Our Programs
Licensing and Negotiations
Working with librarians, researchers, administrators, funders, and publishers, CRKN undertakes large-scale licensing of scholarly content for academic institutions in order to expand research capacity in Canada. Currently, CRKN negotiates and manages over 50 licenses on behalf of its member institutions.
Preservation and Heritage Collections
CRKN provides access to 62 million pages of Canadian documentary heritage through the Canadiana and Héritage collections and preserves this content through the Canadiana Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR), ensuring its integrity and accessibility as technologies change over time. CRKN also provides digitization services to our member and stakeholder community, providing best-quality digital reproductions of materials that adhere to metadata and technology standards.
Persistent Identifiers
As CRKN works to advance access to knowledge, we believe that persistent identifiers (PIDs) are key to an efficient and interoperable research ecosystem. CRKN leads the ORCID Canada Consortium and co-manages the DataCite Canada Consortium with the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, providing critical support for these PIDs across the country. In addition, CRKN is currently leading in the development of a national PID strategy.
Financial Oversight and Sustainability
CRKN’s professional finance staff, under the policy framework maintained by the Finance and Audit Committee (FAC), continue to administer over $129M in annual expenditures on behalf of member institutions. The FAC also reviews and supports CRKN’s internal risk management framework and budget development and monitoring process. This includes recommending budget and fee models which support CRKN’s ongoing sustainability, and projecting budget decisions out over a five-year horizon.
Strategic Initiatives
Transforming Scholarly Communications
Alongside our members, we are changing Canada’s research landscape, with an ever-increasing focus on equitable, sustainable, and open access to knowledge. CRKN is committed to advancing Canada as a leader in the shift towards open scholarship.
NEGOTIATION AND LICENSING STRATEGY
In 2022-2023, the Content Strategy Committee (CSC) and the CRKN Licensing Team successfully renewed a total of eleven licenses.
Increasing Discoverability of the Canadiana Collections
CRKN is pleased to report that the Canadiana monograph collection is now available in Alma’s Community Zone.
Digitization Services
This year, CRKN carried out digitization projects with the University of Ottawa Library, the University of Regina Library…
OPEN ACCESS STRATEGY
CRKN partnered with a number of organizations and publishers to increase open access content and publishing opportunities for member libraries.
Canadiana Metadata and Respectful Descriptions
CRKN continues to move towards implementing more open and standardized metadata and software in Canadiana.
Trustworthy Digital Repository Audit
The Canadiana Trustworthy Digital Repository audit took place between September 2021 and June 2022.
Expanding the Canadiana Collections
The Canadiana collections continued to expand throughout 2022-2023 with particular focus on minority language communities as well as working class publications.
Canadiana Platform
CRKN added new features and functionalities to the Canadiana website and associated websites, including pan and zoom capabilities…
Develop and Foster Partnerships
CRKN is proud to partner with a range of organizations both in Canada and abroad to share knowledge, support initiatives, and spark ideas. We believe that ambitious, wide-reaching goals can only be achieved through collaboration.
Canadian PID Strategy
Thanks to the advocacy of staff and with support from the Canadian Persistent Identifier Advisory Committee, the ORCID-CA and DataCite Canada consortia received…
INKE
CRKN continues to actively participate in the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) partnership.
Coalition for Canadian Digital Heritage
Supported by the CRKN Secretariat, the National Heritage Digitization Strategy (NHDS) continued their strategic planning process…
NIKLA
CRKN is a strong supporter of NIKLA’s Respectful Terminology Platform Project.
ICR Pilot Project
In partnership with Library and Archives Canada, CRKN began an Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) pilot project to improve discoverability of the RG-10 collection in Héritage.
Collaborative Advocacy
We take pride in our role as a voice for Canadian academic libraries. Whether by offering opportunities for members to discuss critical issues or by improving infrastructure and tools for the broader research landscape, advocacy is a key component of CRKN’s mission.
Digital Collections of the Future (Proposed CFI Innovation Fund Project)
In July 2022, CRKN launched its inaugural Researcher Council, comprised of 16 members including co-chairs Susan Brown and Camille Callison.
Unsub
CRKN has renewed its subscription to Unsub for another year, covering May 2023 to May 2024.
RON MACDONALD DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Larry P. Alford, University Chief Librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries, was awarded the 2022 Ron MacDonald Distinguished Service Award at the CRKN Conference in Montreal.
New Associate Members
At the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Members, the CRKN membership approved Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University…
Perpetual Access Rights Tracking Project
After two years of preparation, CRKN’s Knowledge Base Entitlements Committee launched the Perpetual Access Rights Tracking Project in June 2022.
Transformative Agreement Webinar Series
CRKN’s Licensing Team and the CSC hosted a four-part webinar series on open access and transformative agreements.
CRKN Conference
This year, CRKN took our first step back into in-person events with the hybrid 2022 CRKN Conference.