Rncyclopedia of library information science

Encyclopedia of

Library and

Information

Science

Second Edition

First Update Supplement

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Encyclopedia of

Library and

Information

Science

Second Edition

First Update Supplement

edited By

Miriam A. Drake

Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Published in 2005 by

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© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Miriam A. Drake, Editor

Georgia Institute of Technology,

Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

Editorial Advisory Board

Marcia Bates

Department of Information Studies, University of

California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

John C. Bertot

School of Information Studies, Florida State University,

Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A.

Michael Buckland

School of Information Management & Systems,

University of California, Berkeley, California,

U.S.A.

Suzanne H. Calpestri

The George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library,

University of California, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.

Nancy M. Cline

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Sheila Creth

Progressive Solutions, Chapel Hill, North Carolina,

U.S.A.

Vic Elliott

Division of Information, The Australian National

University, Canberra, Australia

Susan Foster

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, U.S.A.

Martı´n Go´mez

Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn,

New York, U.S.A.

Nancy E. Gwinn

Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.,

U.S.A.

Charles Henry

Rice University, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.

Lisa Hinchliffe

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana,

Illinois, U.S.A.

Karen Holloway

The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.

Glen E. Holt

St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

Mary Lee Kennedy

The Kennedy Group, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Allen Kent

Allen Kent Associates, St. Petersburg, Florida;

Retired, School of Information Sciences,

University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

U.S.A.

Thomas Krichel

Palmer School of Library and Information Science,

Long Island University, Greenvale, New York,

U.S.A.

M. S. Vijay Kumar

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,

Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Jesus Lau

Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico

Lucy B. Lettis

Marsh & McLennon, New York, New York, U.S.A.

Maurice B. Line

Consultant, Harrogate, U.K.

Clifford Lynch

Coalition for Networked Information,

Washington, D.C.; University of California,

Berkeley, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Marilyn Mason

Consultant, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A.

James Matarazzo

School of Library and Information Science,

Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

C. Allen Nichols

Wadsworth Public Library, Wadsworth, Ohio, U.S.A.

Cathy Norton

Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole

Oceanographic Institute, Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

U.S.A.

Chris Peebles

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.

David Penniman

School of Informatics, University at Buffalo,

State University of New York, Buffalo, New York,

U.S.A.

Neils Ole Pors

Department of Library and Information Management,

Royal School of Library and Information Science,

Copenhagen, Denmark

Paul Sturges

Department of Information Science, Loughborough

University, Leicestershire, U.K.

Winston Tabb

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland,

U.S.A.

vi

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Contributors

Richard Abel = Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.

Grace Agnew = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Pam Baker = California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, California, U.S.A.

Susan Beatty = University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Robert L. Becker = Wolters Kluwer, Riverwoods, Illinois, U.S.A.

Pieter Boeder = Communications Consultant, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amy E. Brand = CrossRef, Lynnfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Joseph Branin = Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

Bonnie C. Carroll = Information International Associates, Inc., Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Ye-Sho Chen = Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A.

Edward Colleran = Copyright Clearance Center, Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Mike Crump = The British Library, London, U.K.

Anthony Debons = University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Ruth Dickstein = University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.

Amy Driscoll = California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, California, U.S.A.

Ulla Ehrensva¨rd = National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

Frederick J. Friend = University College London, London, U.K.

Carla J. Funk = Medical Library Association, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Emily Gallup Fayen = MuseGlobal, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Edward D. Garten = University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A.

Frances Groen = McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Kevin M. Guthrie = JSTOR, New York, New York, U.S.A.

Birger Neal Hjørland = Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark

Gail Hodge = Information International Associates, Inc., Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Darren Hoerner = Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Bettina Hohn = University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany

Kimio Hosono = Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Kelly Barrick Hovendick = Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, U.S.A.

David J. Ives = NELINET, Inc., Southborough, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Sylvia James = Sylvia James Consultancy, Sussex, U.K.

