.

People and Events
Information overload

by Nan
James Billington, Librarian of Congress (LC), asks the question: "Are we truly wiser with all this information?" He adds: "It's significant that we call it the Information Age. We don't talk about the Knowledge Age."

Librarians are facing the problem of information overload, being swamped by products of the electronic age. Even in a small special library before one post load of documents can be sorted out, another arrives. Books are manageable but reports, newsletters, bulletins, situation analyses, simply flood the Librarian's desk. The overwrought librarian relies on the immense virtue of the pamphlet box: sort the documents into groups according to subject, or according to publisher, or title of bulletin and newsletter and dump them in pamphlet boxes. They are easily retrievable and in correct lots and circumvent the spending of time and energy on indexing and cataloguing.

The LC is simply inundated by floods of documents. It collects comprehensively the world's publishing, both print and electronic, globally and so the immense quantity and constant increase.

The library houses 13 million documents and every morning 20,000 more pour into the loading docks. 10,000 new books arrive every two weeks. Thus the struggle to find shelf room and bibliographically control the collection. New buildings were added periodically ever since the present library was built over the ashes of the former burnt down by British troops who invaded the Capitol in 1812. Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his collection of books - we thought altruistically but now it appears it was a pure commercial venture. They were bought in spite of protests of some Congressmen. "The Bill would put $23,900 into the Jefferson pocket for about 6000 books - good, bad and indifferent; old, new and worthless; languages which many cannot read and most ought not to".

Then and Now

Compare what libraries acquire today with these figures:

* In 1472 the library at Queen's College, Cambridge University had 119 books.

* At the height of the Renaissance there were people who claimed to have read every important book ever written.

* Libraries first had only books, often locked up and even chained; then serials and journals; and now libraries stock the usual plus slides, films, video and audio cassettes, even paintings and artifacts. Terminals lead one to the database of the library to other databases and to the Internet.

And the latest is the electronic library where everything is digital and the Cyber Cafe (ugh!!)

Trying to Cope

Both James Billington and Tom Mann, Reference Librarian of the LC, are book people. Reportedly they've disagreed over a recent step taken by the LC - shelving by size. Librarians all over instruct students of library and information science and library assistants, to shelve by class number i.e. subject matter covered by the document. It was ages ago that shelving was done by size with all the elephant books on the bottom shelf thus breaking the continguousness subject-wise of the collection. Appearance of the shelves took precedence over utility and accessibility of the collection. Hence the perturbation at this retrogression, this backward step. Shelving by subject encourages browsing: "discovery by serendipity".

Books and other material, specially newspapers, were converted to fiche format to save space and ensure preservation. Now its conversion to digital format. The LC does it in its Project Gutenberg which aims to put 10,000 texts on line by 2001. Many in the LC like Tom Mann dismiss the idea, apparently, since they cannot cope and keep to schedules.

Digital preservation to which we turned as the answer to conservation and overcoming the minuses of paper turning brittle, books falling apart, newspapers yellowing and fiche, audio and video tape susceptible to scratching even by dust, is now posing problems. "The binary code surging through wires all over the world is in danger of turning to gibberish as computer programmes become absolute." Worse than the Apocalypse and even Death itself is the Y2K bug, a flaw built into the structure of the computer universe. It is being battled by brains but still not totally brought under control. "From the preservation standpoint, an electronic document may as well have been scrawled with a wet finger on a paper napkin".

Even we ordinary folk know this well. All the marvels of the computer can be erased by one error. You enter a two paged document forgetting to save and just because your finger plays a nasty trick and presses a wrong key, the entirety of your many hours work disappears from the face of the computer. Of times very mysteriously, a diskette you have laboriously input stuff will not open and give back what you put in. E-mail sometimes comes through as a flood of meaningless and annoying symbols.

Wise sayings of the Librarian

In conversation with Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post Service, Mr. Billington made some very interesting statements.

"Our society is basically motion without memory; which of course is one of the clinical definitions of insanity." This is his way of saying that in this age of data overload we may be going the wrong direction. What he advocates is raw data being turned into information, which then, through added effort and value, can rise to the level of knowledge, which is "the foundation of wisdom".

