Information and Education. I kept in touch with IFLA and provided advice from time to time.
I also continued to follow the Internet policy work done by InternetNZ in the non-government sector. In 2013 I was asked by IFLA to convene a workshop at the Asia-Pacific regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) in Korea. I did so, and have repeated the IFLA workshop at annual APrIGF meetings since then. I am on the MSG, the main organising committee of APrIGF. |
Business Meeting Regional Standing Committee for Asia Oceania WLIC 2018 Kuala Lumpur
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I believe the regional Internet governance forum is a valuable way to discuss major issues at the intersection of work by the Internet technical community, government policy developers, Internet service providers and content creators, and the library and information sector. I have advocated to IFLA colleagues for several years to take notice of the Internet Governance agenda – particularly the issues around freedom of expression, intellectual property, inclusion and diversity, equitable access to information.
IFLA HQ advocacy staff attend UN meetings and speak on ‘our’ issues: it is equally important to advocate to the global library community to actively engage with Internet policy issues: there should be no sharp dividing line between two global sectors, a sort of division between the ‘technical’ Internet/information community on the one hand and the ‘cultural’ library/information community on the other. For me, that would be absurd: the Internet conveys content, it needs cultural content, and the educators and information mediators need the platform that the Internet provides: it is a symbiotic relationship.
IFLA HQ advocacy staff attend UN meetings and speak on ‘our’ issues: it is equally important to advocate to the global library community to actively engage with Internet policy issues: there should be no sharp dividing line between two global sectors, a sort of division between the ‘technical’ Internet/information community on the one hand and the ‘cultural’ library/information community on the other. For me, that would be absurd: the Internet conveys content, it needs cultural content, and the educators and information mediators need the platform that the Internet provides: it is a symbiotic relationship.
Winston Roberts speaking as the NZ Head of Delegation at the 2nd World Summit on the Information Society WSIS in Tunis Tunisia 2005
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A big question, I know but… What do you think are the biggest challenges for libraries in the 21st century?
Externally? – meeting the challenge of increasing threats to freedom of speech, intellectual freedom, in fact, the values expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Standing up for equitable access to information by all sectors of the community, and standing up for diversity in a multicultural society, does not mean that “anything goes”. That’s not a contradiction: libraries need to consider if and where we might have to compromise in order to defend universal values, and where we should never compromise. Internally? – learning how to change, adopting a mindset that accepts new ideas, continual innovation. We live in an era of disruptive change; but disruption is not a threat: we now put out information services on smartphones which did not exist when the World Summit on the Information Society was held. In New Zealand we live in a prosperous society that can be slow to change, but is also good at coming up with imaginative responses to disruptive opportunities: the library sector can do that too. |
Why do you think it is important to have a national professional membership organisation such as LIANZA? What would you like to see LIANZA do more of?
In all the countries that I have visited to talk with IFLA colleagues, I have noted that they greatly value their professional solidarity. In many countries they have learned through hard experience that “unity is strength”, to coin a well-used phrase. Even in relatively prosperous developed countries like New Zealand, the library profession is undervalued by many people, because the benefits of our work are often intangible and invisible (e.g. in the minds of the children whom we encourage to read or of the researchers whose thinking we nourish with the materials in our collections). Library professionals in all countries work for social good, as a matter of quiet personal conviction, but while they are getting on with the job they need leaders who can fight for the collective interests of the profession and for full recognition of its value to the community, going beyond the facts and figures to provide a strategic vision. LIANZA surely has a role in developing more such people for New Zealand’s increasingly multi-ethnic society.
Thanks so much for talking with Library Life Winston!
In all the countries that I have visited to talk with IFLA colleagues, I have noted that they greatly value their professional solidarity. In many countries they have learned through hard experience that “unity is strength”, to coin a well-used phrase. Even in relatively prosperous developed countries like New Zealand, the library profession is undervalued by many people, because the benefits of our work are often intangible and invisible (e.g. in the minds of the children whom we encourage to read or of the researchers whose thinking we nourish with the materials in our collections). Library professionals in all countries work for social good, as a matter of quiet personal conviction, but while they are getting on with the job they need leaders who can fight for the collective interests of the profession and for full recognition of its value to the community, going beyond the facts and figures to provide a strategic vision. LIANZA surely has a role in developing more such people for New Zealand’s increasingly multi-ethnic society.
Thanks so much for talking with Library Life Winston!