Kathryn R. Johnson = Information International Associates, Inc., Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Sophia K. Jordan = Chicago Public Library, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Corinne Jo¨rgensen = Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A.

Amy M. Kautzman = University of California, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.

R. David Lankes = Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, U.S.A.

Mayre Lehtila¨-Olsson = National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

Tomas Lidman = National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

Timothy Mark = University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

vii

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Robert F. Nawrocki = Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.

William Neal Nelson = Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia, U.S.A.

Kjell Nilsson = National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

Norman Paskin = International DOI Foundation, Oxford, U.K.

Lisa Pillow = University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.

Jonathan Purday = The British Library, Baston Spa, U.K.

Folke Sandgren = National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden

Reijo Savolainen = University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

Lyudmila Shpilevaya = The New York Public Library, New York, New York, U.S.A.

Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz = The New York Public Library, New York, New York, U.S.A.

Janet L. Steins = Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Frederick W. Stoss = University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.

Gary E. Strong = The Queens Borough Public Library, Jamaica, New York, U.S.A.

Laura Tull = Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

Konrad Umlauf = Humboldt-Universita¨t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Sirje Virkus = Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, U.K.

Timothy Walch = National Archives and Records Administration, West Branch, Iowa, U.S.A.

Jenny Walker = Ex Libris Inc., Watertown, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Darlene Warren = University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Peggy White = University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Alicia Wise = Publishers Licensing Society, London, U.K.

Liavon Yurevich = The New York Public Library, New York, New York, U.S.A.

viii

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Academic Libraries in Canada = Frances Groen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Academic Libraries in Eastern Europe = Sirje Virkus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Academic Libraries in Japan = Kimio Hosono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Acidic Papers and Preservation Strategies = Sophia K. Jordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

African American Studies Databases = Lisa Pillow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Anthropology Libraries = Janet L. Steins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Book and Journal Publishing = Richard Abel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

The British Library = Jonathan Purday and Mike Crump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Canadian Association of Research Libraries = Timothy Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

CENDI = Bonnie C. Carroll, Kathryn R. Johnson, and Gail Hodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Consortia, Library Buying = Frederick J. Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Copyright Clearance Center = Edward Colleran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

CrossRef = Amy E. Brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Digital Object Identifier (DOI
) = Norman Paskin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Digital Reference = R. David Lankes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Domain Analysis in Information Science = Birger Hjørland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Electronic Records Management = Robert F. Nawrocki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Environmental Information = Frederick W. Stoss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Everyday Life Information Seeking = Reijo Savolainen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Firewalls = David J. Ives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Fundraising on the Internet: On-Line Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations =

Pieter Boeder and Bettina Hohn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

German Academic Libraries = Konrad Umlauf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Herbert Hoover Library = Timothy Walch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Information Commons = Peggy White, Susan Beatty, and

Darlene Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Information Counseling = Anthony Debons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Information Productivity = Ye-Sho Chen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Institutional Repositories = Joseph Branin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Integrated Library Systems = Emily Gallup Fayen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

The Internet and Public Library Use = Corinne Jo¨rgensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Joint Information Systems Committee = Alicia Wise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

JSTOR = Kevin M. Guthrie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Libraries in Belarus = Liavon M. Yurevich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Libraries in Ukraine = Lyudmila Shpilevaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Library Standards in Higher Education: An Overview = William Neal Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Medical Library Association = Carla J. Funk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

ix

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

National Library of Sweden: History of the Royal Library = Tomas Lidman,

Ulla Ehrensva¨rd, Folke Sandgren, Mayre Lehtila¨-Olsson, and

Kjell Nilsson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Polish Libraries = Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Public Libraries, Public Access Computing, and the Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation = Darren Hoerner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

The Queens Borough Public Library = Gary E. Strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

SFX = Jenny Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Special Libraries in the UK = Sylvia James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Student Outcomes Assessment = Amy Driscoll and Pamela Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Trends in Legal Publishing = Robert Becker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Undergraduate Library Collections = Amy M. Kautzman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Unicode = Laura Tull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Video on Demand—The Prospect and Promise for Libraries =

Grace Agnew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Virtual Libraries and Distance Learning in the United States = Edward D. Garten . . . . . . . . . . 404

Women’s Studies Databases = Ruth Dickstein and Kelly Barrick Hovendick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

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© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Preface

The second edition of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science represents a

dynamic database aimed at describing both history and the state of the art in libraries,

library science, information science, and applications of information technology. The

print edition appeared in four volumes in 2003. It quickly became established as a

respected and valuable reference resource. This supplement contains articles added since

2003 and includes new material as well as updated entries.