He has a vision of a library without walls, "an active catalyst for civilization" rather than a "passive mausoleum" for old books. The entry point is the Internet into which the LC has been putting many of its priceless prints, maps and documents as a searchable worldwide web site.

He shares the dream of many librarians that someday the collective knowledge of civilization will be available on the Web. A lot of it already is.

Mr. Billington is rather old fashioned as librarians go. He still reportedly uses an electronic typewriter instead of word processing. He is not fond of electronic mall and doesn't surf the Internet. But he knows full well, as we do, that the progress of information technology and electronics in the library cannot be stemmed. We have to swim with the current, so it looks as if he says that if we have to swim we'd better make the most of it.

He also says that the library must play a role in saving the Internet from turning into a "dumb bunny domain, a mere off shoot of audiovisual culture". The Internet shortens attention span. It damages the sentence, the foundation of the English language, because of the Internet's chat rooms. "It's inherently destructive of memory". The Internet is marvellous to get current and recent information but much searching has to be done to get anything written before 1995, the experts say.

"You think you're getting lots of more information, until you've found out you've made a bargain with the devil. You've strangely mutated and have become an extension of the machine".

So much for electronics and IT!

The shame of Customs
Touts and bribes rule cargo clearing at Katunayake

A team of 'Island' reporters went undercover this week to investigate complaints of bribery at the cargo clearing area of the Bandaranaike International Airport.

We found a nightmare world of corruption controlled by a shadowy cartel of Customs officers deep within the country's most fiercely guarded security zone.

The first taste of corruption came at the gate of the cargo clearing area itself, from the first Customs officer we saw.

"You can't take your vehicle in until you finish all the paperwork and clear the cargo. Until then, you'll have to leave your vehicle in the parking lot about one kilometer from here and walk back. When you finish the clearing, you can walk back and get the vehicle," said the smiling officer.

Walking nearly two kilometers in the burning March sun. Bearable for young men like us, but impossible for ladies or older folk.

"Of course we could always find a vehicle for you for a small fee," said the too helpful Customs man, gesturing toward about 30 private vans parked inside the area he had just prevented us from taking our vehicle into.

We pointed out that we had got all the necessary clearances for the vehicle from the Sri Lanka Air Force, and each SLAF sentry had already allowed us through.

"That's not enough. We have our own rules," he replied.

Determined to find out the extent of corruption in the country's only international airport, we took the legal way, parked our vehicle a long way off, and walked back.

At the entrance to the cargo clearing building, a young man in an Air Lanka uniform asked us if we had a wharf clerk. "You can hire one of those people," he added, pointing to about 20 rough -looking men idly sitting in the waiting area.

We said we didn't need one, and were sent to the Customs office on the first floor. Here, an officer at a counter, surrounded by about 30 of the rough-looking individuals, looked at our cargo documents and told us to fill out the Customs Declaration (CusDec) form which could be obtained from the Cargo Clearing Agency Office nearby.

At the Cargo Clearing Agency Office, one young man at a table perused our documents, while half a dozen others took turns to stare curiously over his shoulder.

"Have you registered with us? Do you have a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number)?" he asked. "You need to do that in Fort."

No, we told him. The Air Lanka cargo office in Colombo hadn't told us about registering when we got our documents. They just told us to come directly to Katunayake.

"Oh they won't tell you," he said with a grin.

Then who should tell us, we asked. The Customs people in Colombo, perhaps?

"No. They won't tell you either," he grinned. "You'll have to go back to Colombo and register first. Then come back."

Seeing our dismay, he added, glancing at his colleagues who were listening with knowing smiles. "Of course, we could try to find a way to do this for you without a TIN number."

Alright we said. We can't go back to Colombo and come again.

The young man told us to go back to the Customs officer who sent us to the Cargo Clearing Agency Office and tell him we didn't have a TIN number.

The officer didn't seem surprised.

"No problem," he said, and called one of the rough guys. "Take them and fill out the forms for them. Work out your service charges with them."

"You'll have to employ him," he told us. "He will get the CusDec form filled for you. You can't do that by yourself since it must be typed. You can't take the forms out of the building either."

