Meeting of CAUL/CONZUL and CREPUQ Sub-Committee of LibrariesMontréal, Québec, October 10, 2001

October 10, 2001

A Research Digital Library : a Proposal by Quebec Academic Libraries to Develop a common Information InfrastructureSylvie Belzile

2

Environment Change impacting canadian academic libraries in the past 10 years:

Increase in quantity and cost of publications (serials in particular);Expansion of digital information resources;Change in scholarly communication;Development of the Internet and Web;Access of digital information from desktops;Mass cancellation of serial subscriptions;Cuts in funding of post-secondary institutions by regional governments;Increase in collaboration and resource sharing.

3

Digital Environment : Quebec Academic Libraries Initiatives

Local initiatives: Subscriptions to digital databases and journals through the Internet;

Purchase of resources on CD-ROM (stand-alone and/or networked);

Evaluation and organization of external resources on the Web.

4

Digital Environment : Quebec Academic Libraries Initiatives

Some joint initiatives : Consortium negotiation and purchasing or licensing of digital scholarly information resources (now 26 products); Hiring of a project officer to negotiate with vendors and manage licenses; Agreement to share cataloguing of digital resources; Evaluation of ILL softwares for a joint purchase; Staff training; GIRI and Sherlock.

5

Limitations of Current ModelAccess of digital resources from several gateways;

Journal titles volatile

Search languages and interfaces vary according to vendors and products;License management;Lack of statistics and analysis of products usefulness;Updating of online catalogues;Scattering of expertise.

6

The Beginning of a Research Digital Library

Project « Toute la science du monde » in 1999 Stage I : consortium licensing of scholarly digital resources Stage II : development of integrated tools to search and exploit resources

CNSLP project

7

Research Digital Library : Task Force Mandate Created in September 2000

To prepare a business plan on the development of a common information infrastructure in order to : maximize shared investments of Québec academic libraries; develop a common portal that will give access to digital resources and tools to integrate and exploit them; promote partnership among institutions to facilitate use of IT in libraries; define needs for human and financial resources; determine possible sources and level of funding.

Members :5 library directors (Sylvie Belzile, Gilles Caron, Jean-Pierre Côté, Frances Groen, Richard Dumont), director of Main Library at UQAM ( Diane Polnicky) and CREPUQ research officer (Onil Dupuis) with the collaboration of Laval Dubreuil.

8

Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects BC Electronic Library Network (ELN) : www.ola.bc.ca/eln

Partnership between the Province of British Columbia and its post-secondary libraries (64 colleges and universities) System-wide access to research databases, including full text and full image sources : negotiations of site licences and consortium discounts Single point of entry to the collections of libraries : 3 union databases Online document requesting and rapid delivery services

Resources ELN Steering Committee Staff : 4.6 FTE (mostly professionals) Project funding on a year-to-year basis

9

Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects The Alberta Library : www.thealbertalibrary.ab.ca

Responsive integrated network of partnerships linking all types of libraries and other information providers (post-secondary, regional and public libraries)Services :

Resource sharing, joint licensing of electronic resources; Interlibrary loans; Information service infrastructure- support and management; Library staff development; Advocacy: communication with partners, government; Unique library card

Funding One time government funding of 4M$ Membership fee

Staff 13 (director, project coordinators, programmers etc.)

10

Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects Ontario Digital Library : www.ocul.on.ca

To leverage the content provided by CNSLP by developing an information infrastructure for Ontario researchersServices

Implementation of an index, search tools and journal contents on a central server and database at University of Toronto; Integration of consortium purchases by OCUL; Integration with information system of each participating library : authentication and access control; Interlibrary loan and document delivery; Implementation of Fretwell-Downing software; Scholar ’s portal.

Funding 7.6M $ over 3 years by Ontario government (CFI match)

Staff 2-3 with U. of T.

11

Steps Towards a Research Digital Library

Meetings with colleagues from the California Digital Library, the Alberta Library and the Ontario Digital Library in October, November and December 2000;Research and writing of a proposal explaining the need to fund a study on a future Research Digital Library in February- April 2001; Approval of the study proposal by the CREPUQ Committee of Vice-Principals Teaching in May 2001;Funding requested to carry a study on the Quebec Research Digital Library : 80 000 $ to the Quebec Ministry of Research, Science and Technology in June 2001;Meeting with representatives of Ministry in October 2001.

12

Research Digital Library : StudyStep I

To analyse needs and expectations of Quebec academic libraries for a common Research Digital Library;To identify other potential partners, their needs and expertise;To analyze Canadian and international models;To define goals and principles of a Research Digital Library;To present a few options towards the implementation of the Research Digital Library.

13

Research Digital Library : StudyStep II

To define services and products available to members;To define collective tools to develop;To determine the technological infrastructure;To describe steps towards the realization of the plan;To propose milestones for each implementation stage;To evaluate human and financial resources needed for each stage;To propose funding model and cost sharing.