Roch Carrier
National Librarian
National Library of Canada
What is distinctive about the Canadian perspective and how is it similar to the perspective of the American scholars we heard this morning? Canadian scholars and libraries are dependent on the world's scholarly literature and publishers. Many scholarly communities are not restrained by geographic or political boundaries. Yet it remains essential to support indigenous scholarly communication, publishing and strong research libraries in Canada.......particularly in the digital environment.
Connecting Canadians is the federal government's vision and plan to make Canada the most connected country in the world. In an increasingly competitive and knowledge-based global economy, Canada can benefit by becoming a world leader in the development and use of advanced information and communications technologies.
The 6 pillars and relevance to libraries:
- Canada Online provides all Canadians, including those in rural and remote communities, with access to Canada's world-leading Information Highway infrastructure.
connecting libraries as public access points to the Internet
Smart Communities is an integrated approach to helping entire communities go on-line to connect local governments, schools, businesses, citizens, and health and social services.
libraries adding value by organizing local information, etc.
Canadian Content Online is increasing the availability of Canadian content on-line -- content that reflects Canadian values, achievements and aspirations.
building content from library collections
Electronic Commerce is changing how Canadians conduct business. To help electronic commerce flourish, we are creating the legal and regulatory framework that will encourage greater use of electronic transactions and make Canada a location of choice for the development of electronic commerce products and services.
new legislation establishes electronic version of key government publications as "official" versions.
Canadian Governments Online - organizing and providing access to government information, all federal government information & services on-line by 2004
Connected Canada to the World - promotes Canada as a leading-edge economy, attractive to foreign investment, and establishes Canada as a hub in the global knowledge-based economy.
The issues are similar to those discussed at ARL over the years. Like ARL, CARL took a lead in Canada in raising awareness and initiating studies.
The Changing World of Scholarly Communication.
AUCC - CARL/ABRC, 1996. This report raised awareness of the impact of technological change on knowledge creation and communication and the threats of the volume of material being created, its organization and its cost.Scholarly Communication in the Next Millennium, a Policy Conference,
June 1997 at Simon Fraser University made recommendations to universities, research-granting councils, national bodies of universities, librarians and scholars, and governments and their agencies. Recommendations included encouragement of experimentation and innovation with electronic publication, review of scholarly communication policies by universities, development of a national site licensing program, creation of a framework for ownership of student intellectual property. Several initiatives discussed later responded to these recommendations [Virtuoso, National site Licensing Project, theses discussions].Canadian Electronic Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences Study
Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, March 2000 found that many Canadian scholars have become active users of electronic resources in their scholarly research. However, they are still much less likely to try to publish their own scholarship electronically than they are to access materials electronically for scholarly purposes. The project identified credibility as the main concern of academics in relation to the electronic publication of their monographs and articles. NLC was a member of the Advisory Committee.Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada
call for proposals for studies on the credibility of electronic publishing and the costs of electronic publishing. NLC staff are assisting in the evaluation of proposals which is currently underway.Canadians have been very supportive of ARL's SPARC initiative (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). As Robert Giroux, the President of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada wrote recently in an endorsement of SPARC:
"The crisis in scholarly communication is obviously not a uniquely Canadian problem and the solutions therefore can not be uniquely Canadian. The challenge of providing equitable access to scholarly research and the need to create cost-effective electronic alternatives to current publication outlets have led to the establishment of noteworthy initiatives [such as] SPARC. " AUCC feels that SPARC can play a key role in helping research libraries, universities and publishers develop a sustainable relationship in the emerging digital environment. This view is widely shared in Canada and thirteen of our members joined the SPARC initiative as founding members."
All Canadian research libraries have a significant presence on the Web. NLC brings them together.
Canadian Library Gateway / Virtual Canadian Union catalogue - linking library Web sites and catalogues with access via the Web or Z39.50.
AMICUS - union catalogue of holdings of Canadian libraries
o Access AMICUS on the Web - free since June 1999
o 20 million full bibliographic records
o 35 million holdings of 500 Canadian libraries - tremendous growth in last few years:
o 3.1 million records and 7.8 million holdings were added to AMICUS in 1999/2000
o additional formats: maps, films, to come: archival holdings
NLC takes the lead in developing and supporting schemes for organizing information, including electronic information, which reflect particular Canadian needs.
Canadian Subject Headings
subject headings for Canadian topics which are compatible with the Library of Congress Subject Headings, created, maintained and published by NLC. (e.g. Authors, Canadian--21st century, Baffin Island (Nunavut), Canadian football)Répertoire de vedettes-matière
the French subject headings equivalent to Library of Congress Subject Headings and Canadian Subject Headings maintained by Université Laval in partnership with NLC. Now on the Web via NLC.Canadian classification schemes:
FC for Canadian History and PS8000 for Canadian literature.Support for French translation of AACR, Dewey Classification
Because of our small size and limited resources, Canadian libraries have always banded together to address issues. We continue to do this in the era of electronic publishing.
