The Canadian Library Association (CLA) recently honoured a collaborative project between UBC Library and ten other institutions. The Canadian Government Information Digital Preservation Network (CGI DPN) has been named 2015 recipient of the CLA/OCLC Award for Innovative Technology.
The CGI DPN project was developed in 2012 by library staff at eleven member institutions: University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of Saskatchewan, University of Victoria, McGill University, Dalhousie University, Scholars Portal, University of Toronto, and Stanford University.
“It’s a great, collaborative, coast-to-coast multi-institutional partnership of government documents librarians working on preserving at-risk government content,” says UBC Librarian Susan Paterson, who serves on the Steering Committee.
The mission of the CGI DPN is to preserve digital collections of government information, ensuring the long-term viability of digital materials – protecting against data loss. Their collaborative approach to acquiring and preserving digital content is both cost effective and efficient, and serves as an important example of librarians working together towards a common goal.
“It’s heartening to see Canadian libraries collaborating on such a critical mission,” said James Jacobs, LOCKSS-USDOCS Coordinator at Stanford University.
The award, given annually for innovative use of technology in a Canadian library setting, will be presented at the upcoming CLA conference in June.
About the CLA
The Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliotheques is Canada’s largest national and broad-based library association, representing the interest of public, academic, school and special libraries, professional librarians, library technicians, library workers, and all those concerned with enhancing the quality of life of Canadians through information and literacy.