The Canadian Association of Research Libraries is pleased to invite member directors to the 2025 Fall Member Meeting. This annual gathering serves as a vital platform for the exchange of ideas, strategic planning, and collaborative discussions that shape the future of research libraries across Canada.
Fairmont Le Château Montebello
392 Notre-Dame, Montebello, QC J0V 1L0
Tel: (819) 423-6341 // Fax: (819) 423-5106
Hotel Website
A block of rooms has been reserved for November 17-20, 2025 at a cost of $239 CAD/night. The special room rate will be available until Wednesday, October 16, 2025 or until the group block is sold-out, whichever comes first. We suggest that you reserve as soon as possible to ensure that you can get a room.
Several restaurant options are also available around the hotel.
| Time | Session | Room |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30-9:00 | Board Breakfast | Aux Chantignoles |
| 9:00-16:30 | Board Meeting | Prince Edward Island |
| 16:30 | Bus Departs to Montebello | |
| 18:30-20:30 | President’s Opening Reception | Curling house |
| Time | Session | Room |
|---|---|---|
| 7:45-8:30 | Breakfast | Aux Chantignoles |
| 8:30-9:30 | Strengthening Capacity Committee | Montebello |
| 9:30-9:45 | Break | Montebello |
| 9:45-11:00 | Impact Committee | Montebello |
| 11:00-11:15 | Break | Montebello |
| 11:15-12:15 | Advancing Teaching and Learning Committee | Montebello |
| 12:15-13:45 | Lunch | Aux Chantignoles |
| 13:45-15:00 | Advancing Research Committee | Montebello |
| 15:00-15:15 | Break | Gatineau |
| 15:15-16:30 | Policy and Advocacy Committee | Montebello |
| 18:00 | Dine around with colleagues | |
| Time | Session | Speakers | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:45-8:45 | Breakfast | Aux Chantignoles | |
| 8:45-9:00 | Opening Remarks | Mary-Jo Romaniuk | Canada |
| 9:00-9:30 | Study Tour Report | Vivian Lewis Stéphanie Gagnon | Canada |
| 9:30-11:00 | Panel: Open Science in Canada: Needs and Outlooks | Dr. Vincent Larivière Kathleen Shearer David Tweddell Dr. Stefanie Haustein | Canada |
| 11:00-11:30 | Break | Mezzanine Canada | |
| 11:30-12:30 | Plenary Discussion: Open Science Opportunities for CARL Institutions | Susan Haigh Mark Swartz | Canada |
| 12:30-13:30 | Lunch | Aux Chantignoles | |
| 13:00-14:30 | Intellectual Freedom Needs Civil Discourse Needs Intellectual Freedom: Making the Case for a Virtuous Cycle | Randy Boyagoda | Canada |
| 14:30-15:00 | Intellectual Freedom Plenary Discussion | Chair: Joseph Hafner | Canada |
| 15:00-15:30 | Break | Mezzanine Canada | |
| 15:30-17:00 | Exploring Three GenAI Questions | Su Cleyle Janice Kung | Canada |
| 18:30-21:00 | CARL Dinner and Awards Ceremony | The Nymark Restaurant (in Chateau Montebello) | |
| Time | Session | Speaker | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00-9:00 | Breakfast | Aux Chantignoles | |
| 9:00-10:15 | Navigating Uncertainty: The View from Harvard | Martha Whitehead | Canada |
| 10:15-10:30 | Break | Mezzanine Canada | |
| 10:30-12:00 | Director’s Workshop - Adapting Organizational Structures to Changing Landscapes | Su Cleyle | Canada |
| 12:00-13:15 | Lunch / Board Working Lunch | Aux Chantignoles / Prince Edward Island | |
| 13:15-14:30 | Business Meeting | Mary-Jo Romaniuk | Canada |
| 15:00 | Bus Departs to Ottawa | ||
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 9h00 ET – 9h30 ET
Chair: Mary-Jo Romaniuk
Speakers: Stéphanie Gagnon, Université de Montréal and Vivian Lewis, McMaster University
CARL organized a study tour of selected libraries, archives and research centres in Belgium, France, and Switzerland between June 22 and July 2, 2026. The delegation included member directors (Deans of Libraries / University Librarians) from seventeen research libraries across Canada, plus two members of the CARL staff. 12 members of the delegation continued on to Lausanne, Switzerland to attend LIBER, the Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche’s conference.
The overall objective of the tour was to create dialogue, information exchange and potential partnerships between research libraries in Canada and Europe.
