The backbone to eHLbc membership is the Core Suite - a licensed bundle of critical health resources. eHLbc assembled a Core Suite Team to manage the exploration of a renewal. The Core Suite Team surveyed membership to gauge satisfaction with the Suite, created a website to share information with members, held a Q&A session, and spent months in negotiations. The year ended with an initial proposal (login required - see below for instructions) presented to members. The Admin Centre is holding a Q&A session to review the proposal on January 18th @ 10:30 am. Mark your calendars! More information will be shared in early 2022.

Thanks to cross-consortial collaboration with the BC Electronic Library Network (BC ELN) Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) and The Alberta Library (TAL), eHLbc succeeded in extending an agreement with EBSCO regarding common inflationary renewal rate increases for licensed resources to June 30, 2022. This work sustains eHLbc’s beneficial pricing and system-wide equity for libraries in western Canada.

We asked… you told us! In 2021, the Admin Centre invited resource suggestions via the Ebox, conducted a ranking survey to prioritize suggestions, and began investigating new products as suggested by the membership.

eHLbc collaborated with other consortial groups on four licenses in 2021, thus leveraging expertise and broader subscription bases for better discounts. Notable among these licenses is eHLbc’s lead work negotiating a new Canadian three-year deal for the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Database, Journal, and Tools Package.

With the software underpinning eHLbc’s licensing infrastructure (i.e. online offers and renewals, billing software) to sunset in 2022, the Admin Centre explored options for the consortium. After thorough investigations, ConsortiaManager has been chosen to replace the current licensing infrastructure. A transition plan is under development, and detailed communication will be shared broadly in early 2022.

Members told us loud and clear through our 2021 Learning Opportunities survey that they are interested in professional learning through eHLbc. The Admin Centre organized three learning sessions for eHLbc member library staff in 2021 on the following products:

Recordings for all these sessions are available for members: view recordings (login required).

The eHLbc Admin Centre provided orientations for 8 new staff members at member organizations in 2021, complete with individualized dashboards highlighting benefits of membership.

eHLbc released a new infographic poster to highlight the benefits of collaboration. Download the poster and post it somewhere visible!

Looking for the Core Suite Web? Once logged in, select eResources from the top navigation menu, then select Core Suite in the right-hand menu, and the full Core Suite Web will be visible.