On Demand Book Service

On Friday (Feb. 13) three students and Prof. Caidi met by teleconference with two people involved with Ontario Library Service-North (OLSN). They were Leanne Clendening, CEO of OLSN and John Slater, Lead for the Skills Development Team. The students were Mark and Dominika from Community Research, and myself, Andrew from Outreach and Promotion.

The session was mainly an exchange of ideas. We described our class and the ODBS project to the OLSN staff and they told us about some projects they were working on. OLSN is funded by the provincial government, and they offer services to individual libraries in Ontario's North. There are 127 libraries that OLSN works with, approximately 30 of which are in First Nations communities. They offer training to library workers and technical support, including managing a joint Online Catalogue (JASI). OLSN also co-ordinates libraries' inter-library loan services (by Canada Post).

OLSN is starting a number of very interesting projects as a result of receiving a large ($15M) funding package from the province. From the perspective of the ODBS project, the most interesting is a Virtual Service project. Though they have not begun to approach partner communities, the idea is to install service hubs in public-use building in communities that don't currently have a library. The hubs would offer access to library services, such as online reference assistance, online resources through Knowledge Ontario and possibly an ILL service. The challenges they face are finding members and staff in the communities to take responsibility for managing and maintaining the equipment on-site.

In many ways the goals of the OLSN project are similar to those of the ODBS - to bring meaningful resources to small and remote communities (OLSN does not focus primarily on First Nations). The Virtual Service project is focused more on the existing resources of Northern libraries (through ILL) and established online services. The idea of delivering their service through an equipment hub, located in Band offices or community centres, is also very similar to our own model for service. OLSN may be interested in working with the ODBS teams to develop functioning and complementary services.

For now, however, it will be useful to consider OLSN's approach to their project. For them, finding local partners to commit to taking responsibility for the service and equipment is a priority. They are also capable of funding staff positions themselves. For ODBS, we have mostly considered a self-serve model for delivery, though we are also planning to work closely with community members at all stages of the project. We may want to consider an approach that is more explicit about who will handle and maintain the ODBS equipment. Having a local information 'facilitator' may be extremely useful to assist users with finding interesting and meaningful content, whether it is at a library or somewhere online. This doesn't necessarily mean that we have to find funding for a staff position in our partner communities, but it would require extensive outreach activities and relationship building.

The Community Outreach team, represented by Dominika and Mark, are planning to keep in contact with John and Leanne. Please post here any questions for these contacts or comments you have regarding the Virtual Service project or OLSN generally.