CVHL Update

The Canadian Virtual Health Library / Bibliotheque virtuelle canadienne de la santé (CVHL/BVCS) is delighted that the Electronic Health Library of BC (e-HLbc) has become its latest Network Subscriber, thus ensuring a truly pan-Canadian network. The CVHL/BVCS emerged out of a conceptual framework developed and validated over the past ten years by the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Association des bibliotheques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC) with the ultimate vision of ensuring that “all Canadian health professionals have access to high-quality health information resources to improve health outcomes and patient safety.” Thanks to a three-year grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the CVHL/BVCS was launched in April 2011 and is continuing to develop and evolve.

Network Subscribers such as e-HLbc “consist of provincial, national, or territorial consortia, or professional associations that license health information resources on behalf of their members”. E-HLbc now ‘‘partners’’ with the CVHL/BVCS to participate in the collective purchasing of content and services on behalf of their clients and provides input on content and governance. CVHL/BVCS links, leverages and coordinates e-HLbc’s and other consortia’s strong bases of resources and services that already exist in order to create a suite of resources and services that will be nationally accessible. Ultimately, with the help of Network Subscribers such as e-HLbc, CVHL/BVCS will enhance and expand access, while reducing costs for consortia and libraries. Individual libraries will continue to subscribe to health information resources directly through their consortia, which for British Columbians, is e-HLbc.

With a growing number of Network Subscribers, the CVHL/BVCS Board of Directors has been working on governance to better reflect the role of Network Subscribers and to promote transparency. Much work has been done this year to evolve the composition of the Board to include Network Subscribers. As a result of this effort, three names were forwarded from the Nomination Committee and were approved by the Board for three-year terms (2012 – 2014): Andrea McClellan, McMaster University, Patrick Ellis from Dalhousie University, and e-HLbc’s very own Cathy Rayment, BC Cancer Agency. The CVHL/BVCS Board looks forward to working collaboratively with Andrea, Patrick, and Cathy and future Network Subscriber Board members.

CVHL/BVCS is pleased to have negotiated Canada-wide pricing for EBSCO’s Dynamed and ProQuest’s Nursing and Allied Health Source, which were presented to Network Subscribers on April 4, 2011 for license consideration. The CVHL/BVCS Board hopes that e-HLbc and other Network Subscribers take advantage of these deals, along with future offers. Additional content proposals will be brought forward to Network Subscribers for consideration shortly, after the 2012 CHLA/ABSC Conference.

For more information about CVHL/BVCS please visit http://cvhl.ca/ or contact Jennifer Bayne, Executive Director (Acting), This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Cell: 416-473-3761. For more information about CHLA/ABSC please visit http://www.chla-absc.ca/

Rebecca Raworth, CVHL/BVCS Board Member (2011 – 2013)
Island Medical Program Librarian, University of Victoria