The material contained in this volume includes many elements relating to library opera￾tions, information access and processing, information literacy, and information science.

New processes, new developments, and new ways of disseminating, accessing, and analyz￾ing information create the exciting and transformational aspects of the field. This supple￾ment provides valuable resources for people in the field as well as people wanting to learn

about the field.

This supplement contains articles on libraries in Canada, Eastern Europe, Germany,

and Japan as well as the British Library. Articles of special importance to the field today

are: ‘‘Digital Object Identifier (DOI

)’’ by Norman Paskin; ‘‘CrossRef’’ by Amy E.

Brand; ‘‘Institutional Repositories’’ by Joseph Branin; ‘‘SFX’’ by Jenny Walker; and

‘‘Video on Demand—The Prospect and Promise for Libraries’’ by Grace Agnew.

I thank the Editorial Advisory Board for their help in refereeing entries, recommending

topics, and recommending authors. I appreciate Susan Lee, a valuable colleague who con￾tributes to the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science in many ways, making it

a superior resource.

Miriam A. Drake

Editor

xi

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Academic Libraries in Canada

Frances Groen

McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

INTRODUCTION

Canadian academic libraries developed within the opera￾tional contexts of their parent colleges and universities.

They contain rich historical collections dating from 1632,

collections related to native peoples, and developing digital

collections. Responsibility for higher education rests with

the provinces and territories of Canada to form a distrib￾uted system of education libraries. Academic libraries

collaborate through national and regional associations.

Canadian libraries have made substantial investments

in information technology and actively participate in a

national system of electronic information delivery.

ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN

CANADA—ACADEMIC AND

RESEARCH LIBRARIES

The article on research libraries in the first edition of this

encyclopedia notes that ‘‘the term research, applied to a

library, describes the function of the library more than the

source of its support—university, college, or public

(municipal) funds. . . The function of a research library

is to collect and make available for use all the material[s]

on a given subject or range of subjects.’’[1]

Academic libraries may or may not be great research

libraries but they are university libraries, supporting

the education of students and the research and teaching

needs of the faculty on a particular campus. A number of

Canadian academic libraries are also great research

libraries by international standards; the terms ‘‘academic’’

and ‘‘research’’ in relation to libraries tend to be used

interchangeably in describing university libraries of status.

For example, the organizations the Canadian Association

of Research Libraries (CARL) and the Association of

Research Libraries consist of academic libraries.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CANADIAN

UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES—THE

FIRST LIBRARIES

Academic libraries in Canada developed historically

within the context of the universities and colleges they

supported. In the course of their development, these

libraries frequently incorporated collections and traditions

older than the university itself. For example, the Library

of Universite´ Laval contains items from the Bibliothe`que

de la Mission Canadienne des Je´suites, 1632. Laval

University, established in 1852, has its origin from an

earlier institution, the Se´minaire du Que´bec.

Therefore among the oldest major universities and

housing libraries with rich historical traditions and

collections are the University of Toronto (Ontario)a and

McGill University (Montreal) Quebec.b The University

of Toronto, with the most extensive library in Canada,

was founded in 1827 as the Anglican King’s College of

York. It was secularized and its name was changed to the

University of Toronto in 1849. Montreal businessman and

philanthropist, James McGill, bequeathed support to

found the Royal Institution for the Advancement of

Learning in 1813, but political and litigious controversies

of the time delayed its establishment. It was only by

engrafting the Montreal Medical Institution as the first

faculty of McGill that the university became incorporated

in 1821. Therefore it might be argued that the first

university library in Canada was a medical library.

