Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the 2012 fall edition of The Courier newsletter. I hope you are having a busy and happy autumn. It’s hard to believe that another year is coming to a close.

Looking back to the beginning of 2012—which seems like just yesterday—there were three things I wanted to contribute to the Toronto Chapter. I hoped to help build relationships, to keep our programming strong and diverse, and to enhance our online communications outlets.

Our Chapter’s strength lies in our many relationships—relationships with partners, with other associations, with students, and with our members. The Chapter has built a strong alliance with its partners over the years and in 2012 added 67 new members to the circle. On behalf of SLA Toronto, I would like to recognize our sponsors and thank them for their tremendous support:

• Access Copyright,  Dysart & Jones,  Eureka.CC, and Ovid who are sponsoring our Holiday Social with the Toronto Special Libraries and Information Services (TSLIS), the Faculty of Information Alumni Association (FIAA), and the Toronto Health Libraries Association (THLA). Recently, Eureka.CC hosted a fantastic event launching their new product Eureka.cc Analytik.
• Infomart, who continued their support of the Student-to- Conference Award for the fifth year in a row.
• Carswell, who helped us put on a very successful Membership Appreciation event in May.
• Springer, who hosted an exciting eContent Workshop featuring Mary Ellen Bates.
• Access Copyright, who generously contributed to this year’s Annual General Meeting

Partnering with other associations has also strengthened our Chapter’s programming and network. This year we will have joint-hosted two events with the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals. We organized informative and engaging Articles Clubs with the TSLIS network. TSLIS and FIAA are once again co-hosting the Holiday Party with SLA Toronto, and we are excited that THLA has joined the event as well.

The SLA Toronto Chapter also ensures that it provides the network and support to students and recent graduates. New Information Professionals have been busy this year attending valuable professional development sessions under the sage design of Ulla de Stricker. A special thank you to Bernadette Roca for all her work coordinating these workshops. This fall, the SLA Toronto Student Group toured the CBC Libraries and Archives space. To keep connected with members outside the GTA boundaries, Kim Silk, Erin MacDonald, and myself also paid a visit to the University of Western Ontario’s SLA Student Group.
To keep our relationship with our mid-career professionals strong, we listened and responded to the programming requests of our constituents. In 2012 we had a diverse, exciting schedule of events, including a balanced mix of workshops, speakers, professional development, salon-like discussions, and networking receptions. This summer saw many SLA Toronto members at the 2012 conference in Chicago. The post-conference dinner at Vagabondo in July, coordinated by Samhita Gupta, brought together conference attendees and other SLA Toronto members to discuss the highlights of Chicago 2012. To wrap up the summer, the Chapter came together again with TSLIS for the annual Summer Social at L’Espresso.

The fall professional development programming series kicked off on September 9; Rob Weisberg from Access Copyright presented at a very well attended Copyright Concepts session. The session was followed by an impromptu tour of the Martin Prosperity Institute by Kate Johnson. On September 20, Ulla de Stricker graciously donated her time to straighten out our job applications in her Cover Letter Workshop.

October was another full month. Ulla continued her professional development sessions in October and will do the same in November. The ever popular SLA-TSLIS Articles Club took place on October 3. On October 9,  Michel Bernaiche  presented on Effective CI Units to SLA Toronto, SLA Western Canada, and SCIP. A tour of the RBC Corporate Archive Tour and Talk was held October 16. I commend our outstanding programming director, Bernadette Roca, for executing such an ambitious schedule with such grace and efficiency. Thank you to everyone who made the Annual General Meeting on November 6 a success. A special kudos to Gayle Kosokowsky for securing the lovely venue —The Faculty Club at the University of Toronto — and a very entertaining guest, corporate magician Anthony Linden.

