OCLC Canada Advisory Council (OCAC)

Minutes — April 16^th 2025

Present

Joseph Hafner - chair, Dean, York University Libraries
Caitlin Horrall, Director General, Description Division, Published Heritage Branch, Library & Archives Canada
Allison Kelley, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships, Chief of Federal Sciences Library Network at the National Research Council / Conseil national de recherche Canada
Gabrielle Prefontaine, Dean, University Library, University of Winnipeg
Renee Reaume, Director, Metadata Services, University of Calgary
Michael Vandenberg, Dean of Libraries, Dalhousie University

Daniel Boivin, Executive Director, OCLC Canada, Latin America & the Caribbean

Absent

May Chan, Head Metadata Services, University of Toronto
Mélanie Dumas, Directrice de la collection de la Grande Bibliothèque, BAnQ
Eric van Lubeek, Chief Revenue Officer, Managing Director EMEA/APAC, OCLC
Debbie Schachter, Associate Vice-President, Students, Langara College

Submitted agenda:

1. Opening of the meeting and agenda approval
2. Review the minutes of the Fall 2024 Meeting
3. Update on OCLC Leaders Council (Joseph Hafner)
4. OCLC and current AI activities (Cathy King, Executive Director, Delivery Services, Global Product Management)
5. Brainstorming on the Canadian library's landscape:
   • New/revised priorities
   • Budget trends, new/revised initiatives
   • Are new library positions / roles being created
   • Exciting projects underway
6. Other business (dates for Fall meeting will be defined using Doodle)
7. End of Conference Call