Canada’s Maritime provinces (Newfoundland, Nova

Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) are

the home of a variety of institutions of higher learning—

with two major universities: Dalhousie and Memorial.

Dalhousie University (Halifax), Nova Scotia, the oldest

university in the Maritimes, was founded in 1818 by the

Ninth Earl of Dalhousie, but did not begin to function as a

university until 1863. A number of smaller academic

institutions in the Maritimes began later in the 19th

century: Acadia University, founded as Queen’s College

in 1898; the Universite´ de Moncton (Moncton), New

Brunswick, a francophone university, traces its origins to

the Colle`ge Saint-Joseph, 1864; and Mount Allison

University (Sackville), New Brunswick, was founded in

1843 as Mount Allison Weslyan College. The University

of New Brunswick (Fredericton), New Brunswick,

originated as the Provincial Academy of Liberal Arts

and Sciences in 1785. Memorial University (St. John’s),

aFor a complete history see Ref. [2]. bFor a complete history see Ref. [3].

1

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Newfoundland, was founded in 1925 as Canada’s most

eastern university, located in the last province to join

Canada in 1949.

The province of Ontario, Canada’s most populous

province, includes the University of Toronto as well as

other major universities. Other early Ontario universities

are Queen’s University (Kingston), founded by the Church

of Scotland in 1839; the University of Ottawa (Ottawa),

founded in 1848 as the College of By-town; the University

of Western Ontario (London), founded in 1878 as the

Western University of London; and the University of

Windsor (Windsor), which originated as Assumption

College founded in 1857. The University of Guelph

(Guelph) was created out of the Ontario Veterinary and

Agricultural College beginning in 1888. Carleton Univer￾sity (Ottawa) originated as Carleton Collegec in 1942. The

expansion of the 1960s witnessed two new colleges: Brock

University (St. Catharine’s) in 1964 and Trent University

(Peterborough) 1963. Two largely undergraduate univer￾sities in northern Ontario are Laurentian University

(Sudbury), created from the University of Sudbury in

1957, and Lakehead University (Sault St. Marie).

In the province of Quebec, the early history of the

development of universities is connected to the history of

the Catholic Church. Universite´ Laval (Quebec City),

Quebec, was founded in 1852. The Universite´ de

Montre´al (Montre´al), founded in 1878 as a branch of

Universite´ Laval, received its parliamentary charter in

1920. The Universite´ de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke), the

youngest university in Quebec, began in 1954. In 1963,

Quebec created the Que´bec Commission Royale

d’Enqueˆte sur l’Enseignement dans la Province du

Quebec.[5] This study, known as Report of the Parent

Commission, resulted in the establishment of the l’Uni￾versite´ du Que´bec System in 1968, providing a system of

university education across the province (Trois-Rivie`res,

Chicoutimi, Hull, Rimouski) and a consolidation of

collections from the Colle`ge Sainte-Marie, Ecole Normale

Jacques-Cartier, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to form the

Library of the Universite´ du Que´bec a` Montre´al. The

Parent Commission also recommended the incorporation

of two Montreal colleges, Loyola and Sir George

Williams, to form Concordia University in 1974.

In Western Canada, the University of Alberta

(Edmonton), Alberta, was founded in 1906; the University

of Calgary (Calgary), Alberta, was established in 1945 as

a branch of the University of Alberta, becoming a

university in its own right in 1966; Brandon University

(Brandon), Manitoba, was established in 1899; the

University of Manitoba (Winnipeg), Manitoba, estab￾lished in 1877 is Western Canada’s first university; the

University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon), Saskatchewan,

was established in 1907; the University of Regina

(Regina), Saskatchewan, founded as a college of the

University of Saskatchewan in 1925, became an indepen￾dent institution in 1974; Simon Fraser University

(Burnaby), British Columbia, was founded in 1965; and

the University of Victoria (Victoria), British Columbia,

has origins going back to 1903 as a college affiliated with

McGill University, and became a degree-granting insti￾tution in 1963. A provincial university was proposed for

British Columbia as early as 1877, but its implementation

was delayed because of political rivalry between Van￾couver Island and the mainland. In 1899, Vancouver

College, also affiliated with McGill University, was

established and, in 1906, this became McGill University

College of British Columbia, becoming the University of

British Columbia in 1908.