And one more date to mark on your calendar for 2012 — our Joint Holiday Social is on December 6 at the Arts and Letters Club, with our partners for the evening, Access Copyright, Dysart & Jones, Eureka.CC, and Ovid.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all those who enhanced our online resources. Our discussion list, social media outlets, website, and The Courier newsletter are our main means of communication with our Chapter. I would like to thank Kelly Butler, Yannet Lathrop, Samhita Gupta, and Heather Buchansky on their phenomenal contribution to The Courier newsletter. Also to all of those who have contributed images and articles this year. On the social networking front—SLA Toronto’s social networks continues to grow with 359 members in our LinkedIn group, 168 ‘Likes’ of Facebook, and a whopping 642 followers on Twitter. Thanks to our social media coordinator, Tylene Reaume, for her timely posts and tweets. A shout out to Melissa Pengilly for designing the new SLA Toronto logo on our social media outlets. Finally, a special kudos to Terri Zimmer for her efficiency and hard work as chapter webmaster this year.

A sincere thank you to everyone for lending their time, efforts, and talents to the Chapter in 2012. We had an amazing executive and an equally compelling advisory board. I am especially grateful for all of their resolve and unprecedented support. I am truly lucky to have had the opportunity to contribute to this amazing Chapter in so many capacities. The SLA Toronto network has added enriched and enhanced my career. I hope to keep paying this gift forward for many years to come.

Looking forward to raising a glass with you at the Holiday Social!

— Laura Warner
SLA Toronto’s President

Welcome to the fall 2012 issue of The Courier! As always, we’d like to thank everyone who contributed articles to this issue.

As Laura noted in her President’s Letter, the SLA Toronto Chapter had a number of events—engaging article clubs, post-SLA conference dinners, and the summer social—to wrap up another eventful summer season.

A key event from this summer—beyond the Chapter, but affecting all information professionals—was the change in Canada’s Copyright Act. Lesley Ellen Harris offers an informative recap on these issues and changes.

And while the SLA Annual Conference may seem like a distant memory, articles from the Infomart Student-to-Conference award winners Heather Buchansky and Stacey Nordlund recap their experiences and share some insights and information on their time spent in Chicago.

The SLA Toronto Chapter calendar has a lot of events and workshops to note during the next couple months—article clubs, resume workshops, and, of course, the holiday social! If you are planning to attend any of these events, please consider sharing your experiences in The Courier. Submissions to the newsletter are welcome at any time, as are comments and queries. Please send them to:

Kelly Butler
kelly (at) kllybtlr (dot) com

Heather Buchansky
heather (dot) buchansky (at) gmail.com

SLA 2013 BOARD ANNOUNCED

With autumn comes election season—and while our colleagues in the U.S. ponder who they will choose for their president for the next four years, SLA has chosen its executive slate for 2013. Congratulations to the elected Board of Directors for 2013:

President-Elect: Kate Arnold
Treasurer: John DiGilio
Chapter Cabinet Chair-Elect: Kama Siegel
Division Cabinet Chair-Elect: Tara Murray

To learn more about our elected directors visit the SLA website.

The four new board members will begin their terms on January 1, 2013, and will meet in-person at the SLA Leadership Summit from February 6-9, 2013, in Dallas, Texas. They will join eleven current members of the SLA Board of Directors whose terms continue through 2013.

SLA TORONTO 2013 BOARD ANNOUNCED

At the Toronto Chapter level, I would like to express my excitement for our own 2013 slate of elected directors:

President: Kimberly Silk
President-Elect: Erin McDonald
Past President: Laura Warner
Treasurer: Melanie Browne
Secretary: Helen Kula
Technology Director: Greg Barber
Membership Director: Christina DeLuca
Programming Director: Bernadette Roca
Partner Relations Director: Kim Stymest
First 5 Years Director: Stacey Piesner

I’m very much looking forward to working with this team. On Tuesday, November 6 at the Toronto Chapter Annual General Meeting, the elected slate was acclaimed.

