On April 19 the Co-op was contacted by a “security researcher” (hacker) attempting to extort payment for data they had exfiltrated from our servers, and threatening to release that data publicly if we did not pay. Upon examination of the evidence offered, we realized that they had indeed accessed log file data from a new… Read more »
Since inception in 2009 the BC Libraries Cooperative has operated its own server farm, co-located at the Harbour Centre facility in downtown Vancouver. This initial choice was made for many reasons, one main reason being that there were no good Canadian-based cloud hosting options at the time of our formation. In compliance with FOIPPA, we… Read more »
Happy New Year! We have had a few inquiries recently from members regarding security topics, and so we thought we would take the opportunity to respond more broadly in case others had comparable questions. Phishing and Spearphishing While many of us use email systems that are getting better and better at automatically catching spam and… Read more »
As we have done for several years, we asked Co-op staff to nominate the projects from the wider open source community that they use and benefit from so that we can acknowledge and support those projects in our small way. This year we are pleased to announce the following recipients: Let’s Encrypt (used extensively around… Read more »
British Columbians will have increased access to French eBooks through public libraries. New French-language eBook platform Bibliothèque numérique de la Colombie-Britannique to launch during Library Month. Lancement de la nouvelle plateforme francophone de livres numériques de Bibliothèque numérique de la Colombie-Britannique à l’occasion du mois des bibliothèques Le français suit l’anglais. We are pleased… Read more »
In an effort to obtain guidance from within the sector, in March of 2021 a Lendable Connectivity Working Group was struck, comprised of 6 libraries (3 lower mainland, 3 outside). They met over the next 4 months to investigate the feasibility of different approaches to lending out hotspots or connected devices, to help inform a… Read more »
In March 2020 the Libraries Branch provided the BC Libraries Co-op with one-time funds for Digital Initiatives Projects, part of which were directed towards working with BC libraries to improve their connectivity and internal networking. It is now well over a year into these efforts and we will be winding them down by the end… Read more »
April 2021 marked the one year anniversary of the announcement of the Digital Initiatives Project funding. That has prompted the Co-op to produce an interim report on the progress made to date on the Connectivity file (https://digiprojects.libraries.coop/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DIP-Connectivity-File-Status-report-March-31st-2021-PUBLIC.pdf). In brief, while much still needs to be done, both funds and the Connectivity Consultant have made a… Read more »
As part of the Ministry-funded Digital Initiatives Projects to improve public library connectivity, the BC Libraries Cooperative is releasing two guides today to help libraries in their planning processes. The first is a new planning guide to Lendable Connectivity projects. Increasingly we are seeing libraries expand their efforts to enable public internet access within their… Read more »
The BC Libraries Cooperative is pleased to announce that starting today it is accepting applications from BC public libraries to work with our Connectivity Consultant. This consultation is free of charge to libraries thanks to funds from the Ministry of Education, and is aimed at identifying current barriers to library connectivity and helping to develop… Read more »
