Future of the Map Library

In the name of growth, expansion and efficiency, big change has a way of finding big solutions.

The Faculty of Environment is growing. The growing pains are hoped to ease by the construction of a 3rd building (EV3). But in the shuffling it appears that perhaps the Map Library might have to seek exile in the Dana Porter Library.

In one way, this is a rational choice of centralizing library activities and utilizing productive space (i.e. less space for students and basic research within the Faculty, replaced with activities by the Centre for Teaching Excellence and the Centre of Knowledge Integration). Researchers are not losing access to the resources, as the move will merely get rid of its users enjoying the amenities within the Faculty.

Questions arises

• Is this good for students?
• Is this good for the overall Faculty Character?
• Is this an attack on the theoretical idealized mixed-use within one building?
• As the Faculty is growing bigger, is its ‘heart’ maintaining a healthy beat?

Responding to Growth

Responding to Growth at student, faculty, university, neighbourhood, city, regional, national or international levels – be it institutions, malls, apartment buildings, height and density targets, population moves or natural resource extractions – is a choice, at least until it affects you directly. Planners have a tendency to be interested in planning-related decisions, and planner’s engagement has more than once been argued to be what is needed to bring about an educated, engaged and productive community.

This, our friends, is a chance to form an opinion and have a say, because planners of tomorrow will not be the ones to only plan and not engage themselves. You may as well start getting involved now, sooner rather than later. Likely, doing good planning requires the ability to personally and communally foster energy and motivation to nourish a life of active engagement. This is indeed the stand the AGP takes, as we increasingly feel committed to involve ourselves and our organization in planning matters internationally (Haiti), nationally (CIP’s Planning for the Future, and the Conservative’s scrapping of the Long Form), and locally (relocating the Map Library).

So, what do you think? Let us know by posting comments or sending emails…

Clarence Woudsma wants you to take action

Clarence Woudsma, the Director of the School of Planning, is encouraging staff and students to take action on a political issue: “In a nutshell: without consultation, the Government (via the Industry Minister who has control over Statistics Canada) has decided to scrap the Long Form (the source of our most detailed census data) from the 2011 census and replace it with a voluntary form.  This will be a disaster for social scientists, policy researchers, and planning practitioners who rely on the rich socio economic data source that comes from the long form.   One of the key aspects will be the loss of temporal integrity as we try and compare and contrast from previous census years to the 2011 census.”

A couple of news stories on it may help fill in the blanks.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/municipal-social-planners-caught-off-guard-by-census-slash-97514599.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-srap-mandatory-long-form-census/article1623458/?cmpid=rss1

Take action

It is critical that you take a few minutes to add your voice to the call to have this unilateral decision overturned  – either via a message to your MP or other vehicles such as this online petition –

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/keep-the-canadian-census-long-form.html

The AGP has taken action by signing the petition and sending a letter to Peter Braid and Tony Clement.