U of S to benefit for 20-M Dollar CFI Grant to National Digital Library Project

Posted June 25, 1999


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ? June 25, 1999
99-06-10-LIB

U of S to Benefit from 20-M Dollar
CFI Grant to National Digital Library
Project

Researchers and students at the University of
Saskatchewan will benefit from a 20-million dollar
grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
that gives the green light to a national project for
purchase of vitally important on-line journals.

The CFI announced Wednesday that it will fund 40 per
cent of the 50-million dollar, three-year Canadian
National Site Licensing Project, under which licenses
will be jointly purchased by 64 participating
universities for on-line scientific, technical and medical
journals and research databases.

"This pilot project will enable us to explore how we can
use the combined resources of university libraries
across Canada to provide better access to essential
scholarly information at an affordable cost," said Frank
Winter, U of S Libraries Director.

"After a decade of cancellation of journals due to price
increases far in excess of inflation, we now have an
opportunity to reverse or slow down the erosion we've
experienced in our ability to provide scholarly
resources to the researchers and students on this
campus. Using the combined advantages of the Internet
and pooled purchasing power, we'll be able to get a
bigger bang for our acquisitions buck."

The U of S Libraries will be expected to contribute
approximately 260,000 dollars per year for the three-
year project. Both the U of S Libraries and the
University of Regina Library will seek assistance from
the province's Revitalization Fund, Winter said.

The full-text digital journals will be available to any
faculty member or student connected to the U of S
computer network. These on-line journals, purchased
collectively at significantly discounted prices, will
replace many journals that the U of S library has had to
cancel during the 1990s. Currently, the U of S spends 4.5
million dollars a year on both print and digital journals,
Winter noted.

The project is led by the University of Ottawa Library.

The CFI is an independent, not-for-profit corporation
established by the federal government in 1997 to
address an urgent need of Canada's research
community for new, state-of-the-art research
infrastructure. The CFI has been entrusted with a
capital budget of 1 billion dollar and its investments are
made in partnership with all levels of government, as
well as with the private and voluntary sectors. Its work
focuses on health, the environment, science, and
engineering.

For more information, contact:

Frank Winter
Director, University of Saskatchewan Libraries
(306) 966-5942

Kathryn Warden
Research Communications Officer
Office of the Vice-President Research
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-2506
Visit our U of S Research web site at:
www.usask.ca/research