Board Director Q&A: Bob Foley

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Bob has been a long-standing articulate and reasonable voice on copyright as well as a highly regarded and well-known voice within the academic library community. Recently retired from Malaspino University-College/Vancouver Island University as director of library services, Bob ensures that the voice and perspective of librarians is present at the Access Copyright Board table as it pursues its strategic transformation.

What interested you most about the prospect of joining the Access Copyright board?

When I was asked to consider it, I believed that I had a perspective that nicely fit with the desire of AC to begin a dialogue with their users and change the organization. Copyright issues require good advocates for both creators and users.

How would you describe your approach to board work?

I think it comes from a continuing desire to serve. At the same time I enjoy a board that is driving transition through strategic opportunities. It’s different than being a manager or a director. You work in big strokes.

What, if anything, has surprised you since you’ve joined the board?

I was surprised how far the organization had developed when I joined and the continuing appetite for more change. While the changes required are urgent, I sense there is a new sense of innovation and exploration that perhaps was subdued in the past by its primary role as a licensing manager.

What do you hope the organization can accomplish during your term?

There are new relationships now possible between affiliates, members and users. I am optimistic that some new initiatives by the board will successfully set the stage for a fruitful dialogue between all parties. Never before in Canadian classrooms has there been a greater need for materials and stories that reflect what Canada in all its diversity looks like today. I hope that we can continue to encourage the creation and use of those materials.

Please share an example of something you’re passionate about outside your professional life.

Well I’ve been retired now for almost two years, so there is now a chance to move a bit beyond books and computers. I am a big fan of architecture and the visual arts so I am starting to sketch and take the odd picture now and again which I haven’t done since my university days.

What was the last thing you read that you felt compelled to recommend to others?

Being retired, there is a chance to binge and take things as far as I want so I have spent considerable time reading a number of authors exhaustively. The biggest personal find for me was the poetry and novellas of Jim Harrison who is not on the radar much in this country. As an American author he focuses much of his work in the upper peninsula of Michigan, just miles from the Canadian border. There is much in his work that is also part of the Canadian fabric such as aboriginal knowledge, the environment and multiculturalism.

E-books or paperbacks?

Both, although I finding some paperbacks aren’t eye friendly. Generally I prefer printed materials in the biggest font possible!