The man, obviously a tout, immediately threw a 100-rupee note into the officer's drawer in an obviously well practised manner. The officer didn't look surprised. We saw that the drawer contained several thousand rupees, mostly in 100 rupee and 500 rupee notes.

Then to our surprise, the rough guy took us back to the Cargo Clearing Agency Office. Here, the same young man who had made a fuss about the TIN number, without a word, took our document, sat down at a typewriter, and filled out the form. He paused only to ask us what the cargo was.

"Computer equipment," we told him.

"It's 9.30 a.m. now. It'll be at least 4 p.m. when we finish clearing," he said.

That's too late, we told him. We want it done faster.

"Well, we could do it by about 1.30 p.m.," he said.

We nodded, but didn't pay him anything. He seemed a little annoyed at that.

We noticed that other people there to clear packages were throwing money into drawers, and getting the work done in a few minutes. We seemed to be in the slow lane, while they were in the fast one, well greased with money.

Meanwhile, our tout went off with another customer. He took his time returning.

Armed with the completed CusDec form, we followed the tout back to the first Cu-stoms officer, who signed and stamped it, and handed it to another officer who was sitting at a computer, entering data from similar forms.

When he finished, we had to go to two more counters where Customs officers signed and stamped the documents.

We noticed that our tout was not being of any help. We had to stand in long queues and go through the red tape.

In fact, the only thing he did was to have the CusDec form filled for us. Clearly, our not having bad habits like throwing money into people's drawers was offensive to the Customs men's customs.

Next to a bank branch on the same floor where we filled out another form and paid Customs duty and other charges. No help from the tout, of course. He was always nearby, but also attending to other customers. It was clear that we were his clients, and he was making sure that no other tout muscled in to help us.

By the time the paper work was done, it was 2 p.m.

Then we were told by the tout to go and sit in the first waiting area, where about 20 other touts were sitting. Here we twiddled our thumbs for more than an hour, while others who came hours after we did-breezed through with their cargo.

We noticed the touts counting money. Although they looked and talked like thugs, each one who came and sat down counted several thousand rupees, with a satisfied smile on his face. "Five thousand so far today," grinned one. We noticed that some of them had cellphones.

A large board on the wall instructed people to "report any irregularities to the duty manager."

Very funny, we thought. The corruption seemed to be the only regular feature here. Perhaps the duty manager was to be informed only if something legal happened.

At 3.30 p.m. our tout took us on the cargo warehouse floor on the ground floor, where three Customs officers were inspecting packages. They seemed to be doing a very thorough job.

"You could have cleared the cargo without an inspection, if you had arranged it with the officer upstairs," muttered the tout, annoyed that he was wasting time.

By 5.30 the inspection was over. We then went to the Air Lanka counter and paid the airline's storage charges.

The tout then took us back to the Cargo Clearing Agency Office, where the young man, with six colleagues watching and listening looked us straight in the eye and asked for two thousand rupees, before he would give us the final document to clear the cargo.

We paid up. He threw the sum into his drawer after counting it carefully, and handed us the form.

Our tout had disappeared again, and as we went back downstairs, another tout asked if we needed a vehicle. "It's only a small fee. You can negotiate the amount," he said.

We declined and walked back to our vehicle, which was parked ever so far away. Returning we picked up the cargo, filled out three different gate passes for Customs, and left.

Procedure is too complicated for normal people, says Customs chief

The next day, we spoke to the Director General of Customs, S. M. J. Senaratne, who told us very briskly that the touts are actually called "Customs House Agents," who are issued permits to do what they do after sitting an exam conducted by the Customs Department.

Senaratne said that ordinary people could try to clear cargo by themselves, but that it was too long a process, and that one has to have sufficient experience in the practice. This is why the Customs House Agents are there, he said.

"The CusDec form has 34 columns to fill. You also need to have a TIN number from us. All these formalities are required by international Customs treaties. In order to cut out mistakes, it is in the best interest of people to get a competent man to do the work for them," said Senaratne.

When we pointed out that this allowed a cartel of people to control cargo clearing, he said that people could negotiate with the house agent, or find another house agent who would work for a lower price. But our experience had shown that this is not the case. There is no free competition among the touts. They have a very controlled and closed operation.