LEADERSHIP SUMMIT DATES AND LOCATION ANNOUNCED

As noted above, the dates and location for the SLA Annual Leadership Summit have been set:

SLA Leadership Summit 2013
February 6-9, 2013
Crowne Plaza Dallas Downtown Hotel
Dallas, Texas

Leadership Summit isn’t just for current SLA members in Chapter or Division leadership roles­—it’s for any SLA member with an interest in leadership and in contributing to the future of the association. I attended my first Leadership Summit in 2012 and loved it. Smaller and more focused than the SLA Annual Conference, the Leadership Summit attracts leaders from everywhere in the association, resulting in high-quality, intensive, invigorating, and inspiring conversations about how to continue to build SLA into the association members want and need. If you’re interested in developing your leadership skills and getting more involved in the association, please join Erin McDonald and I in Dallas this February. If you have any questions about the leadership summit, please ask!

— Kimberly Silk
SLA Toronto’s President-Elect

Please join me in welcoming the following new members who joined our Chapter from July 2012 through September 2012.

Anca Iancu, Toronto
Mariam Hasan, Toronto
Gayle Jessop, Waterloo
Amy Poon, Brampton
Melissa Fraser, Ottawa
Cathy Mark, Toronto
Lindsay Gibb, Toronto
Margot Brown, Toronto
Alexandra Taylor, Toronto

I look forward to meeting each of you at an upcoming SLA Toronto event!

— Christine DeLuca
SLA Toronto’s Membership Director

The Martin Prosperity Institute, a leading think tank, which studies the role of place in global economic prosperity, has moved to its new home at the Rotman School of Management. Previously located in the MaRS Discovery District at College & University, their new offices are on the 9th floor of Rotman’s new South building at 105 St. George Street. MPI’s Data Librarian and SLA Toronto’s own President-Elect, Kim Silk, hopes that her SLA Toronto colleagues will stop by for a visit!

People on the Move is a regular column highlighting the achievements of our members and helping us all keep in touch. Please share your career changes, retirements, life changes, or volunteer work with column editor Kim Stymest.

Heather Buchansky is the Online Projects Librarian at Robarts Library, University of Toronto. She graduated with a Master of Information from the University of Toronto in June 2012, and also holds a teaching degree. During her time at U of T’s iSchool, Heather was a member of the SLA Toronto Student Group, serving as co-webmaster for the student blog, as well as the Professional Development co-chair with the Master of Information Student Council. She was also the recipient of the 2012 SLA Infomart Student-to-Conference award. Prior to working in the library and information field, Heather was a sales consultant for a large educational publisher, a teacher, and a researcher for a financial newspaper. In her spare time, Heather enjoys collecting stamps in her passport and acquiring random facts to win big at trivia nights.

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Emerald is a global publisher. More than 4,500 organizations around the world are Emerald customers, including leading universities and business schools, government departments, and publicly listed companies. In 2011, this translated into Emerald articles and chapters being downloaded and read in research and study more than 23 million times. As an international publisher Emerald has representation in Africa, Australasia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Dubai, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Taiwan, the USA, with headquarters located in Bingley, UK.

Users of Emerald content span the academic, corporate, and public sectors, and we are known for publishing content that is relevant both in academia and industry, with many award-winning papers being co-authored by members of these sectors.

Emerald has an excellent reputation for delivering a particularly high level of service to customers, authors, and users, and we pride ourselves on our flexibility of product offering, and excellent customer service.

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It may be hard to believe but Canada’s Copyright Act dates back to 1921, having been enacted in 1924. Copyright reform has become a common topic in Canadian communities creating and consuming content. However, only three major amendments have been made to the Canadian Copyright Act in the last 91 years, most recently in 2012. Similarly, the Supreme Court of Canada has dealt with relatively few copyright cases and yet in July 2012, five copyright decisions were handed down. The amendments and court cases now put Canada on the map for its pace in revising its copyright laws.