Presenters will share with CARL members key takeaways from those meetings in the areas of open science, the impacts of and responses to changing political and funding environments, the work of European and national academic and research library associations, research assessment reform, and research libraries’ documentary heritage collections, facilities, and service innovations.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 9:30 am ET – 11:00 pm ET
Chair: Mary Jo Romaniuk
Speakers:
Dr. Vincent Larivière, Professor, Faculty of Library and Information Sciences (EBSI), Université de Montréal
Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)
David Tweddell, Interim Vice President, Strategy and Planning, Digital Research Alliance of Canada
Dr. Stefanie Haustein, Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Description:
First, each presenter will make short (5-7 minutes) opening remarks, speaking to the area of open science that aligns with their work and expertise (diamond publishing, repositories, RDM & software, and research assessment, respectively), offering insights regarding to where we are currently, what has been most instrumental driving progress, and what is needed now for Canada to move forward. This will be followed by a guided discussion on common themes such as policy, collaboration and common services, open infrastructure, and the role of AI. There will be time for questions from the floor.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 11h30 ET – 12h30 ET
Presenters: Susan Haigh and Mark Swartz, VPO Open Science
Following the morning’s panel on Open Science, CARL directors and guests will reconvene for a status report from CARL to outline, amid current activity in this domain, where the organization sits in relation to progress towards open science. How ready are CARL libraries for the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy? Where are we at when it comes to research data and the impending implementation of the data deposit pillar of the Tri-Agency Research Data Management policy? What progress has been made in terms of PIDs? The presentation will be followed by open discussion.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 13h 30 – 14h 30
Chair: Mary Jo Romaniuk
Speaker: Randy Boyagoda, Provostial Advisor on Civil Discourse, University of Toronto
In this talk, writer and professor Randy Boyagoda, the University of Toronto’s Advisor on Civil Discourse, reflects on the state and stakes of civil discourse these days, on and off campus, and across personal, professional, and public settings. In particular, he will explore the importance of intellectual freedom in higher education to civil discourse, and likewise the irreducible mission and work of research libraries as both convening spaces and distinct sources for models and resources that ensure robust and vibrant cultures of productive disagreement. These efforts, which we might collectively describe as a commitment to thinking out loud together, support of advancing knowledge, serving the common good and the pursuit of truth.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 14h30 ET – 15h00 ET
Chair: Mary-Jo Romaniuk
CARL had a publically-available, collections-focused Freedom of Expression statement for many years. While the statement was modernized in 2022, recent campus conflicts through which the library must navigate, as well as growing attention being paid to how the library navigates freedom of speech and assembly in light of hate speech and unpopular views, occasioned a small working group of CARL members to re-examine our collective position.
A revised Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Inclusive Libraries with a slightly extended series of commitments is proposed. In this session, members and guests will have the opportunity to review and openly discuss these commitments and the context in which their libraries operate.
The intention is then to bring a final version of the document to the business meeting for adoption by the membership.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 15:00 pm – 16:30 pm ET
Facilitators:
The influence of generative AI is rapidly reshaping higher education and impacting academic libraries. From collections to policy, library administrators are navigating uncharted territory, seizing new opportunities and exerting influence.
This workshop offers academic library leaders dedicated space and time to reflect, share, and strategize together three key topics: descriptive practices, institutional policy, and team engagement. In facilitated small group discussions, participants will explore these guiding questions:
How can directors participate and position libraries in the development of institutional policies on generative AI? Do our librarians support the institutional direction as much as we would like?
Can AI transform descriptive practices for unique collections?
How can library directors actively engage staff in open conversations about their fears of AI, while encouraging meaningful exploration of the technology despite ongoing reluctance?
Through these conversations and a plenary debrief, participants will identify pain points, uncover gaps in current approaches, and consider actionable next steps. The session emphasizes peer-to-peer dialogue, enabling directors to learn from one another’s perspectives and experiences, and to discover areas where collective attention and leadership are most needed.
Thursday, November 20, 2025, 9h00 ET – 10h15 ET
Chair: Mary-Jo Romaniuk
Speaker: Martha Whitehead, Vice President for the Harvard Library and University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Research libraries have navigated uncertainties for centuries, guided by enduring values and a mission to advance and preserve knowledge. What can we learn from the pressures of the present moment as we chart our paths forward? Drawing on recent experiences at Harvard and decades in Canada, Martha will reflect on several key themes – upholding free expression, mutual respect, and diversity, equity, and inclusion; opportunities and threats for cultures of collaboration; and what is a library? She’ll then ask us to consider some of the priorities these themes suggest and our own approaches to navigating uncertainty.
Thursday, November 20, 2025, 10h30 ET – 12h00 ET
Facilitator: Susan Cleyle, CARL VPO – Leadership Development Initiatives
The second in a two-part series on adapting organizational structures to changing landscapes.