This brief review of the evolution of universities in

Canada presents the context in which Canadian higher

education evolved, and with it the libraries to support

these institutions. None of these institutions made

elaborate provision for libraries in support of their

programs. The University of Alberta is symptomatic of

developments across the nation. When the University of

Alberta was established in 1909, the provincial Premier at

the time, A. C. Rutherford, wrote to request gifts of books

from, among others, the premiers of the provinces of

Quebec and Manitoba as well as the Canadian High

Commissioner in London, Lord Strathcona.[6] First came

the university, then, almost as an afterthought, the library.

In many ways, the history of academic libraries in Canada

has continued to demonstrate the ‘‘rattrapage’’ philoso￾phy—during which the library prospers when enrolment

increases and research intensifies. Only a handful of

academic libraries in this country maintain strong

collections that are not linked to current user needs.

However, all of these institutions are committed to their

heritage collections and maintain archives on the history

of the institution and the library.

THE POLITICAL CONTEXT OF CANADIAN

ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

The Constitution of Canada (1867) delegates to the

provinces of Canada the responsibility for education with

a resulting system of autonomous educational institutions

across 10 provinces and two territories of Canada. Each

province has a Minister of Education and usually a

Deputy Minister, but a similar post does not exist at the

federal level. Higher education is almost exclusively

public. Most universities are increasingly controlled by

their provincial governments, which contribute the larger cFor a complete history see Ref. [4].

2 Academic Libraries in Canada

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

percentage of financial support to the universities. Student

fees (regulated by provincial governments), research

grants, and private giving provide the remaining support.

Academic services are negotiated between federal and

provincial partnerships, and by strong nongovernmental

associations such as the Association of Universities and

Colleges in Canada.

Canadian academic libraries are colored by these decen￾tralized provincial education policies, and by two other

unique aspects of the Canadian heritage—bilingualism and

the presence of an aboriginal culture that is making itself

felt in political and educational matters, especially in the

west. Canada is a bilingual country, and one of its pro￾vinces, Quebec, is French-speaking by law. Recognizing

the need to provide bilingual library resources, La Biblio￾the`que de l’Universite´ Laval has developed a ‘‘Re´pertoire

de Vedettes-Matie`re’’ (RVM), a subject thesaurus for

cataloguing, which has been adopted as a national standard

by the National Library of Canada, the Bibliothe`que

Nationale du Que´bec, the Bibliothe`que Nationale de

France, and the Bibliothe`que Nationale de Luxembourg.

Academic libraries in Canada support programs in

aboriginal studies and in other areas relevant to the study of

native people, such as Canadian studies. Academic librar￾ies in Western Canada are particularly noteworthy in this

area. The University of Saskatchewan’s Aboriginal Portal

provides access to photographs, online documents, and full

text of native law cases retrospective to 1763 and includes

historic photographs. The University of Alberta Learning

Resources, in support of its School of Native Studies,

provides full text and links to recommended web sites, and

also includes digital versions of Me´tis Scrip Records.

Numerous academic libraries have developed lists of

selected references on the Native People of Canada, such

as those available at the University of Manitoba Elizabeth

Dafoe Library, McGill Libraries, and the University of

Regina. A growing interest in this area is the digitization of

historic collections relative to Native and Canadian studies

programs. In the Government of Canada’s Aboriginal

Digital Collections project, 30 web sites were created by

aboriginal youth, featuring significant Canadian aboriginal

materials. The oral tradition of aboriginal culture benefits

from the digital era through the use of multimedia in

capturing native songs and spoken (oral) histories.

