The CRKN Board of Directors seeks nominations for the inaugural CRKN Researcher Council who will provide advice and recommendations to CRKN as we prepare a large-scale, multi-institutional, multidisciplinary funding application for the Canada Foundation for Innovation - Innovation Fund (CFI IF).
Individuals may choose to self-nominate or to nominate another individual. Completed nomination forms should be sent to CRKN c/o Rebecca Ross (rross@crkn.ca) no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on May 6, 2022, and include all of the following information:
- Contact information for the nominee;
- An indication of their willingness to serve;
- Brief biographical details and relevant work experience to illustrate expertise in and enthusiasm for the work of the committee;
- A statement indicating a demonstrated commitment to upholding principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) as well as those of Truth and Reconciliation
- Assurance that this workload and time commitment meets with approval from their immediate supervisor.
The Opportunity
Our initiative envisions a world-class research platform and supporting infrastructure that enables transformational research and discovery of cultural and heritage content. Increasing access to scholarly content is at the core of CRKN’s mission and vision. On behalf of our members and stakeholder community, we embark on large-scale commercial licensing activities, invest in open scholarship and supporting infrastructures, and act as the stewards for the Canadiana collections through robust access and preservation infrastructure. Our vision for the future is a full-service continuum of access to the content that drives discovery and innovation in Canada. Our content licensing program was launched through CFI, provincial, and institutional funding twenty years ago and is now sustained by members to enable widespread access to critical scholarly content for researchers in Canada. It is time for that same collective investment to be made in the content and research data held in the Canadiana collections and by other memory institutions.
The Researcher Council will uncover and share the perspectives, expertise, and inquiries that ultimately drive this evolution of CRKN’s heritage content infrastructure. Members of the Researcher Council will recommend tools, services, and best practices for interoperability that will increase and improve access to cultural and heritage content held in the Canadiana collections and within the vast holdings of member and partner organizations throughout the country. The Researcher Council ensures that CRKN’s IF initiative, and all future development of the Canadiana access and preservation infrastructure, is driven by researcher needs and questions, ensuring that the primary and secondary source research data held in cultural and heritage collections is optimized for discovery and ultimately innovation.
Taking inspiration from cultural and heritage platforms that enable research and discovery, such as Europeana, Trove, and many others around the world, the Researcher Council will imagine a future where researchers and citizens can access digitized and born-digital, multi-modal content spanning centuries and traversing geographies in one place. This reimagined future will form the foundation of CRKN’s Innovation Fund application. Members of the Researcher Council are experts and visionaries that will help us to push the envelope in the ways in which we deliver tools and services to researchers. Members of the Researcher Council are led by commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion and a commitment to principles of Truth and Reconciliation.
This is a unique opportunity to bring forth disciplinary, institutional, and regional perspectives on program and infrastructure delivery at a national scale. The Researcher Council will launch in April and work towards a multi-stakeholder and researcher meeting in October to build upon the vision and components of the CRKN CFI IF project. It is anticipated that the Researcher Council will hold monthly meetings building towards the workshop in October, and members may be asked to form thematic sub-groups that will meet in between the monthly meetings. Following the workshop in October, the Researcher Council will continue to meet monthly, providing recommendations and guidance to the CRKN as they refine the project and supporting the preparation of the funding application. It is anticipated that the Researcher Council will be in place until the CRKN CFI IF application has been submitted (this is estimated as mid-2024). The Researcher Council will be supported by CRKN staff who will provide all the administrative support, as well as consultants, as needed, for additional research, costing, and grant writing.
For more information, please see the CRKN CFI IF project vision and the Terms of Reference for the Researcher Council. If you wish to discuss a potential nomination (of yourself or a colleague) and have any questions, please contact Rebecca Ross, Director of Strategy and Engagement at rross@crkn.ca.
About CRKN
For our member organizations and the diverse communities they serve, CRKN empowers researchers, educators, and society with greater access to the world’s research and Canada’s preserved documentary heritage, now and for future generations.
We deliver value to academic libraries, heritage organizations, and knowledge seekers within Canada in the following ways:
- Represent our membership in large-scale licensing and content acquisition activities;
- Collaborate to expand and enrich the digital knowledge ecosystem in Canada and the world;
- Advocate for fair and sustainable access to public research and content;
- Support the digital infrastructure required to preserve and access critical Canadian content;
- Mobilize our membership to transform scholarly communications in Canada.
About Canadiana
The Canadiana collection contains over 20 million pages of digitized historical publications, including monographs, serials, and government publications. The collection is largely composed of materials published prior to 1921, including content digitized from the Canadian Institute for Historic Microreproductions (CIHM) microfiche series.
CRKN is continuing to expand the collection while prioritizing at-risk materials, high interest archival collections, newspapers, and content that is representative of the diversity of the Canadian population.