Despite the fact that we saw the House Agents bribing Customs officers to give them business, Senaratne said that Customs officers are not involved in people finding house agents.

"That is a matter between the person receiving the cargo, and the house agent. The person deploys the house agent. We are not involved," he said.

However, from our experience, it is clear that Customs officials have set up their red tape in such a manner that no one in their right minds will ever try to clear cargo themselves, without paying massive sums to the house agents, who in turn bribe the Customs officers.

Bribery is a way of life in Sri Lanka, of course. But the alarming factor is that Customs officers and touts have taken advantage of the airport's location being a high security zone, to take control of the entire cargo clearing process.

Guarded by the Air Force, the airport offers the perfect hunting ground for this gang. Other law enforcement authorities almost never venture in here, since it is a lengthy procedure to get permission to enter the airport.

How this impacts on security is another matter. If Customs officials take bribes, and touts operate so freely inside, even hiring out vehicles inside the airport, the entire BIA security zone has been compromised.

After all, people who take bribes can be paid to do anything, like carry bombs or supply information. The LTTE certainly must be loving officers like those at the Customs Department.

It is high time that security authorities take a close look at what is going on, since the airport has now twice been bombed by the Tigers.

The sad thing is that the Customs Department itself is supposed to be a law enforcement agency. But we found that most of its officers at cargo clearing are on the wrong side of the law.

Review
Some colourful cameos of Sri Lankan life

by V. P. Vittachi
In the film Gigi, Maurice Chevalier sang a song called 'Thank heaven for little girls'. Seeing Henry P. Abeyasekera's latest offering I am tempted to say thank heaven for Henry Abeyasekera The DROs service threw up many talented men among whom Henry was pre-eminent. A newspaper columnist Nan called him 'a knowledgeable, cultured, true Sri Lankan' and, indeed, that is Henry Abeyasekera.

Throughout the years he has written monographs about the many-splendoured and often turbulent history of our country. Henry's knowledge of the exciting and interesting episodes in Sri Lanka's history and of the colourful personalities that made that history, is unsurpassed.

Recently we had his definitive account of the story of Muthurajawela. Those who have read it will agree that no one other than Henry could have had the in-depth knowledge to have written it.

We now have his Colourful Cameos to delight us.

Henry writes elegantly, without flattery and without rancour. Even the characters whom he has some personal liking for, he paints objectively, warts and all. In 176 pages we have the Panadura Debate, the seamy side of the emergence of the jury system, Sir John Kotelawela as raconteur, Cyril Jansz, Charles Ambrose Lorenz, Sir Muttu Coomraswamy, the beginning of newspapers in Ceylon, Sir Ivor Jennings and his work on the constitution, the Father of the Nation DS, the eccentric and haughty Maduwanwela Dissave, the mystery man Victor Dhanapala and his bevy of beauties, the JVP and the reasons why it emerged as a major force, casteism and a whole host of other matters on which many people would like to have more information than they possess.

In earlier essays Henry has written about what he calls 'the infamous Cleghorn Minute', a mischievously doctored version of which was used by C. Suntheralingam to make some outrageous claims for Tamil separatism. In the present volume Henry is content merely to describe Cleghorn's speculation which led to his dismissal from the Ceylon Civil Service. Cleghorn was an adventurer and a scoundrel.

Henry is greatly enamoured of Kandalama. Candidly he admits to have been one of the many misguided persons who honestly believed that Kandalama was going to be an ecological disaster. Today, he feels enriched by the experience of Kandalama. It is a prime destination for ecotourism. Read Henry's account of Kandalama and you will want to make a beeline to it.

Perhaps the most important sections of the book are chapters 19 and 20 which give a detailed account of the famous Panadura Debate. What would perhaps interest today's reader is not so much the finer theological arguments about the soul, rebirth and scriptural texts as the fully circumstantial description the author gives the reader of the systematic intrigues of the colonial rulers and their comprador toadies to make the Buddhists and the Hindus virtual non-persons in their own country, which led in turn to the build up of a massive resentment which came to a head in the famous debate.