Canadian academic libraries have organized them￾selves into strong regional associations that cover the map

of Canada, from west to east. These are as follows:

. The Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries

(COPPUL)

. The Ontario Council of University Libraires (OCUL)

. The Confe´rence des Recteurs et des Principaux des

Universite´s du Que´bec (CREPUQ)

. The Council of Atlantic University Libraries (CAUL).

The COPPUL is a consortium of 22 university libraries

located in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,

Alberta, and British Columbia. Member libraries ‘‘coop￾erate to enhance information services through resource

sharing, collection purchasing, document delivery, and

many other similar activities.’’[7]

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL)

is a consortium of 19 university libraries in the province

of Ontario. These 19 Ontario libraries, like those of

COPPUL, ‘‘cooperate to enhance information services

through resource sharing, collection purchasing, docu￾ment delivery, and many other similar activities.’’[8]

The CAUL/Conseil des Bibliothe`ques Universitaires

de l’Atlantique (CBUA) consists of 17 member institu￾tions located in the provinces of Eastern Canada—Nova

Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and

Newfoundland.[9]

The Quebec university libraries are coordinated

through the CREPUQ in a Sous-comite´ des bibliothe`ques.

In 1969, the rectors of the Quebec universities adopted

a plan for the improvement and coordination of the

Quebec university libraries and, in 1972, an office of

libraries with a full-time coordinator was established

under the umbrella of CREPUQ. Membership consists of

the 12 directors of university and special libraries in

Quebec, the Bibliothe`que Nationale du Que´bec, and the

City of Montreal Library. With its history of more than

30 years, the CREPUQ Sous-comite´ des bibliothe`ques

is the oldest regional academic library collective in

Canada.[10]

These four regional consortia have proven most

effective in fostering a strong collaborative culture at a

regional level, resulting in shared resource acquisition that

greatly intensified with electronic site licensing. It should

be noted that the existence of these four regional coo￾peratives preceded the advent of electronic site licensing

initiatives, although today much of their activity is fo￾cused on licensing agreements.

At a national level, the CARL/L’Association des

Bibliothe`ques de Recherche du Canada (ABRC)[11] was

established in 1976 and consists of 27 university libraries

plus the National Library of Canada (Ottawa) and the

Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information

(CISTI). CARL/ABRC has three basic goals:

. To provide organized leadership for the Canadian

research library community in the development of

policies and programs that maintain and improve the

cycle of scholarly communication

. To work toward the realization of a national research

library resource-sharing network in the areas of

collection development, preservation, and access

. To increase the capacity of individual member libraries

to provide effective support and encouragement to

Academic Libraries in Canada 3

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

postgraduate study and research at national, regional,

and local levels.

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries has

played a leadership role in organizing the Canadian

academic library community. Priorities include copyright,

federal funding of libraries as a component of Canadian

research and innovation, and the provision of information

resources through collaboration (see the Canadian Na￾tional Site Licensing Project, CNSLP). Membership in the

Canadian Association of Research Libraries is limited to

libraries of Canadian universities with doctoral programs

in the arts, sciences, and social sciences, or to other

research institutions approved by the membership.

THE EVOLUTION OF CANADIAN

ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

In their evolution, Canadian academic libraries have been

aided by a large number of studies and reports; not all of

these reports have enjoyed governmental support and

recognition. Those that have been initiated by government

or official bodies such as the Association of Universities

and Colleges in Canada appear to have created a larger

impact in the improvement of academic libraries. As early

as 1930, a grant from the Carnegie Corporation provided

the financial resources for a comprehensive study of Ca￾nadian libraries by the Commission on Libraries, chaired

by John Riddington, the Librarian of the University of

British Columbia and the President of the newly formed

Canadian Library Association.[12]

