Federal Science eLibrary

Part One: Federal Science eLibrary Feasibility Assessment

Introduction

The Strategic Alliance of Federal Science and Technology Libraries was formed to seek solutions for the federal research community to the significant challenges presented by changes in STM publishing. The Strategic Alliance proposes to ensure continuing affordable access to STM information resources to all federal government scientists and researchers through a series of collaborative efforts. The cornerstones of the Strategic Alliance vision are a web-based gateway to the resources in all federal libraries, and nation-wide, seamless access to electronic content.

The ADM Committee on Science and Technology accepted a proposal from the Chief Scientist of Health Canada to assess the feasibility of implementing a government-wide program for the delivery of electronic content. This report presents the results of that study.

Part One of this report examines the following issues:

• The researchers' requirements for access to electronic journal literature.
• The current state of access to STM information for the federal research community.
• Trends in STM journal publishing and pricing.
• The response of STM information professionals and libraries to the situation.
• The cost-benefit factors for electronic and print journals.
• Best practice business models for acquisition and deployment of published electronic content.

Part Two of the report looks at the current context and support for federal S&T research and proposes a program implementation strategy built on the framework described by Jean-Pierre Soublière, in Building the Canadian S&T Information Infrastructure. The Federal Science eLibrary would be established as a consortium, with a centrally funded and managed delivery model. The program would require an investment of $41.8M over five years to acquire content and to make the transition to a digital environment. Eighty-six per cent of the funding will be used to acquire the digital content.