For Immediate Release

Media Contact

 

Gary Gibson

President

Gibson Library Connections

450-458-0677

gary@gibsonlibraryconnections.ca

 

Canadian Electronic Library Publishers Collection Selected by CRKN for 67 Canadian Universities

 

August 11,  2008 – Saint-Lazare, QC. Canada – As the result of a transformative investment in research infrastructure by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), eight provinces and 67 universities, a major new collection of over 8000 Canadian books will be available online this summer to nearly 900,000 researchers, scholars and students across Canada.

 

With CRKN’s selection of the Canadian Electronic Library Publishers Collection from Gibson Library Connections as one of the digital collections licensed through its Digital Content Infrastructure for the Human and Social Sciences (DCI) program, a rich body of Canadian source materials in the social science and humanities will become available in electronic form to Canadian scholars and researchers for the first time.

 

For a number of years now, the Canadian publishers involved have been working to prepare for this opportunity by clearing rights and digitizing their backlists. Through the Canadian Electronic Library, these are delivered with high-quality MARC records, enabling libraries to fully integrate these titles with their permanent collections. The ebrary platform provides a full suite of sophisticated search and user-support functions, like bookmarks, personal notes and bookshelves, as well as text-to-speech aids for vision-impaired users. The bilingual content of the collection (over 1000 titles in French) will be properly displayed with ebrary’s multilingual interface.

 

The CRKN license provides for several innovative options:

  • Although the books are initially being remotely hosted on the ebrary platform, CRKN members have the option of moving the content to other commercial hosts.
  • The agreement also permits the licensees to host the content locally under secure conditions. To support these terms, Gibson Library Connections will provide source files for all components--eBooks, MARC and metadata.
  • The books will be provided under a multi-user license, which permits the same title to be used simultaneously by multiple users within the same institution or across institutions.
  • The license also provides for the titles to be used for interlibrary lending.

 

“Providing access to this wealth of scholarly material is a critical step in enabling researchers and students across the nation to further understand our society and how Canadians are shaping the world we live in,” said Dr. David Turpin, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Victoria and Chair of the CRKN Board of Directors.  “The newly-gained access to this material will have a profound impact on the way Canadians conduct research, collaborate and turn ideas into a better, more innovative society.”

 

Gary Gibson, President of Gibson Library Connections, says “we’re proud to be associated with this ground-breaking initiative, which brings together the growing demand for digital materials from libraries with the publishers’ interests in supplying it.  Over its six year term, the proceeds from this agreement will serve to benefit both publishing and library communities by fueling a digital transformation.  By promoting increased digitization of Canadian materials and heightened usage of online monographs, this initiative will insure greater value and choice for libraries interested in offering their users Canadian content in electronic form.”

 

The following 47 Canadian publishers are participants in the CRKN license:

 


Anvil Press

Arsenal Pulp Press

Between The Lines

Biblioasis

Boulder Publications

Breakwater Books

Brindle & Glass

Broadview Press

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Canadian Scholars' Press and Women's Press

Dundurn Group

ECW Press

Fernwood Publishing

Flanker Press

Formac Press

Goose Lane Editions

Hedgerow Press

Heritage House Publishing

IDRC Books/Les Éditions du CRDI

Insomniac Press

Institute for Research in Public Policy

James Lorimer & Company Limited

Jesperson Publishing

Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal

Les Presses de l'Université du Québec

McGill-Queen's University Press

New Society Publishers

New Star Books

Nimbus Publishing

Orca Book Publishers

Pacific Educational Press

Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies

Raincoast Books

Rocky Mountain Books

Sumach Press

Talonbooks

The Porcupine's Quill

Theytus Books

Touchwood Editions

UBC Press

University of Alberta Press

University of Calgary Press

University of Manitoba Press

University of Ottawa Press

University of Toronto Press

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

XYZ Éditeur


 

 

 

 

 

About CKRN: The Canadian Research Knowledge Network is a partnership of Canadian universities, dedicated to expanding digital content for the academic research enterprise in Canada. Through the coordinated leadership of librarians, researchers and administrators, CRKN undertakes large-scale content acquisition and licensing initiatives in order to build knowledge infrastructure and research capacity in Canada’s universities.

 

This agreement was reached under CRKN’s Digital Content Infrastructure for the Human and Social Sciences (DCI) Project. The DCI project was funded under the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s National Platforms Fund, in partnership with 8 provincial governments and 67 Canadian universities.

 

For more information on CRKN, visit our website at www.ResearchKnowledge.ca or please contact:

Louisa Hood

Communications Officer, Canadian Research Knowledge Network

Tel:         613.907.7031
Cel:         613.851.5163

lhood@ResearchKnowledge.ca

 

About GLC: Gibson Library Connections is a publisher and distributor of digital content serving the Canadian library market. The principals, Gary and Bob Gibson, have a combined record of over 50 years of service to the electronic publishing and library communities in Canada.

 

About SLC:  The MARC records for Canadian Electronic Library are created by Special Libraries Cataloguing of Victoria, BC.

 

About ebrary (www.ebrary.com): ebrary® is a leading provider of e-content services and technology. The company helps libraries, publishers, and other organizations worldwide disseminate valuable information to end users, while improving their research and document interaction.
 
The company has developed a flexible e-content platform, which customers may use in a number of different, integrated capacities:  ebrary customers may purchase or subscribe to e-books and other content under a variety of pricing and access models, and they may license the ebrary platform to distribute, sell, and market their own content online. All options are delivered using a customizable interface and include the ebrary Reader™ with InfoTools™ software, which enable integration with other resources to provide an economical and efficient way to utilize information.
 
ebrary currently offers a growing selection of more than 170,000 e-books and other titles from more than 300 leading publishers and aggregators.
 
Founded in 1999, ebrary is privately held and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, USA