Included in this comprehensive study was a chapter on

university libraries that documented the situation in

libraries in the 23 universities of the then Dominion of

Canada. Noting their variety, this report documented ‘‘the

aristocratic English and the theologically controlled type

of French universities. . .’’ (p. 123) as well as the great

variation in institutional size. The libraries of these

institutions reflected the same wide variation, and noted

that ‘‘while there are some Canadian universities that thus

recognize the place of the library in higher education, there

are others that are far from being fully awakened to this

realization.’’ (p. 125). The lack of reliable data on

academic libraries is also noted. The commission’s report

is descriptive of those university libraries that bothered to

provide data, and concludes with the observation that ‘‘the

whole subject is one that would well repay careful study

and record. . .’’ (p. 132). If the number of subsequent

studies is an indication, this recommendation was certainly

taken seriously, although not immediately acted upon.

As Canada became a country with an increasing aware￾ness of its cultural and scholarly role, a number of studies

exploring the humanities in Canada were made.[13 – 16]

These studies, perforce, considered library support for

scholarship in the humanities, and recommended over and

over again that academic libraries needed to be strength￾ened if Canadian humanities scholarship was to flower.

Many studies and consultants’ reports at both the

provincial and institutional levels were also completed as

libraries continued to scrutinize their ability to serve

scholarly and research needs on their campuses.

A visionary, yet cautionary, approach to the ways in

which the emerging information technologies could be

harnessed to provide increased support to humanities

scholarship was proved by W. Kay Lamb, Canada’s first

National Librarian.[17] Dr. Lamb envisioned stronger

resource collaboration between academic libraries and

the relatively new National Library of Canada. He

speculated quite accurately on enhanced scholarly access

to the nation’s libraries through computer technology. His

article still makes interesting reading for his insight as

well as foresight; he cautions that access and electronic

enhancements do not alone result in scholarship at a

higher level: ‘‘one aspect of the forward march of

automation worries me. Scholars, especially young

scholars, are becoming preoccupied with the mechanical

aspects of research. The ease and relative cheapness with

which copies can now be made and the speed with which

data can be manipulated give them the impression that

copying and manipulation in themselves accomplish

something. They mistake turning wheels and checking

cameras for real research and thought. Ease of copying

does not eliminate the need to read, consider, and select; it

merely postpones the evil day. I shall feel more cheerful

about mechanical and electronic wonders when their

existence and use begin to reflect more clearly in a rising

standard in the results of research and in scholarly

writing’’ (Ref. [17], p. 10.).

An extensive study of library resources in Canadian

academic and research libraries was prepared under the

auspices of the Canadian Association of College and

University Libraries, a section of the Canadian Library

Association and the Association of Universities and

Colleges in Canada and funded by the Canada Council

and the Council on Library Resources (Washington, DC).

Comprehensive, thorough, and accurate, the Downs

Report,[18] as the study came to be known, provided

valuable insight into all aspects of academic libraries in

Canada at a watershed moment. The full force of

information technology had not yet impacted upon

libraries, although the potential for automation to improve

library services was beginning to be understood. Further￾more, the mechanization of major indices beginning in

science and medicine was underway. The 1960s was also a

decade of unparalleled growth in Canadian universities—a

burgeoning of student enrolment, and a doubling in the

number of faculty members with the associated growth in

4 Academic Libraries in Canada

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

research output. The period of the 1960s captured by the

Downs Report demonstrates a strong belief in the value of

higher education and, at the same time, a commitment to

the decidedly Canadian value of universality of access.

Given the period of growth, optimism, and expansion in

which the Downs Report was conceived, it is not

surprising to find its proposals for action both ambitious

and far-reaching. Downs interpreted ‘‘resources’’ in the

broadest sense to mean collections, professional librarians,

library buildings and library instructional programs, and

other services. As Robert Downs notes, ‘‘never before in

their history have Canadian university libraries received

the attention and support which have lately been accorded

to them. But utopia for them is still far from being just

around the corner’’ (Ref. [18], p. 2). Robert Downs’

remarks remain true 36 years later. The recommendations

in his report address administrative organization in

libraries, technical services and collection development,

readers’ services, physical facilities, personnel, financial

support, library automation, interlibrary cooperation, and,

most importantly, financial support. In this last group of

recommendations, Downs recommended an additional

appropriation of Can$150,000,000 for collections over the

next decade, and an allocation annually of a minimum of

10% of the general university expenditure for library

support. The Downs study took a strong stand regarding

the primacy of collection development as the core value of

the university library: ‘‘Beautiful buildings, well-trained

staffs, and the most modern cataloguing and classification,

circulation, and reference systems can compensate only to

a limited degree for the absence of strong collections’’

