Meeting of CAUL/CONZUL and CREPUQ Sub-Committee of Libraries Montréal, Québec, October 10, 2001 October 10, 2001 A Research Digital Library : a Proposal by Quebec Academic Libraries to Develop a common Information Infrastructure Sylvie Belzile

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

4 Limitations of Current Model  Access 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.

5 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

6 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.

7 Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects BC Electronic Library Network (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

8 Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects The Alberta Library :  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.)

9 Regional Digital Libraries : Earlier Canadian Projects Ontario Digital Library :  To leverage the content provided by CNSLP by developing an information infrastructure for Ontario researchers  Services 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.

10 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 : $ to the Quebec Ministry of Research, Science and Technology in June 2001;  Meeting with representatives of Ministry in October 2001.

11 Research Digital Library : Study Step 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.

12 Research Digital Library : Study Step 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.