Five new members of the Advisory Board for NRC-CISTI named

Ottawa, ON, February 26, 2008 – The National Research Council's Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) welcomes five new members to its Advisory Board, each for a three year term ending in 2010. The new members are: Mimi Breton, CIO, Environment Canada; Lorcan Dempsey, VP and Chief Strategist, OCLC; Dr. David Baldwin, Managing Editor, Ecological Society of America; Francis Ouellette, Associate Director, Informatics and Biocomputing & Senior Scientist, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research MaRS Centre; and Paul Wiens, University Librarian, Queen's University.

The Advisory Board for NRC-CISTI (ABC) is comprised of leading national and international stakeholders from academic, business, library and publishing sectors and its membership is appointed by the NRC Senior Executive Council. The ABC provides key advice to the NRC Vice-President, Technology and Industry Support, and to the NRC-CISTI management team on priorities and strategic directions for the institute.

In addition to being the NRC library, NRC-CISTI is federally mandated as the national science library, supporting Canadian researchers and innovators in the areas of science, technology, medicine and engineering. It is also Canada's foremost publisher of scientific journals and monographs through the NRC Research Press, its publishing arm. NRC-CISTI provides value-added information services such as competitive technical intelligence to a growing clientele engaged in translating research into economic value for Canada. NRC Information Centres staffed with NRC-CISTI information specialists are co-located with NRC institutes and 10 technology clusters in 13 cities across Canada.

Biographical notes on the five new members are attached.

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About the National Research Council

Recognized globally for research and innovation, NRC works with partners from industry, government and universities to turn ideas and knowledge into commercial products, processes and services.

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Biographical Notes

Mimi Breton
Currently the Chief Information Officer for Environment Canada, Ms. Breton has over 20 years of operational and management experience in the federal public service, including several years with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. (She holds a master's degree in marine biology.) She also was the Director of the Hepatitis C Division at Health Canada.

Ms. Breton's extensive operational and management experience in three federal science departments will be valuable to NRC-CISTI as it moves the Federal Science eLibrary initiative forward. As well, her perspectives will be welcome on potential NRC-CISTI roles with respect to management of federal research and monitoring data and e science.

Lorcan Dempsey
Mr. Dempsey is the Vice President and Chief Strategist for OCLC-Online Computer Library Center, a worldwide library cooperative. He is a librarian who has worked for library and education organizations in Ireland, England and the US, and is extensively published. He has policy, research and service development expertise in the area of networked information and digital libraries.

Mr. Dempsey has considerable expertise in the areas of resource discovery services, metadata, distributed information and library systems, and the changing position of libraries in networked space. His strategic advice will help position NRC-CISTI in the evolving digital information infrastructure.

Dr. David Baldwin
Dr. Baldwin is the managing editor for the Ecological Society of America (ESA) which publishes peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets and teaching resources. Dr. Baldwin oversees manuscript and production for several journals and the electronic Ecological Archives, which contains data papers, and appendices and supplements to the journal articles.

A former science teacher, Dr. Baldwin received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, subsequently taking on the role of managing editor of the journal Evolution as well as The American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the American Economic Association. His advice to NRC Research Press will be valued as it seeks to support Canadian scholarly societies in their publication of scientific, technical and medical research.

Francis Ouellette
Mr. Ouellette is Associate Director, Informatics and Biocomputing, & Senior Scientist, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research MaRS Centre. His previous positions included that of Associate Professor in Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of British Columbia and Director of the UBC Bioinformatics Centre.

He has significant experience in management of research data, and his contributions to NRC-CISTI in terms of developing strategic directions for management of research data and research output (e-science) will be important. Mr. Ouellette is also a proponent of open access to research publications. His input to discussions on open access business models for NRC Research Press publications will be valued.

Paul Wiens
Paul Wiens has held the position of University Librarian at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, since 1991. He served as Director of Libraries at the University of Saskatchewan and as University Librarian at the University of Lethbridge. Prior to these appointments, he held administrative positions in the Libraries of the University of Manitoba and the University of Waterloo. His academic history includes a degree from the University of British Columbia School of Librarianship.

Mr. Wiens has held important roles in several professional associations and their digital library initiatives, including the Ontario Universities Digital Library Transformation Project and a proposal for a Canadian National Site Licensing Project. NRC-CISTI is strategically focused on developing partnerships with the Canadian academic research library community and others, and is very pleased to welcome a person with Mr. Wiens' experience to the Advisory Board.