OCLC Canada Advisory Council Minutes: January 2003

Present:

Ingrid Parent, Director General - Acquisitions & Bibliographic Services, National Library of Canada
John Teskey, Director, Univ. of New Brunswick
Bernard Dumouchel, Director General, CISTI
Ernie Ingles, Associate Vice-President, Learning Systems
Joyce Garnett, University Librarian, University of Western Ontario
Daniel Boivin, Director, OCLC Canada
Nancy London, OCLC Executive Director, for the Americas

Absent:

Phyllis Spies, OCLC Vice President, Worldwide Library Services
Claude Bonnelly, Directeur des bibliothèques, Université Laval
Brian Campbell, Director Systems and Technical Services, Vancouver Public Library

Topics discussed:

1. Review the minutes (update, questions)
2. Discuss key points on the Members Council agenda for the February meeting
3. Identify the best venue for a French user group meeting or update luncheon
4. ALA/CLA Conference (if we have anything to report - I am waiting for this)
5. Other business (Dates for the next meeting conference call in May 2003 and meeting in Sept. 2003)

1. Revision of the minutes:
   • Bernard indicated that even though he had not yet submitted a letter to Jay regarding investigating the possibility to incorporate OCLC Canada, he had briefly discussed this with him at and ARL meeting. Bernard will submit the letter before the next Member Council meeting in May to allow Ernie to possibly discuss it further with OCLC management. The goal would be to have more details to discuss with the group during ALA/CLA or the September meeting.
   • Update on Action item 4 (Define the Advisory Council mission, mandate and terms): Aiming at a draft for the conference call in May.
   • Update on Action item 5 (Improve OCLC Canada's description in the Members Council directory): OCLC plan to update those during the summer so a new directory is ready for the fall when new Members Council delegates arrive.
2. It was requested that the pricing presentation delivered by Phyllis be provided ("A Framework for Pricing Services in the OCLC Cooperative"). This presentation can now be found at the Members Council Web site: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/uc/feb03/ppt/PhyllisSpies_OCLCPricing_files/frame.htm.
3. A discussion on consortium initiative took place. Joyce indicated that a Ph.D. candidate at Western is doing her dissertation on library consortia and that perhaps OCLC Canada could gain some insights from this Ph.D. candidate. All members on the conference call agreed that they need to have a better understanding of the "consortia clutter": who, what, why & what is or could be OCLC Canada's role. It was mentioned that OCLC Canada should seek to add value as a cooperative. Moreover, the group felt that it was important to distinguish between collaboration vs. consortia vs. cooperative and stated that OCLC Canada is a cooperative. As such, "A cooperative of 30,000 libraries, all of whom belong to a number of consortia. OCLC needs to be a positive entity in the mix and not part of the consortia clutter or tripped over (or in the way)." On the other hand, Ernie said that "OCLC has not transcended into the "cooperative" realm in Canada". He added that "regional consortia in Canada struggle to work outside their barriers to go across country" and this statement was supported by other delegates. He also said "maybe OCLC could facilitate consortia activity across the country" and help library consortia in Canada gain a footing together.
4. Staff Development Issues: It was indicated that it is important for OCLC to find its fit with library staff development to help libraries cooperate in Canada and to help OCLC Canada as a cooperative. The role for OCLC Canada in staff development needs to be Canadian driven, not U.S. driven.
5. French User Group meeting. Some options were presented: CBPQ, ASTED, Salon du livre. It was agreed that something before ASTED be put together but that Bernard would try to speak with Louis Cabral to see if ASTED could modify its position as to not have corporation do breakfast, luncheon or other events that could conflict with ASTED activity.
6. CLA/ALA: The members expressed their desire to "show-off" or demonstrate the partnerships between OCLC & Canadian libraries. Some examples presented were to have NLC share their experience of building its virtual reference service in tandem with OCLC - as a complimentary solution for libraries. We talked about may be having Ernie, as the members council delegate, participate in some OCLC activities to increase the visibility of Canadian libraries on members council, the visibility of the OCLC Canada Advisory Council and partnerships.
7. CIDL. Bernard updated the group on the fact that he had submitted a letter to CIDL Executive committee so that it could explore possible partnership with OCLC Canada.