Partnership Development Office

As Canada's national science library, NRC-CISTI's goal is to promote and support initiatives that expand seamless and permanent access to STM information for Canadian research, and innovation.

NRC-CISTI's five-year strategic plan (2005-2010) identified partnerships as a key enabler of success in achieving its strategic objectives. Creating national access to digital information for all Canadians in the scientific, technical and medical fields requires partnerships across jurisdictional and organizational boundaries to leverage the strengths of stakeholders in the Canadian health, academic, and public sectors.

With this in mind, NRC-CISTI established a Partnership Development Office in 2005 to explore new ways of working with organizations and build sustainable partnerships, where partners share a common vision and objective, as well as the risks and the rewards, the responsibilities and authority, and the investment of time and resources.

While NRC-CISTI has long been involved in business, technology and service partnerships, the focus of the Partnership Development Office is on partnerships to develop the components of Canada's information infrastructure — e-content, technical infrastructure and tools and services to facilitate discovery and innovation. The following section highlights some of the partner initiatives already underway at NRC-CISTI.

Partner Initiatives

Federal Science eLibrary – NRC-CISTI is working with the five major federal science-based departments to develop a Federal Science eLibrary (FSeL). This initiative aims to transform the federal S&T information infrastructure by:

• guaranteeing all federal researchers have equitable desktop access to essential digital resources in science, technology and medicine (STM); and
• establishing a collaborative government-wide process for negotiating access rights to STM e-journals.

Health sector

NRC-CISTI has a long-standing relationship with Canada's health sector, including partnerships and collaborations that support affordable and universal access to medical and health-related information for all Canadians.

• PubMed Central Canada – NRC-CISTI and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are working together on plans for PMC Canada — a national digital repository of peer-reviewed health science research resulting from CIHR funding. NRC-CISTI and CIHR have approached the US National Library Medicine to co-sponsor the service, as a mirror site to PubMed Central. CIHR will provide the funding and NRC-CISTI will contribute its technological expertise to build and host the infrastructure and manage and develop the e-repository.
  • Update: CISTI-CIHR partnership agreement signed (September 2008) - Over the summer, NRC-CISTI and CIHR completed the first step in the creation of PMC Canada - an agreement to partner on creating the e-repository. With CIHR funding now in place, the partners are currently working on the next step, obtaining agreement from the US National Library of Medicine for PMC Canada to 'officially' become part of the broader PubMed Central International (PMCI) network. Once this three-way agreement is in place, the development phase of PMC Canada can begin.
• Canadian Virtual Health Library – NRC-CISTI is working with the Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA/ABSC) and its various task groups on the National Network of Libraries for Health initiative to explore the creation a national virtual health library. The vision is to ensure that all health care providers in Canada have equal access to the best information for patient care.
  • Update: Preliminary investigation project completed (November 2008) - CHLA/ABSC has completed a Canada Health Infoway-funded "Phase 0" project to evaluate a proposed Canadian Virtual Health Library (CVHL) based within the NNLH. Canada Health Infoway has accepted the project's Environmental Scan, Feasibility Study and Readiness Assessment. The final Phase 0 deliverable - a Phase 1 proposal - has also been accepted for review and consideration. A CVHL transition team has been set up to communicate with CHLA members and talk to potential partners about participation and funding. Contact information for transition team members.

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Outreach Activities

The Partnership Development Office is involved in a number of targeted outreach activities, participating on national committees and attending relevant Canadian conferences to share information and knowledge, and identify community needs, synergies and potential partnership opportunities.

CISTI Committee on Health Sciences Information – This advisory group provides specialized guidance to NRC-CISTI on its plans, priorities, programs and services targeted at the health and medical sectors. The Committee is made up of representatives from the major professional health library associations in Canada.