Both flags and kites were flying high at Tuesday's Canada Day Celebration at Columbia Field. Photo by Michael Strickland

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$47 million in digital content for library

Starting this fall, researchers and students in the humanities and social sciences “will have access to an additional $47 million in digital content”, says an announcement from the UW library. “This vast increase of the Library’s e-resources is the result of the Digital Content Infrastructure project initiated by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network to secure joint funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, eight provinces, and 67 universities.”

It goes on: “Through the DCI project, the UW community will have access to a rich collection of scholarly content such as books, letters, historical documents, maps, artwork, and other visual materials — many of which are not currently accessible to Canadians, or are only offered with limited access in print format.”

The UW library “is pleased to announce the success of the DCI initiative and is committed to continuing its involvement with CRKN on similar projects,” says Susan Routliffe, associate university librarian.

CRKN is described as “a partnership of Canadian universities dedicated to expanding digital content for the academic research enterprise in Canada that undertakes large-scale acquisition and licensing initiatives. . . . Through the coordinated leadership of librarians, researchers and administrators, CRKN undertakes large-scale content acquisition and licensing initiatives in order to build knowledge infrastructure and research capacity in Canada’s universities.”

UW’s library already spends more than half its materials budget on electronic resources, including journals, databases, indexes, geospatial data, statistics and e-books. Researchers and students make more than 400,000 visits to the library’s web site each month to get access to these materials.

The new resources provided through CRKN will be available by this fall. They include online collections on such diverse topics as Chinese trade, “defining gender”, slavery and social justice; a total of 2,431 e-books from Cambridge University Press and 5,038 from Oxford; 117 databases from InteLex Corporation; a collection of classical music scores; 8,000 titles from Canadian publishers; and massive back files of scholarly journals from Periodicals Archive Online, JStor and the Learned Journals Collection.

From its offices in Ottawa, CRKN explains more about why the new electronic resources are needed. “Providing access to this wealth of scholarly material is a critical step in enabling researchers and students across the nation to further understand our society and how Canadians are shaping the world we live in,” says David Turpin, president of the University of Victoria and chair of the CRKN board of directors. (UW provost Amit Chakma is a former member of the CRKN board, and the current board includes two librarians who were formerly at Waterloo, Mike Ridley of Guelph and Carolynne Presser of Manitoba.)

Says Turpin: “The newly-gained access to this material will have a profound impact on the way Canadians conduct research, collaborate and turn ideas into a better, more innovative society.”

Increased access to social sciences and humanities knowledge “is essential to enhancing the capacity of nations to tackle complex, global issues that are, by their very nature, interdisciplinary,” says CRKN’s announcement. “By creating a national infrastructure to access digital knowledge in many areas of social and human activity, the investment will greatly improve the ability of Canadians to undertake interdisciplinary research and contribute to the search for solutions to these pressing issues.”

The CFI and government funding allowed CRKN to negotiate with international and Canadian publishers of 14 major collections, “bringing global knowledge to Canada and making accessible in digital form some of the finest in Canadian published scholarly material. Acquired both as one-time only purchases as well as through multi-year license agreements, this rich knowledge base will be delivered to the desktop of every Canadian researcher, wherever in this nation they may be found,” the agency boasts.

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(Even more) faculty state sabbatical plans

Here’s yet another list of faculty members who are sabbatical leave from UW as of July 1. The plans listed for each individual are the information submitted to the university’s board of governors, which has to give approval for all faculty leaves.

Gordon Cormack, computer science (twelve months): “I will make extended visits to several international academic and industrial collaborators, continuing my research strategy of interleaving laboratory and theoretical investigation with real-world integration.”

Rhona Hanning, health studies and gerontology (twelve months): “I will visit the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University (INMU), to supervise my grant (learning technologies to support lay health care workers in chronic disease prevention in Thailand) and PhD student Kitti Sranacharoenpong, and review the INMU MSc program in Dietetics. I will work with my six active graduate students, write several outstanding manuscripts and one CIHR grant.”

Wendy Mitchinson, history (six months): “During my leave I will continue to do research on my Canada Research Chair project, the history of obesity in Canada, 1920-1980. Most of the research can be done between Waterloo and Toronto, although there might be short research trips to other archives. The particular aspect that will be focused on will be the cultural notions of being ‘fat’.”

Daniela O’Neill, psychology (twelve months): “During this leave, I plan to advance my knowledge of new statistical and methodological techniques for growth curve analysis; develop new collaborations, especially with respect to the study of improvisation and its role in communicative development; and explore and develop new avenues to disseminate my research to lay and professional audiences outside academia whose daily work encompasses child development issues.”

And the six-month sabbatical leave for Patricia Marino of the department of philosophy that was announced for January through June has been rescheduled to July through December.

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"Friends of UW" receive Order of Canada

Among the 75 new appointments to the Order of Canada announced on July 1 are both alumni and “friends of UW,” individuals who support this institution in some way, be it through donations, volunteer work, or lobbying government on UW’s behalf.

Noted writer George Elliot Clarke, who earned a Bachelor of Arts from UW in 1984 and received a honourary D.Litt in 2006, was made an officer of the Order of Canada, along with sociologist Raymond Breton, who also received a honourary doctorate from UW in 2006.

In the “friends of UW” category of those with non-academic connections to this university, architect Raymond Moriyama was named Companion of the Order of Canada – the order’s highest rank. New Officers of the Order of Canada include Gail Asper, Basil Hargrove (who knew his first name wasn't really Buzz?), Allan P. Markin, Landon Pearson, and Clayton H. Riddell, and Gordon E. Arnell, Marcel A. Desaultels, and Patrick J. Keenan were named as Members of the Order of Canada.

The Order of Canada is Canada’s highest civilian honour and “recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation,” according to the Governor General of Canada’s website.

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Short news items for a short workweek

As previously reported, the Human Resources department will be moving to temporary space on the second floor of East Campus Hall starting next week. New information about the relocation has been released via email by Neil Murray, director of Staff and Labour Relations. Email addresses and phone extensions for all staff in Human Resources will remain the same, and the department expects to be fully operational in its new home by Monday, July 21, while providing uninterrupted service during the move-in period of July 7-18.

The CampusTechShop, located in the lower level of the Student Life Centre, is pleased to announce that the store is now an “Authorized Rogers Wireless Dealer.” First year students living in residence and off-campus students will have access to new wireless devices, and details of a special UW student plan will be announced shortly. The store will also offer these services to staff and faculty.

“We’ve been working for a while with Rogers, the largest wireless provider in Canada, to add Authorized Rogers wireless and cable service to the CampusTechshop cellular/wireless and electronics line, says manager John Jaray. Starting July 7, the new Rogers Wireless product line will be available for preview in the CampusTechshop, and a grand opening celebration will be held in September.

One clarification to note from yesterday's Bulletin: in the item regarding the Canadian Academy of Engineering's naming of new Fellows with a UW connection, I neglected to mention that Jon Mark, formerly of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, is also a distinguished professor emeritus of E&CE.

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