Sunni Nishimura is the new BC ELN Executive Director

Staying Strong as a Team

Team Retreat

In a recent team retreat, BC ELN team members learned more about one another through discussions on work styles, team values and individual strengths, fostering a more supportive and collaborative atmosphere within the group. 

Read more about the team retreat

Professional Development

Brandon Weigel, BC ELN Arca manager, is participating in the LLEAD program this year with the support from the EBSCO Bursary, advancing his work with BC ELN’s diverse members and sector partners.

Read more about Brandon's LLEAD experience

New Faces

BC ELN welcomed two Student Librarians, Jaclyn Fong and Sophia Kimber, to the team in September 2023. They are working on a variety of projects that leverage their skills and deepen their understanding of library consortia work. 

Read more about Jaclyn and Sophia

New Roles

Reba Ouimet, BC ELN Licensing Coordinator, will serve as the Chair of Consortia Canada in the coming year. Leah Hopton, BC ELN Communications Manager, will serve on the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Consortial Awareness Group as Chair. Congratulations Reba and Leah!

BC ELN Service Updates

Arca Digital Repository

The Arca migration has been proceeding well. Arca's new platform will improve the Arca experience for both member sites and visitors searching through collections. Over the summer, the Arca team worked on standardizing metadata fields across all repositories, successfully implementing shared vocabularies for genres and roles. Progress continues for more complex fields such as names and dates, with completion expected before migration. 

Contract negotiations with discoverygarden, the vendor for Arca’s technical support and maintenance since 2015, are progressing well! With the technical infrastructure ready, the migration will begin in earnest in November or December 2023. 

Arca is hiring a Migration Specialist to support the Arca Office through the migration. The position has been posted and we hope to welcome the successful candidate in November. 

Arca Partnerships

The BC ELN-BCHDP Support Service is currently assisting sites with their applications for the 2024-25 grant funding cycle. Over 30 sites responded to this year's Early Notice Survey, indicating strong interest in the province for digitization support. Successful applicants will receive a whole range of support, including Digitization project management, connections to digitization service providers, copyright advice, assistance securing digitization staff, metadata preparation advice, and application draft review. Applications are open until December 8, and the Support team can be reached at digisupport@bceln.ca. 

The BCHDP-Arca Hosting Service continues to support successful BCHDP grant recipients with ingesting their materials into the BCHDP child site. The newest addition to the space is the Sointula Cooperative Store Association Collection from the Sointula Museum and Historical Society. The hosting service looks forward to welcoming collections from Kaatza Station Museum and Archives and the Vancouver Police Museum in the new year. 

AskAway Chat Research Help

This summer, AskAway saw a 28% increase in service usage from May to August compared to the same period in 2022, marking the second busiest summer on record after 2020.  

The Admin Centre tried out a new approach to call for volunteers and fill gaps in the collaborative schedule using week-by-week coverage during the summer. The new method was received positively as participating libraries had more flexibility in scheduling and staffing. Check out the AskAway Summer 2023 Newsletter for more information. 

The Action Planning Framework 2023-28, developed by AskAway participating libraries, was approved by the Advisory Committee. The framework will be shared shortly on the BC ELN website. 

Illume Resource Sharing

OpenILL will soon be available on Illume! The Illume Support Centre has been working closely with vendors, Auto-Graphics and EBSCO, to launch an upcoming new SHAREit feature which allows patrons to submit pre-populated ILL requests directly from external third-party vendors or library web forms. This new feature can help students quickly and easily submit Non-returnable (Copy) requests from discovery layers such as EDS and database resources. 

The recently negotiated new five-year SHAREit contract includes waived implementation costs* for a variety of new and existing software features! This allows Illume libraries to explore enhancing patron-initiated interlibrary loans with automated authentication options and reduced staff workflow through SIP2, NCIP, SSO and LDAP features. 

*All set-up costs are waived with only a low annual vendor fee associated; your ILS (eg. SirsiDynix) may also have costs associated with some features like NCIP. 

Alexander College (AC) has joined Illume! AC joins University Canada West as the second BC ELN Associate Member to open its collection to interlibrary loan via Illume. Additional BC ELN Associate members can contact the Illume Support Centre to join the service. 

Licensing

After months of effort and consultation, the Undergraduate Resource Bundle (URB) negotiations are now complete and offer pricing has been confirmed. 88% of BC ELN partner libraries have committed to licensing the new bundle beginning in June 2024. Alumni pricing was also negotiated for both URB subscribers and non-URB subscribers.  

The BC ELN Model License update is ready and will be soon posted to the website for libraries to use. Terms and conditions across license agreements have been reviewed to ensure they are up-to-date and consistent across resources. 

BC ELN has concluded and archived its year-long ConsortiaManager tip of the month series. The archives can be found in ConsortiaManager here (Login required).  

Responding to requests from members, BC ELN has joined Consortia Canada on a new agreement for Kanopy, a video streaming service starting June 1.  

WriteAway Online Writing Support

WriteAway is celebrating its 10th anniversary in November 2023. Party packs are on their way to all participating institutions so they can celebrate the tutors and coordinators who make the service a success! 

This fall WriteAway welcomed Alena Rosen, an Asynchronous Writing Tutor, who provides tutoring and Admin Centre support. Welcome on board, Alena! 

The continuous writing support provided by WriteAway tutors from summer to fall has been greatly appreciated by students. Students have found tremendous value in the constructive feedback, strategies, and resources that have aided in strengthening their writing skills.

"As someone returning to education after a nearly two-decade departure, WriteAway is invaluable in helping me improve my writing. The tutors are awesome and caring. I greatly appreciate their input." 

Thompson Rivers University WriteAway User 

Are you new to BC ELN, moving into a new role at your institution, or just looking for a refresher on what BC ELN does? If so, the BC ELN Orientation Series is for you. 

While each partner library member interacts with BC ELN in a unique way, the orientation series gives you the foundational information you need to understand BC ELN, its services, where your library fits in, and how you can contribute.

You can now complete the online orientation series at your own pace, or go straight to the module most relevant to your role:

• BC Electronic Library Network **recommended**
• Arca Collaborative Digital Repository - coming soon
• AskAway Collaborative Chat Reference
• Illume Provincial Resource Sharing - coming soon
• Collaborative Licensing Program - coming soon
• WriteAway Online Support - coming soon

Each of these modules is designed to take less than an hour, includes activities to reflect and explore the BC ELN website, and has an optional quiz to test your knowledge.