Canadian National Site Licensing Project (scientific publications)
- will provide all Canadian universities with access to a huge range of academic publications.
Consortia Canada
- 13 Canadian purchasing consortia
- working within the International Coalition of Library Consortia have participated in some North American wide agreements
- are negotiating for national site licenses for selected Canadian resources.
Direct links via AMICUS to the full text of 3000 Canadian publications in the National Library's Electronic Collection
Canadian Information by Subject, an NLC Web service which provides links to information about Canada from Internet resources arranged in a Dewey based subject tree.
This is such an important issue for Canada that it was recognized in the latest federal government budget:
"As Canadians - especially young Canadians - turn more and more to the Internet as a source of information, it is important that they see their own reflection and hear their own stories. Therefore, in this budget, we are providing funding to enhance the presence of Canadian cultural material on the Internet in both official languages."
NLC Digital Projects - significant contribution through over 30 projects
Canada's Digital Collections (Industry Canada) - access to collections of libraries and other organizations, part of federal Youth Employment Strategy
Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries - alliance of Canadian libraries to promote, coordinate and facilitate the development of Canadian digital collections and services.
Canadian Inventory of Digital Initiatives - information on over 100 projects in progress, on NLC Web site
Early Canadian Online - Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproduction
other significant initiatives of research libraries such as: Our Future, Our Past: The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project
NA/NL Collaboration - development of a joint Web site representing collections
Canadians publish world wide but a Canadian scholarly press is important. Canadian scholarly publishers are primarily university presses, societies and government, e.g. NRC Research Press.
Industry Canada has sponsored demonstration projects in electronic scholarly publishing and established Virtuoso, a Canadian non-profit, on-line scholarly publishing group working cooperatively to improve and add value to the scholarly communication process. NLC and CISTI are members.
Canadians such as Jean-Claude Guédon have been pioneers in exploring new models for scholarly electronic publishing.
Roland Lorimer, Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University has proposed a Canadian preprint network for the humanities and social sciences: Preprint.ca
NLC has coordinated bibliographic identification and microfilming of Canadian Theses since the 1950s. NLC currently contracts with UMI (now Bell & Howell) for services.
NLC is working collaboratively with The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies to steer the national theses program into the digital world.
NLC is monitoring American developments. They will impact our decisions.
Several projects have been undertaken in Canada: Université de Montréal and Université Laval, University of Waterloo and University of Toronto with York University.
This remains the biggest challenge and one that is closest to the mandate of the NLC: to preserve Canada's published heritage. NLC is learning by doing and sharing experience with international partners such as the National Library of Australia.
We believe the best way to preserve is by collecting, organizing, storing and managing over time. National deposit libraries have a key role to play.
NLC Electronic Publications Pilot Project 1994-1996
From June 1994 to July 1995, NLC conducted a pilot project to acquire, catalogue, preserve and provide access to a small number of Canadian electronic journals and other representative publications available on the Internet. Based on the report of the Pilot Project, a plan to mainstream the handling and preservation of these Canadian electronic publications was implemented.NLC Networked Electronic Publications Policy 1998
The policy grew out of the recommendations of the pilot project and the ensuing discussions. Separate policy and guidelines, over and above the NLC Collection Management Policy, were required to deal with identifying, locating, acquiring, reporting, storing and preserving networked electronic publications.
NLC Electronic Collection of 3000 titles, primarily scholarly and government publications.
Electronic Publications Management System Project underway to procure an Electronic Document Management System and build robust preservation processes.
Concern for authenticity over time
Work with the Canadian Association of Law Libraries to establish a framework for digital preservation and study issues of authenticity.
Work with the National Archives of Canada to develop guidance on managing government electronic information for long term access and accountability.
Work to develop international standards to support clear identification through description (metadata) and unique and persistent identifiers (numbering systems).
We have discovered that digital preservation must begin with the creator: the author and the publisher.
Influencing electronic publishing practices within the Government of Canada
Consultation with Canadian Online Publishers in January
In the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation study mentioned earlier Canadian scholars indicated that the uncertainty over the long-term availability of electronic resources dampens their enthusiasm towards its use. They are very concerned about the preservation of scholarship.
To support scholarly communities in Canada we must
make the Canadian scholarship of the past more available to Canadian students, researchers and citizens;
ensure that the scholarship of today can be both disseminated electronically and preserved for long term access.