OCLC Canada Advisory Council: Conference Call, May 4, 2006

Present:

Daniel Boivin, Director, OCLC Canada

Bill Maes, University Librarian, Dalhousie University

John Teskey, Director of Libraries, University of New Brunswick

Bernard Dumouchel, Director General, CISTI

Ingrid Parent, Assistant Deputy Minister, Library and Archives Canada, Documentary Heritage Collection Sector

Brian Campbell, Director Systems and Technical Services, Vancouver Public Library

Hélène Roussel, directrice générale, Direction générale de la diffusion, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

Absents :

Ernie Ingles, Vice-Provost, University of Alberta

Cathy De Rosa, V.P. Marketing & Library Services, OCLC

Bruce Crocco, Director, Global & Segment Marketing, OCLC

Topics discussed:

1. Review the minutes of the February 10th, 2006, meeting (update, questions).
2. Review of Members Council agenda for the May 21-23 meeting
3. Members Council Meeting in Quebec City (Febr. 4-7, 2007)
4. CLA Conference activities
5. Other business
6. End of the meeting (next meeting in Montreal on October 26-27, 2006.)
7. Meeting adjourned.

Note: The following minutes capture the essential components of the meeting. Action items are listed at the end of the minutes.

The Chair welcomed Hélène Roussel, Directrice générale, Direction générale de la diffusion, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. This is Mrs. Roussel first meeting with OCAC.

1.   Revision of the Minutes

• Minutes were accepted even though Mr. Maes found some typos. These will be submitted shortly for corrections before it gets posted on the Web.
• About the Virtual Storage white paper. Since no updates had been received so far, Daniel will verify where this is at and provide details as to if and when some input from Canada might be appropriate.
• The delegates required that the OCAC brochure be emailed to provide possible changes and update it, if necessary, before the upcoming CLA conference. No need to send the final draft. Changes should be submitted before May 12, 2006.

2   Revision of the Members Council (MC) Agenda

Since the MC agenda will focus on understanding, adapting and partnering with Museums, the Council indicated that Ernie Ingles should as much as possible try to share information on the CDIS and Alouette Canada (CARL) initiatives with MC delegates.

OCAC Delegates all agreed to try to share with Mr. Ingles examples of partnership between museums and libraries as well as archives and libraries. Some questions from the participants were raised to that effect such as:

• How OCLC can increase its membership within the museum and archives field?
• What are the standards issues with museums so that their metadata gets loaded in WorldCat?
• Can OCLC help to convert and load museum records?
• Will OCLC develop new features/services/solutions to assure that benefits are also offered to museums?

OCLC offers some benefits to museum through CONTENTdm and offer to load DC records in WorldCat but not many, if any, museums have done so. OCAC sees the possibility of develop services for museums as a great opportunity. New developments at OCLC will be shared with the Council in the future.

In Canada, the Virtual Museum initiative and CHIN helps but most initiatives are still very "provincial". At the CDIS recent meetings across Canada, some museums have participated in the discussions.

Finally, because "Globalization" is still on the Members Council Agenda, the Council will try to provide some comments before the meeting to Mr. Ingles for discussion. The published document will be resubmitted by email.

3.   February 2007 meeting in Quebec City

Explanations as to why Members Council (MC) was to meet for the first time outside of the OCLC Dublin Ohio office were provided. Mainly, MC has been growing in terms of international delegates (it is believed to be 14 delegates now). Moreover, Ernie Ingles will be the first none US President of Members Council and for the MC executive committee, timing was perfect to try this first out of Dublin experience. The selected city is Quebec City.

It is very possible that the OCAC delegates will be asked to participate in this meeting scheduled to happen from Febr. 4^th to 7^th, 2007.

On the OCAC, three delegates are also involved with the IFLA 2008 meeting in Quebec City. They all indicated their interest to find a mean to promote it while this "international" body will be meeting in Quebec City.

4.   CLA Conference

OCAC is invited to meet with OCLC Vice-presidents and President during CLA as it is expected that quite a few of them will attend. Indeed, OCLC Canada is trying to arrange for a visit and tour of LAC for OCLC senior management staff and this will be in conjunction with CLA. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Dumouchel, Mr. Teskey and Mr. Ingles as well as Mrs. Roussel and Mrs. Parent will all be attending CLA.

OCAC delegates were also invited to join OCLC Canada staff at the booth to help promote OCAC's activities. It is expected that most of the OCAC delegates attending CLA will attend the Update Luncheon.

Finally, OCLC Canada is also sponsoring a session on the "Perceptions of libraries and information services" report. The session is scheduled for Saturday morning, June 17^th, at 8h am.

5.   OCAC fall Meeting (October 26-27, 2006)

The delegates agreed that the next meeting would be in the OCLC Canada office in Chambly (Oct. 27^th). The meeting will end no later than 3h00 pm ET so that all participants have enough time to catch their early evening flight. Additionally, since most people can arrive during the morning of the 26^th, it was recommended to try to develop a session OCLC could offer in the afternoon of the 26^th followed by a cocktail so that OCAC delegates could meet with the local membership. A visit of La Grande bibliothèque will precede or follow the cocktail for the OCAC delegates. The OCAC evening dinner will also be scheduled.

6.   Other business

Some topics for the next meeting were discussed:

• Possible/future relationship between OCLC Canada and AlouetteCanada.
• Follow-up our discussion on the museums and the archives
• Open discussion from findings in the "Perceptions of libraries and information services" report

Advocacy campaign in Canada. Delegates want to know where this is at.

Brian Campbell announced that his retirement from the Vancouver Public Library was scheduled for June 2006. Consequently, he also announced to OCAC that this was his last meeting. The delegates agreed to submit potential candidates to replace Brian for the fall meeting. Other candidates from the public library sector, and Western Canada, will be given priority. This will be decided through the listserv.

7.   Meeting adjourned.