1. Opening of the meeting and agenda approval
   
   • The agenda was accepted as proposed.
2. Review the minutes of the Fall 2024 Meeting:
   • The minutes were approved and submitted.
3. Update on OCLC Leaders Council
   • Mr. Hafner, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect (2025/2026) of Leaders Council, provided a brief update:
     • Last meeting was on December 9
     • A committee of the Leaders Council is currently reviewing candidates to the Board of Trustees upcoming election. As usual, good candidates put their names forward and the committee is narrowing down the list to 2 or 3 candidates. At the next June meeting, they will have a list of candidates defined for the election planned for fall 2025. This is a joint committee made of individuals from the Board of Trustees and the Leaders Council.
     • Some Councillors of the Leaders Council are ending their terms this fall, and others are staying a little longer to allow for a transition to allow for some "corporate memory" will remain on Council a little longer.
     • Mr. Hafner indicated that it is worth noting that councilors will now be selected (no longer elected) from member libraries in countries around the world. Selection of Councilors will be made by the Joint Membership Committee.
     • More information can be found at this URL:
       https://www.oclc.org/en/membership/councils/directory.html
4. OCLC and current AI activities
   • Cathy King, Executive Director, Delivery Services, Global Product Management, joined the meeting to present on the most recent activities related to using artificial intelligence (AI) at OCLC.
   • The presentation will be posted on the OCAC portal.
   • Ms. Horrall indicated that she is interested in the automated subject headings analysis. They at BAC/LAC are challenged with print, more than digital, so, if OCLC figures out how to use it more on "p" than "e", they will be very interested to know how this is accomplished.
   • Ms. King indicated that she would connect with colleagues in the metadata division to see if anything related to this is available and possibly in place. Mr. Boivin will report back.
5. Brainstorming on the Canadian libraries' landscape
   • Mr. Vandenberg started the discussion by mentioning that the Dalhousie University library is focused these days on the impact of what might happen with the draft review produced by the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy in relation to institutional repositories. He reported that CARL has had discussions about this already, namely its impact on local resources. Questions that remain seem to be things like:
     • Will it be enforced or suggested?
     • Any re-precaution on how and when this will be put in place?
     • Will funding to libraries be impacted, improved, or else?
   • Mr. Vandenberg indicated that they have restarted conversions on campus about open science, open things like Dora (Home | DORA), and how they could respond to those demands. They are trying to figure out what this will mean to them at the library, but the initial thoughts are that it might be good for libraries since libraries have been advocating for this for a long time and such a policy might help move open access forward. CARL libraries see this as a great step but potentially also seeing this as bringing some serious resource allocation challenges if no adjustments are made. Library priorities are being revised considering this upcoming change.
   • Mr. Vandenberg also added that another topic of discussion relates to the general financial crisis based on the current context across Canada. Universities have seen a reduction in international students. Moreover, many Universities are facing provincial cuts, and some transformations are looming. Of course, everybody is paying close attention to what is happening in the US as well and in relation to access to information, outages with MedLine, cancellation and/or lack of funding to support libraries, etc.
   • Ms. Prefontaine added that the Tri-Agency review policy is huge for libraries. One significant change in the review is the addition of some new requirements to deposit "anything", any open access publications regardless, if it was published already. The proposed draft revision requires everything to be deposited, and this raises the question of what is the purpose of this change? It is understood that it will make monitoring and complying easier but the demand this will generate comes in addition to the current and immediate requirements that are already requiring resources that are sometimes not available. She then indicated that this change might require different workflows for harvesting, storing, etc. Then, Ms. Prefontaine was asking if there would be a push to eventually provide for a national discovery of these repositories. She is not on CARL so she was also asking if CRKN will be involved to help.
   • Ms. Horrall shared that they are not directly involved with the Tri-Agency policy at BAC/LAC. They are following the conversations, and she appreciated the sharing of information. At BAC/LAC, the financial outlook is also on their agenda. They are awaiting the new government to gauge the impact of any additional reduced government spending. At the same time, key projects continue being worked on such as the new public space at the new library with the Ottawa Public Library. The construction is expected to be completed by the end of this calendar year, and they are already planning for next year because this “space” for BAC/LAC will be a large transformation for them and how they deliver their public services. Also, Ms. Horrall mentioned that she is currently working closely with other departments within the government around the transition of prime ministers. More broadly, BAC/LAC is still partnering with Internet Archives to digitize out of copyright publications and revamping the Access to Information and Privacy process. BAC/LAC is looking at alternative ways to be more efficient in these areas.
   • Ms. Kelley indicated that they are sharing at the NRC some of the same uncertainties at BAC/LAC due to several library budget cuts in past years and that unfortunately continues. They are going through some cost reduction negotiations and one big “topic” hitting them is AI in regards with growing and keeping collections. Indeed, colleagues in research are building AI tools to help them develop collections for NRC. Researchers are seeing this as helping to build the best output for them and these beliefs cause all sorts of challenges for the library, such as reusing copyrighted content. The library is trying to negotiate with publishers to access their content to be used with AI tools and of course, they are resistant to open it. The library is reviewing licensing guidelines, copyrights, etc., to help the researchers potentially meet their needs while respecting their legal obligations. At the same time, they are negotiating contract clauses with publishers to leverage the usage of their content. All this considering potential increased subscription fees to expand usage through AI as this will impact their budget. Other possible issues might arise while this is happening such as how Counter Stats will be accounted for, what can this mean to the NRC’s physical collection, etc. Currently, 60% of the collection is unique to Canada. They feel they need to communicate that fact internally and externally so they can continue protecting these unique collections. Also, Ms. Kelly indicated that the National Science Library (CISTI) is being renovated. They now occupy four floors instead of five and they are bringing NRC staff to work in the building. They added more collaborative spaces, better access to the public, etc.
   • Ms. Reaume shared lots of the same landscape. On the AI side, the University of Calgary has invested in staff training and development in that area. This year, the theme seems to focus entirely on AI. There is, however, a large spectrum of awareness with staff and researchers. Topics related to teaching engagement, ethics and others are all topics of concerns where everybody wants to learn more about.
   • Mr. Hafner, remains involved with the IFLA Advisory Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression and he said that for that group, they run lots of programs that are including information on or about AI. Here is the link to one upcoming Webinar that supports this: https://www.library.yorku.ca/ds/faife-midterm-meeting-open-seminar/. Mr Hafner added that he would be interested in hearing responses from publishers about the use of AI and their content as there are similar demands for this within the academic community. He continued by saying that anything related to budget is also an on-going concern. Currently, they have a cap on tuition at York University and the Federal government cap on foreign students coming to Canada does not help.
   • Mr. Vandenberg continued by indicating that Dalhousie University faced decreases in tuition before the Federal government cap was applied but their restriction added to the challenge. He added that some of the core places for recruiting foreign students, like India and China, now have political issues with Canada and the views and opinions towards Canada in these countries are now less positive. They are campaigning against coming to Canada to study and that impacts on recruitment. The Chinese drive to keep students in China also has an impact. Canada is less of an attractive place now than it used to be. Canada’s dependency on two or three countries was predicted and all universities are living the consequences of those strategies.
   • Mr. Hafner added that some had partnered with China to have branches up there, and these satellite campuses went from having about 5000 students to now less than 2000 students. This corresponds to a diminution of about five million dollars in tuition per year. York University has tried to market to other countries, but the response is not the same. In Ontario, the Ford government wants to specifically fund science and medicine and that adds to the challenges as it limits the pool of candidates interested in going only in these sectors. 
6. Other business
   • Mr. Vandenberg mentioned that Cynthia Holt at CAAL is putting together a Resource Sharing summit and indicated that OCLC might consider reaching out to her about this.
7. End of the meeting
   • At 14h05 Eastern Time.