The Board of Directors is comprised of twelve volunteer members (nine elected, and three appointed), drawn from the CRKN membership. Details on Board composition, powers and operation may be found in the CRKN By-laws.
Member
Dr. Annette Trimbee became President and Vice-Chancellor at MacEwan University on August 1, 2020. She was previously President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Winnipeg.
Dr. Trimbee's key accomplishments at the University of Winnipeg included completing a university-wide strategic directions plan, enacting a three-year budget strategy, and implementing an Indigenous Course Requirement for all undergraduate students — among the first in Canada.
Previously, Dr. Trimbee served as Deputy Minister of several departments in the Alberta government, including Finance and Treasury Board, and Advanced Education and Technology. Key accomplishments include Alberta Budget 2012 and 2013, the redesign of Alberta’s innovation system, creation of the Alberta Innovates Corporations, bringing Alberta post-secondary institutions together to plan and collaborate through Campus Alberta, and development of Alberta’s Health Policy Framework and Integrated Resource Management Policy Framework.
Dr. Trimbee currently serves on the boards of Universities Canada, the voice of Canadian universities at home and abroad; and USports, which oversees sports at 56 Canadian universities. She is also a member of the Public Interest Law Centre Advisory Committee, which informs the centre’s case selections and its case portfolio of human rights, environmental, consumer, and Indigenous law.
She holds a BSc from The University of Winnipeg, an MSc from the University of Manitoba, and a PhD from McMaster University in aquatic ecology. She was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alberta.
Melissa is responsible for the strategic direction and general operations of the University Library, ensuring its continued contribution to the university’s goals, mission, vision, and values. She leads a team of 150 faculty and staff in seven libraries, University Archives & Special Collections, and Student Learning Services.
Melissa joined the Library as Dean on February 1, 2017. She previously served as associate vice-president for information services, and director of New Brunswick Libraries, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J, and held a variety of leadership roles in academic health sciences libraries in California. She earned an EdD from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Texas, and a BA in psychobiology from the University of California, Riverside.
She represents the University of Saskatchewan as a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and the Council of Prairie and Pacific Libraries (COPPUL).
Dr. Dale Askey currently serves as Vice Provost (Library & Museums) and Chief Librarian at the University of Alberta. Previously, Dale was the Associate University Librarian for Library & Learning Technologies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he also occupied the role of Administrative Director of the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. He has filled a wide range of roles in libraries, primarily in collection development, public services, Web services, and information technology management. After starting out in libraries and IT at Washington University in St. Louis, he embarked on his professional library career at the University of Utah, with subsequent stays at Yale University and Kansas State University before joining McMaster. In 2009-2010, he was a visiting professor in electronic publishing and multimedia at the University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, teaching in their library science, publishing, and museum studies programs.
His ongoing research project documents the cultural manifestations of the German-speaking minority that remained in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the post-WWII expulsions. This work formed the basis of the doctorate he completed in 2018 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He earned his MLIS from the University of Missouri in 1998, and holds a BA from Colorado College and an MA from Washington University in St. Louis in German language and literature.
Guylaine Beaudry is University Librarian at Concordia University (Montreal). She led the major renovation of the Webster Library and the transformation of the chapel of the Grey Nuns motherhouse into a reading room. From August 2017 to February 2021, she was Vice-Provost, Digital Strategy for Concordia University. She was previously Executive Director of Érudit (www.erudit.org), a publishing platform for humanities and social sciences scholarly books and journals. She wrote many publications on scholarly publishing, notably, the books La communication scientifique et le numérique, (Hermès/Lavoisier, Paris), Le nouveau monde numérique et les revues scientifiques (Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal (PUM) and La Découverte, Paris, France), that was translated and published by University of Calgary Press (Scholarly Journals in the New Digital World) and Profession : bibliothécaire (PUM).
She was recently elected member of the Royal Society of Canada and served in 2014 on its Expert Panel on the status and future of libraries and archives in Canada. She holds a doctorate in history of the book from École pratique des hautes études (Paris). Her thesis is entitled “Scholarly communications and the digital revolution: Analysis of a mutation period from a historical perspective”.
Bernard Bizimana holds an MSc in computer science and an MSc in library and information science. He first came to HEC Montréal in May 2005, and has been the director of the Library since May 2016. He is responsible for advancing the organizational vision and the strategic orientation of the Library and for aligning them with the teaching and the research goals of the School. During the last two years, his most important challenge has been to develop and implement a new business model for the Library. HEC Montréal is a Canadian business school that offers a comprehensive set of study programs, including a BBA, many MSc specializations, an MBA, an EMBA, and a PhD. With approximately 9,000 full-time students and 300 faculty members, HEC Montréal is one of the largest business schools in the world.
Coming soon
Camille Callison, Tahltan Nation member, is the University Librarian at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) and a passionate cultural activist pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. Her research critically examines the relationship between cultural memory institutions and the continued survival and activation of Indigenous knowledges, languages, and cultures. As part of her current professional contributions, Camille serves as the Chair of the National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance (NIKLA) and IFLA Professional Division H, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), and as a member of IEEE P2890™ Recommended Practice for Provenance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data, OCLC Reimagine Descriptive Workflows Advisory Group, NISO Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion subcommittee and the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce on Archives. She is committed to being part of creating meaningful change related to equity, diversity, and inclusivity in the library, archival and cultural memory professions.
Coming soon
Concordia’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Denis Cossette has more 20 years of experience working in the higher education sector. He began his five-year term on August 1, 2016.
Prior to joining Concordia, Cossette served as associate vice-president of Financial Resources at the University of Ottawa. He also held the role of director of the university’s Financial Services from 2005 to 2010 and served as interim VP of Resources for a one-year period.
From 1990 to 2005, he was the director of Financial Resources and vice-president of Administration and Finance for La Cité, a French-language college of applied arts and technology that has its principal campus in Ottawa.
A graduate of Université Laval (licence in accounting science, bachelor of business administration) and the Université du Québec en Outaouais (certificate in administrative data processing), Cossette is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and of the l’Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec.
Ken Hernden BA (Hons.), MLIS (Western University) is University Archivist and Associate University Librarian at Queen’s University with direct responsibility for the Queen’s University Archives and the W. D. Jordan Rare Books and Special Collections and shared accountability as a member of the Vice-Provost and University Librarian’s senior team for the academic mission, strategic directions, and administration of the Queen’s University Library. Before coming to Queen’s, Ken served for thirteen years as University Librarian and University Archivist at Algoma University, where he established the Engracia de Jesus Matias Archives and Special Collections. He was also founding co-director of the Shingwauk Indian Residential Schools Centre. He has worked at Rush University (Chicago), York University (Toronto), and the North Bay Public Library.
Coming soon
Catherine Steeves is the Vice-Provost and Chief Librarian at Western University and as such participates as Library Director in the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). She is Chair of the CARL Advancing Research Committee, Vice-Chair of the ARL Member Engagement and Outreach Committee and serves on the Board of Directors for Canadian Science Publishing. She is a Western MLIS graduate who returned to Western in August 2014 following her position as Deputy Chief Information Officer and Associate Chief Librarian at the University of Guelph. Previously, she worked as the ITS Operations Manager for the University of Alberta Libraries.