Ottawa, Ontario - The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) is pleased to welcome the Toronto Public Library (TPL) as its 76th institutional member. As a founding member of Canadiana.org, TPL has been contributing to the sharing and preserving of Canadian documentary heritage for over 40 years. As an institutional member of CRKN, TPL will contribute to the development and sustainability of the Canadiana platform and collection of over 60 million pages of digitized documentary heritage. In addition, TPL will have the opportunity to participate in CRKN’s commercial content licensing program.
“We are proud to have TPL join CRKN as our first public library member,” states Clare Appavoo, CRKN’s Executive Director. “TPL is a leader in the library community in Canada and we look forward to growing the capacity of our national network with the insights and expertise of TPL, particularly by fostering knowledge sharing between academic and public libraries in Canada.”
Earlier in the year, TPL, along with CRKN members, contributed to making the Canadiana collections available at no charge to users. This new accessibility to digital documentary heritage has had a positive impact on public library patrons. “The removal of the Canadiana paywall means that anyone with an internet connection has access to a diverse collection of Canadian documentary history. As the largest public library in Canada, we are pleased to work with CRKN to advance initiatives that support access to our digital documentary heritage,” stated Vickery Bowles, City Librarian at TPL. “We look forward to working with our academic library colleagues on shared initiatives and goals.”
TPL joins CRKN following CRKN’s merger with Canadiana.org in April 2018. As part of the merger, CRKN’s By-laws were updated to include optional institutional membership for the Toronto Public Library, as well as Library and Archives Canada and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. A representative of TPL sits on CRKN’s Preservation and Access Committee and one of its associated task groups, the Heritage Content Priorities Task Group.
For more information, please contact:
Rebecca Ross
Director, Marketing and Stakeholder Engagement
rross@crkn.ca
613-907-7027