Dr. J. M. Peebles, described as 'a well-known traveller, scholar and politician' judged that Gunananda Thero was the more graceful speaker and carried the multitude with him The debate was publicised all over India, the UK and the USA and raised a lot of interest in Buddhism. This event had a seminal impact on the resurgence of Buddhism in Ceylon, where according to a prediction of James D'Alwis Buddhism would cease to exist by the end of the 19th century! It was news of this debate that brought Col. Olcott to Ceylon. Henry's book is worth buying for these two chapters about the Panadura Debate. To end this short review I should like to quote Henry on Sir John's way with Samasamajists. The queen of England (who was at that time also queen of Ceylon) was to visit our country and preparations were afoot to give her a warm welcome . There was some belief that the leftists would try to disrupt the state drive. Dr. N. M. Perera asked Sir John whether it was true that he had given orders to the police to arrest any demonstrators and take them to jail. Sir John replied: "Oh, no! Orders have been given to send demonstrators to hospital first". The queen's visit passed without incident.

A lesson from the poster campaign

By Cecil V. Wikramanayake
The newspapers, though not all of them, have been ranting and raving about the disfigurement of the city with posters of would-be Provincial Councillors. Just as much as so much paper and printing ink of various colours has been used on the posters, so much ink has been used in letters to the editor, editorials, and articles condemning this senseless competition by would be provincial councillors.

But what no one seems to have observed is the fact that despite laws prohibiting the disfigurement of our city with posters, these candidates continue to flout the law. And therein lies the lesson that we voters must learn from this.

That if, before election to these provincial councils, these candidates are prepared to go so far as to flout the law, one cannot but expect them, once elected to power, to continue flouting the law, and with impunity.

In the past, from the time of franchise in this country, we have had representatives to our public bodies coming forward and asking to be elected in order that they may serve the country and the people. In the days before proportional representation and voting for the party, we voted for a man, or woman, and we expected certain standards of behaviour from them.

In other words, they were the examples that we voters were to follow. If a man, or woman did not live up to those expectations that we had, we did not vote for him and he, or she, invariably not only lost the election, but also lost his, or her deposit.

Today it is a different story. Certain people, all of them belonging to some political party, are prepared to spend thousands, lakhs and millions of rupees on a senseless jaunt of law-breaking in order to prove to us, gullible(?) voters that they are fit to represent us in Parliament, or a Provincial Council or some other local body.

And we gullible citizens, apparently fall for it, too !

Has the taste of power so dulled the senses of these candidates that they cannot understand that setting an example of law-breaking is not the way to inveigle law-abiding citizens to support them ?

Surely, one cannot expect them to reform once they have been elected ! If they are capable of flouting the law before, and in order to come into power, what worse things will they do once they have power in their hands.

And since this poster campaign has resulted in promises by the Police and the city fathers that by or after a certain Saturday, now past, all these posters would be removed, and since we have seen that after that fateful Saturday, more and new posters have appeared in public places, surely the removal of posters was not the remedy for the malady.

This writer feels that when the law was passed that posters should not come up in public places, if a penalty of sufficiently deterrent force was also imposed, this campaign of competing as to who can put up the most number of posters would have abated.

A penalty, for instance, like the automatic disqualification of any person whose picture or name appeared on a poster .

And what has been the purpose of all this money being spent on printing and putting up posters ? To urge the voter to cast his or her vote for that individual or that party which has been so blatantly flouting the law ?

Surely that money could have been put to better purpose. Like, say, printing of schoolbooks for free distribution to poor children. Like, buying school uniform cloth and distributing that to poor children. Like setting up scholarships for poor children with that money that was to be spent on an election campaign.

That would not only have pleased the voters, but would have proved the bona fides of the candidate who made such a donation - that he, or she really had the interests of the poor and the needy at heart.

It is not too late for our would-be "servants of the people" to return to the world of sanity. Or is there something more to it than merely being elected to a Provincial Council or other body ? Is entering into politics today not the finest sinecure ? Home was never like this for quite a number of the potential "servants of the people" in an age when "Jack is as good as his master", is it not ?

Perhaps that is the reason for this madness that has come upon our people. A madness that everyone and his brother acknowledges, but is too scared, or modest, or even terrified to mention !

| NEWS | PROVINCIAL | POLITICS | EDITORIAL | DEFENCE | LEISURE | BUSINESS| SPORTS | ADS |