Here is a summary of Canadian copyright this summer:

• On June 29, 2012, the Copyright Modernization Act, Bill C-11, received Royal Assent. After 15 years and many failed attempts, significant legislative changes were made to the Canadian Copyright Act. The Act will likely come into effect this fall upon an Order in Council.
• Bill C-11contains several important and relevant provisions for SLA members. Some of the amendments relevant to special libraries are:
  • permitting education-related uses of content;
  • allowing libraries, archives and museums to digitize and copyright material in an alternative format if danger of the original format becoming obsolete;
  • amending the existing statutory damages so that there is a distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement;
  • the expansion of fair dealing to include education, parody, and satire.
• These amendments make Canada eligible to join the two digital copyright treaties, the Copyright Treaty and the Performance and Phonograms Treaty, bringing Canada’s copyright laws in alignment with many of the country’s trading partners. These Internet treaties are under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
• On July 12, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada issued five decisions relating to Copyright Board tariffs governing photocopying of textbooks, music downloading and streaming, and other uses of copyright-protected content.

The legislative changes and court decisions are widespread and complex. Librarians, educators, lawyers, and others are currently reading and rereading the cases and legislation and determining the effects on their uses of content. With this whirlwind of activity and changes to Canadian copyright law, CCM 201: Canadian Copyright Law Principles has been revised and this survey course now includes discussion of these changes.

Further information on Canadian copyright law is at www.copyrightlaws.com. The Click U/Copyrightlaws.com online course on Canadian Copyright Law is from October 11-November 5, 2012.  Contact clicku@sla.org for more information.  You can also follow Lesley on Twitter @copyrightlaws.

— Lesley Ellen Harris
Certificate in Copyright Management instructor and author of Canadian Copyright Law

Heather Buchansky: Site-seeing in Chicago

In mid-July, thousands of Information Professionals descended upon Chicago for the annual SLA Conference. Thanks to the generous student grant from Infomart, I was among the crowd piling into McCormick Place, excited and eager to take in my first international professional conference. I had used the online conference planner to select the morning and afternoon sessions, as well as evening receptions. Many of my take-aways from the conference were found in the enormous Info-Expo, jammed packed with vendors showcasing innovative and creative solutions for info professionals, or in the websites mentioned in the workshops. The sites ranged from professional to simple pleasures, but left me wanting to check them out upon my return home.

The first speech, and site, was from Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple Computer Inc. Guy kicked off the conference as the guest speaker of Sunday’s general session. His talk on the art of enchantment was a charming introduction to the conference. His slideshow offered up ten tips on this art and how to influence individuals. Guy is co-founder of Alltop.com, which tries to, “collect the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic,” about all topics from acupuncture to zombies, or simply ‘Alltop’.

Two of the most anticipated sessions, with standing room only, were ‘60 Sites in 60 Minutes’ and its counterpart ‘60 Apps in 60 Minutes.’ The presenters for each hour-long talk scrolled through 60 useful, interesting, entertaining websites and smartphone apps for work and play. These sessions made an appearance the previous year’s SLA conference in Philadelphia, and promise to be back for 2013 in San Diego with some new material.

Another session dealing more with personal branding was Mary-Ellen Bates’ ‘Marketing For the Rest of Us: A Guide for Introverts.’ Mary-Ellen, an expert in customized information research and President of Bates Information Service, also dispenses interesting and informative posts on her ‘Librarian of Fortune’ blog.

I played it safe for the first couple days of the conference, heading to sessions that were either linked to my current field of librarianship (academic), or general sessions on marketing and social media. For the last session, I ventured outside my work realm and attended ‘Competitive Intelligence: Identifying, Managing, Disseminating and Leveraging Reliable, Current, Actionable Knowledge,’ by Sabrina Pacifici, founder of LLRX.com. This website lists a wide range of Internet research resources and tools. Competitive intelligence was an area I know very little about, but was keen to learn what it entailed. Sabrina’s CI’s Selective Resource Guide has a list of both free and fee-based (good info costs!) websites and databases, which is a digestible introduction into the field.

After four days of conferencing, networking, and taking in sights and tastes of Chicago (Art Institute! Deep Dish Pizza!), I also had a list of websites to bookmark, as souvenirs to remember SLA 2012 Annual Conference.

— Heather Buchansky

Stacey Nordlund: My SLA 2012 Experience

In July, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the SLA 2012 Annual Conference as one of the two recipients of the Infomart Student-to-Conference Award. As a new MLIS graduate, this was my first time attending the SLA Conference. I prepped by following the suggestions outlined in ‘Tips for First Time Attendees’ on the SLA Conference website. The tips there are useful for any first-time conference-goer and well worth a look—even if you’re an experienced conference attendee, there’s always something new to learn.

I began my trip by exploring the city. First, a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, followed up by a stroll through Millennium Park. I concluded my pre-conference activities with the highly recommended Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise, an absolute must for architecture and/or history buffs. The 90-minute cruise provided a scintillating overview of the construction of Chicago over the last century. I was thrilled for the opportunity to view Goldberg’s Marina City and River City in person.

The next day, the conference kicked off. First up for me was the ‘SLA Fellows and First-Timers Meet’ session. This was a great introduction to the conference; as an added bonus, one of the first people I met was, coincidentally, from Toronto. This was followed by the opening session, with speaker Guy Kawasaki, and then began the fun challenge of whittling down my preferred program sessions to a reasonable number. The popular ‘60 Sites in 60 Minutes’ and ‘60 Apps in 60 Minutes’ were fast-paced and a fun way to learn about new and interesting resources.

As a new Information Professional, however, I was most interested in the career-related sessions to help me get a sense of the different types of information environments in which to work, and to learn about adapting library skills to non-library environments. Sessions like ‘Seeing Your Career From the Outside, In,’ moderated by Jane Dysart; Richard Hulser and Deborah Hunt’s session ‘Reinventing Library Skills;’ and Diane M. Goldstein’s ‘Your Resume as a Marketing Tool: Make it Count!’ were filled with great ideas and new insights. Finally, I was particularly glad for the opportunity to see Peter Morville speak in person about the importance of developing search engines using basic design principles at his session ‘Enterprise Search: An Information Architect’s Perspective.’

I knew Chicago in July would be hot. But the word ‘hot’ doesn’t adequately describe the intense heat that slammed me every time I set foot outdoors. I planned accordingly (as best as one can plan for such discomfort!), and promptly scurried from hotel to shuttle to McCormickPlace , and (of course!) to social events. I mapped out my schedule and route ahead of time so as not to risk melting outdoors. After all, not even ridiculously high temperatures would keep me away from the Chocolate Reception at the beautiful Newberry Library.

Other social events, including the Karaoke Party, Canadian Reception (with my fellow SLA Toronto folks!), and, of course, the fabulous IT Division and Dow Jones Dance Party, were a great way to meet new people and have some fun after sitting in program sessions all day. And, did I mention the Chocolate Reception? Tasty, delectable treats combined with the opportunity to network with other information professionals? Win-win. In addition, as a recent graduate of the San José State University MLIS program, I enjoyed the rare opportunity to connect face-to-face with faculty, staff, alumni, and current students from SJSU’s School of Library and Information Science at both the American West Reception and SJSU SLIS Lunch Reception.

To sum up SLA 2012 in a word = Awesome. My sincerest thanks to both SLA Toronto Chapter and Infomart for extending this amazing opportunity. I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference; plus, San Diego will feel downright cool after Chicago. See you there!

— Stacey Nordlund
Stacey holds a B.Sc in Psychology from the University of Toronto and graduated with her MLIS from San José State University in Spring 2012. She lives in Toronto and works as a reference librarian for the Toronto Public Library, specializing in local history and genealogy, and is a volunteer for askOntario’s chat research service.

The CBC Library and Archives tour was such a big hit with the University of Toronto iSchoolers last year that we knew SLA-Toronto Student Group (TSG) had to organize another one this year.

Fortunately for us, Laura Warner (SLA Toronto Chapter President and Media Librarian in Content Management at CBC) helped us organize another successful tour! We’d like to thank all the wonderful librarians who made the 2012 SLA-TSG CBC Tour another entertaining and informative outing for the lucky iSchool students!

A big thank you to:

Geoffrey Hopkinson (Director of Content Management, Special Programming and Partnerships at CBC)
Lorne Shapiro (Media Librarian, Music Library)
Michele Melady (Manager of Reference, Reference Library)
Janet Muise and Brenda Carroll (Media Librarians, Image Research Library)
Jacqueline Lee (Media Centre Coordinator, Visual Resources) and Rebecca Effrat (Media Librarian, Visual Resources)
Dan Dimopoulos (Media Librarian, Film Library)
Susan Savva (Library Coordinator, Video Tape Recording Library)
Brian Knott (Project Manager, Deep Archive)
Laura Warner, of course!

We learned many exciting facts about the many roles librarians and information professionals play behind the scenes of one of Canada’s most important entertainment and news sources, the CBC!

There are several libraries in the CBC building in Toronto and we were fortunate enough to visit many of them with our guides, Laura Warner and Geoffrey Hopkinson.

The main CBC library space on the second floor used to be a dedicated music library, but now encompasses the reference, music, content management, and visual resources libraries. Librarians and archivists assist production with research, provide information support, archive and catalogue the programs produced daily, and meet all other information needs of the CBC.

We were divided into two groups for the tour and my group’s first visit was to the CBC film library with Dan Dimopoulos. The high-tech film preservation storage facilities house approximately 100,000 film reels dating from 1952 to the late 1980s. The film library houses a large cultural legacy of Canadian television. Film was the medium of choice at the inception of the CBC Television in 1952, but the focus is now on preserving the picture and audio tracks found on the deteriorating film reels. For preservation purposes, most film reels have now been switched to storage canisters that are plastic and “breathable” to avoid acidic buildup. The canisters are different colours for easy identification while the immense storage facility is climate controlled at 3-4°C and 25% relative humidity to combat vinegar syndrome. The storage facility is so precisely designed for preservation that any new film could be preserved for 300 years in that (close to freezing!) vault.

In 1998, a $51 million dollar preservation project was approved by the Board of Directors to be shared by both CBC’s French and English services. The first priority was to preserve the film, including transferring material from film to digital beta and making duplicate tape copies for safekeeping. Much of the material on film has already been transferred to tape.

We journeyed from the past to the present with Brian Knott as we visited the CBC tape library, which holds approximately 180,000 tapes on digital beta tape and SX tape, including HDCam, and HDSR. A lot of tapes hold material transferred from film. The tape library uses a random warehouse-shelving model, which is of interest to us fledgling library students since it means that the tapes are not shelved or stored in numeric sequence. Each shelf has a barcode and each tape has a barcode. When shelving, the barcode on the shelf where the tape is placed and the barcode on the tape are scanned. The information is automatically uploaded into the computer so that there is an up-to-the-minute update on the location of the tape. Considering the size of the tape library, this model is incredibly efficient and no shelf reading is required!

Next, we caught a glimpse of the future with the DIVA Deep Archive. As CBC transitions to fully digital workflows with shooting and editing of materials that are file-based (no longer on tapes or film), the Deep Archive stores materials in digital formats. The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) magnetic tape data storage cartridges are much more affordable compared to film or tape and the LTO5 model can store up to 1.5TB or 66 hours of HD footage on a cartridge akin to the size of a CD case (remember CDs? – exact dimensions are 102.0 × 105.4 × 21.5 mm). All newly shot footage is archived as files (yes, like those on our computers) and all files can be retrieved from the Deep Archive with a fully automated system so that producers and reporters can edit the shoot material and write their scripts right at their computers with instant access to footage literally at their fingertips. The LTO cartridges are stored in the archive and the whole thing is only about 20 feet long and already holds 5 years of files with space to spare! The battle to find shelf space for new tapes is no longer an issue.

After visiting the past (film), present (tape), and future (fully digitized world and workflow) of CBC, we went to see Jacqueline Lee and Rebecca Effrat, librarians embedded in the CBC newsroom. The visual resources librarians all participate in both cataloging and reference (research desk) duties and they explained that knowing both positions helps them perform better at both sets of tasks (one catalogues better if one understands how one usually performs research, and one can research better if one understands how materials are catalogued). These embedded librarians circulate approximately 500-600 tapes every week (both tape and digital files) as materials are requested. They also digitize approximately 60 hours of tape per day. In the past, librarians were at the end of the media production process, in charge of only organizing finished products. Nowadays, the librarians are involved from the early stages and help research, provide access to materials, anticipate information needs by preemptively digitizing visuals, and providing a folder structure with materials relating to important daily news items (think complex LibGuides updated daily!), set up naming conventions, and work closely with producers so files can be found, used, and stored in manners that facilitate future retrieval.

We left the newsroom and went back to visit Michele Melady in the main library space where she explained that CBC Toronto staffs five reference librarians. These five librarians are on shift from 8am-8pm and fulfill the research needs for all CBC offices across Canada! The reference librarians provide informational research services to journalists and producers working in all the different divisions (radio, television, and online). The CBC reference librarians engage in chase producing (e.g.,locating experts, victims, supporters of a cause, for interviews and opinions), ensure materials offer balanced perspectives, as well as find and check facts for all topics. They obtain documents and statistics that are difficult to locate using commercial databases like Factiva, LexisNexis, and Eureka. Reference librarians also produce subject packages providing background and pertinent information on various topics. They answer reference questions over the phone, in person, and via email, with email making up 90% of the reference requests. The reference library also plays an archival role for CBC history with a collections development policy of purchasing materials about the CBC or written by CBC employees; therefore, the reference library holds documents dating back to 1936 from the founding of the Corporation.

Sharing a space with the reference library in the redesigned area is the CBC music library where we met Lorne Shapiro. Whereas CDs used to fill the walls and shelves, only the year’s most recent music is now kept physically in CDs running along the length of one side of the library walls. Most music is now available through the Virtual Music Library (VML) accessible to CBC offices across the nation. The music library still holds a collection of print reference materials related to music and a collection of scores. The vinyl collection has not been fully digitized yet due to cost, but is made available on the VML by demand (oh yes, the music desk deals with reference requests from specific songs and scores to sound effects!) A new Media Asset Management System is underway to make all library and archival materials available with appropriate metadata so music, video, and other files can be accessed “self-serve” by CBC staff.

Last but not least, we glimpsed at the wonderful treasures at the photo and image library with Janet Muise and Brenda Carroll. All the images found in the library serve to inform graphic design, costumes, and set decorations. The library encompasses royalty free stock footage of graphics etc. on CDs, historical photos (such as images from CBC productions), and digital images purchased for use by all departments (the last need arose with digital graphics design starting in the 1990s). Janet and Brenda are also in charge of assisting staff with obtaining materials from other companies, as well as reference requests for images (always ensuring that copyright is carefully considered and researched for each image used). The library has a still photo collection of approximately 1.5 million images (all CBC-owned material) datingback to 1936, with the inception of CBC radio. Most of these prints, negatives, and slides are in the process of being digitized and catalogued for the web and are available online at the CBC Still Photo Collection.

The CBC libraries and archives is a unique environment, as it demonstrates the variety of roles, duties, and responsibilities Information Professionals occupy in special libraries, as well as in the archives. I agree with my fellow iSchoolers who said the CBC libraries opened their eyes to the possibilities beyond academic and public libraries. It is also especially valuable for us as students to see how the research, interpersonal, and technical skills (everything from reference, collections development, preservation issues, and cataloging) from our courses translates and can be applied to so many types of information work in such an interesting, vibrant environment. It was inspiring to see the solutions CBC is employing to solve preservation and storage issues as well as the innovative technologies used for research, cataloging, and to provide efficient access to information.

We learned so much thanks to all the librarians who opened their doors and shared their expertise and experiences with us. Thank you!

— Farah Chung
Reference Intern at Dorothy H. Hoover Library at the Ontario College of Art & Design