Keeping in mind the forces reshaping universities and libraries, this session will provide an opportunity to reflect on legacy and emerging roles, to hear how some colleagues have chosen to respond, and to collaboratively identify critical approaches to successfully adjust organizational structures.
Building on the discussion at the Directors +1 session held on October 3rd, this directors-only session will focus on how directors can rethink their individual organizational structures within union and budget constraints, explore long-term strategies for structural change, and consider if/how CARL can support and accelerate these transformations. Leave with a clearer understanding of the shifts underway and a list of emergent key areas requiring organizational shifting.
Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and Professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he also serves as the university’s advisor on civil discourse, the first such position in Canada. He was named one of Toronto’s fifty most influential people by Toronto Life magazine because of his work in civil discourse. He is the author of seven books, including four novels that have been nominated for the Giller Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize, and named New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selections and Globe and Mail Best Books of the year. A frequent contributor to CBC Radio, including as a national columnist on civil discourse, and former President of PEN Canada, he writes opinions, essays and reviews for publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Globe and Mail, and The Walrus. He also podcasts for the Toronto Public Library and lives in the east end of Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.
Stefanie Haustein is an associate professor at the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa and co-director of the ScholCommLab. She is also an affiliated researcher with several interdisciplinary research centers, including the Institute for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP), the Centre for Journalology and the LIFE Research Institute at the University of Ottawa, as well as the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie at Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research focuses on scholarly communication, research evaluation, and open science, with an emphasis on open access and research data sharing and reuse. Using bibliometric and mixed methods—including large-scale surveys and interviews—her work critically examines academic publishing, metrics, and responsible research assessment practices.
Vincent Larivière is a professor of information science at the University of Montreal, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair in Open Science and is associate vice-president (senior vice-rector) and co-holder of the Quebec Research Chair in the Discoverability of Scientific Content in French. He also serves as scientific director of the Érudit scholarly journal dissemination platform and is a regular member of the Interuniversity Research Center on Science and Technology (CIRST).
Kathleen Shearer has been a prominent figure in open access, open science, scholarly communications, and research data management for close to 20 years. Over the past 15 years, she has worked through COAR to build a truly global coalition of repositories and repository networks, ensuring that repositories are recognized as critical infrastructure for open science in national and continental policies; and that repositories innovate and adopt good practices. Based in Montreal, Canada, she actively contributes to numerous organizations working to advance open science at a global scale including the Research Data Alliance, UNESCO Open Science Working Groups as well as numerous regional organizations such as the LIBSENSE Africa and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.
David Tweddell is Interim Vice President, Strategy and Planning at the Alliance. Previously, he was Executive Director, Research Strategic Initiatives in the office of the Vice-President, Research and International at the University of Waterloo. Prior to working at Waterloo, he served in progressively senior roles in Western University’s Research Office, ultimately as Western’s Director of Research Development. While at Western, he was accountable for administering the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Major Scientific Initiative funding awarded for the operation of the Compute Canada Federation.
Martha Whitehead is Vice President for the Harvard Library and University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In this role, Martha leads a library network of more than 25 libraries with more than 800 staff. Before joining Harvard in 2019, Martha was Vice-Provost (Digital Planning) and University Librarian at Queen’s University and earlier had served there as Associate University Librarian. Martha’s career began at the University of British Columbia Library where she held roles in public services and systems and as Head of Information Services. Martha is currently a member of the CRL board, the ARL Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and the advisory board of the Authors Alliance Public Interest Corpus project. She has recently served as chair of the boards of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories, and the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation. While in Canada, Martha served in various roles with CARL, including President from 2015 to 2017, Canada’s National Heritage Digitization Strategy Steering Committee, the Ontario Council of University Libraries, and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network. In 2019, Martha was awarded the CARL Distinguished Service to Research Librarianship Award.
A complimentary bus will be available to transport attendees between Ottawa and Montebello.
On Monday, November 17, the bus is scheduled to depart Ottawa Airport at 4:30 PM and will proceed directly to the Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa Downtown (361 Queen St, Ottawa, ON K1R 0C7), arriving at approximately 5:00 PM to pick up the remaining guests. From there, the bus will continue directly to Fairmont Le Château Montebello (392 Rue Notre Dame, Montebello, QC J0V 1L0).
Guests may board the bus at either the Ottawa Airport at 4:30 PM (main level outside arrivals, pillars 15-16; convene inside near the baggage carousels) or the Hilton Garden Inn (convene in hotel lobby) at 5:00 PM.
On November 20th, the bus will depart Fairmont Le Château Montebello at 3:00 PM, after the conclusion of the meeting, and will proceed directly to the Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa Downtown (361 Queen St, Ottawa, ON K1R 0C7).
