Benefits of CARL Membership
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The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has an engaged membership that encourages and benefits from the personal participation of its member library directors. It is a financially healthy, staff-supported organization guided by a new Strategic Plan 2010-2012. Members are encouraged to interact with the Association in French or English as they prefer.
CARL offers its members…
A venue for discussion and leadership for research library directors in order to
- explore with other library directors in major university and national research libraries issues affecting research libraries in Canada, e.g., copyright, preservation, human resource development, federal research policy, open access publication, demonstrating value
- form and carry out plans to address the issues affecting research libraries
confer in person formally and informally with the other Canadian research library directors at the spring and fall general meetings - contribute to the direction setting of the Association (and, by extension, of Canadian research libraries) through participation in listserv discussion, in committees, and in the regular general membership assemblies
- contribute to the leadership of the Association through serving as a Board member or committee chair
A vehicle for the collective activity of Association members
in
- advocacy on public policy issues affecting research libraries and Canadian society in general in the domain of information, research, and learning
- the creation of special programs and organizations for specific purposes that reach beyond the membership of the Association, e.g., a program for the development of institutional repositories in Canadian universities, a national site licensing program (now the Canadian Research Knowledge Network), a national heritage digitization infrastructure (now Canadiana.org)
- the sharing and translation of concepts and documents between the English and French language communities of Canadian research libraries
- the planning of occasional study tours of research libraries abroad
A source of valuable information through
- membership on a listserv of CARL library directors; typically shared are local library news items, job postings, informal surveys and responses to these, CARL announcements, bulletins from ARL and other partner organizations, general informal discussion of various matters
- a weekly “E-lert” of announcements, reports, articles, and events of interest to research libraries
- complimentary copies of all CARL publications (recent ones include booklets on research data management and on open access archiving of research articles)
- participation in a shared program for the collection, analysis, and reporting of library statistics to demonstrate the value of research libraries through measures of success
- detailed research and reporting on issues of interest to Canadian research libraries
A source of program support and leadership development and recognition
for members through
- CARL funding or other support, upon application to the Board, for events that are consistent with CARL’s strategic directions
- a program of research grants in research librarianship
- a program of awards to recognize the achievements of research library leaders
- opportunities for career development for assistant/associate library directors who can participate in the subcommittees, working groups, and project work of the Association
A means of extended representation in library, education, and research communities
in the context of
- other associations in which they may also have their own membership, e.g., the Canadian Library Association (CLA), l’Association pour l’avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation (ASTED), and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)
- other relevant organizations not specific to libraries, e.g., the Canadian Consortium for Research (CCR), the Coalition for Open Access Repositories (COAR), and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC)
- allied research library organizations in other countries, e.g., the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Research Libraries UK (RLUK, the Ligue des bibliothèques Européennes de recherche (LIBER), and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL),
- special joint programs to achieve particular goals, e.g., the 8R’s library human resources consultation and planning process
Copyright © 2005 Canadian Association of Research Libraries