(Ref. [18], p. 207.)

Following the appearance of the Downs Report, a

conference, convened by the Association of Colleges and

Universities in Canada and the Canadian Association of

College and University Libraries—the sponsoring asso￾ciations of Downs’ work—met in Montreal to discuss

the future of Canadian academic libraries envisioned in

the report. Robert Blackburn, Chief Librarian of the

University of Toronto, and Basil Stuart-Stubbs, Univer￾sity of British Columbia, prepared discussion papers.[19]

A comprehensive and sustained evaluation of the imple￾mentation and impact of the recommendations of the

Downs Report was not undertaken systematically; given

the breadth and scope of the report, this is not surprising.

Like other valuable library reviews both earlier and

subsequent, the essential value of the report was in the

visibility it created for the needs of the library in higher

education and the way it illuminated the quite staggering

library needs and their costs. It was left to the individual

library director to deal with the level of implementation.

In the words of Basil Stuart-Stubbs, ‘‘to use a time-worn

phrase, we librarians have a selling job to do, and here is

where the Downs Report comes in. This document is the

cornerstone for all of your individual arguments for the

years to come and it will be your responsibility to make

the best possible use of it’’ (Stubbs, p. 20). The effec￾tiveness of the Downs Report on improving Canadian

academic libraries must be evaluated in terms of im￾provements in collections and services, and real growth

did occur in libraries into the 1970s.

Economic conditions, at large, determine the general

financial situation in universities, which, in turn, impact

on support of the university library. By the 1970s, the

development of Canada research libraries was again in

jeopardy. Inflation was escalating annually and globally,

Canadian academic research libraries purchase over 90%

of their resources outside Canada, and the devaluation of

the Canadian dollar, especially with respect to U.S.

currency, was a serious factor.

A comprehensive academic study of financial restraint

in libraries during the decade 1973 – 1983 was undertaken

by Auster.[20] Auster recognized the sustained growth and

expansion of academic libraries in the 1960s and early

1970s, and picks up on a period of financial constraint

starting in 1973. Using information obtained from a

questionnaire sent to libraries and data compiled annually

by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries,

Auster publishes her ex post facto research (her term) in

1991. The question posed by this work regarding whether

library retrenchment is a cyclical phenomenon remains

valid, if unanswered. ‘‘How long will the cycle last?’’ is

the determining variable. The unfortunate consequence

for Canadian academic libraries caught in the cycle of

growth and retrenchment is the impact on the develop￾ment of collections of depth and breadth in support of

scholarly research.

By the 1990s, the Canadian academic library commu￾nity had recognized that the combined force of retrench￾ment and the adoption of information technology in

publishing and scholarly communication had brought

academic libraries to a watershed. Working with the

Association of Colleges and Universities in Canada, the

Canadian Association of Research Libraries undertook a

broad study on change and the future of academic libraries

in the information age.[21] The report, broad in scope,

embedded academic libraries within the entire university

system, recognizing that libraries and their parent institu￾tions had reached a critical juncture. It addressed a broad

array of university sectors—scholars, administrators, lib￾rarians, university press directors, students, and learned

societies, recognizing that these interest groups held the

resources and the authority to ensure that Canadian

universities were positioned in the emerging global

knowledge network.

The report recommendations called for a response at

the institutional and national levels—raising awareness of

the issues and the need for change; promulgating best

Academic Libraries in Canada 5

© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC