Strategic Goals
The findings of the strategic planning process were used by the CRKN Board of Directors to create three core strategic goals to shape our programs, services, and initiatives over the next five years:
- Drive the Evolution of Open Knowledge
- Share our Collective Value
- Innovate and Collaborate for a Sustainable Future
Read more about each of these goals:
The research landscape is rapidly changing. Working with our members as a collective community, we must actively drive these changes to create an open and sustainable research ecosystem that can truly advance equitable access to knowledge. As we drive the evolution of open knowledge, we will:
- Champion sustainable pathways to open access, through partnerships both in Canada and internationally, that achieve widespread access to knowledge.
- Provide CRKN members and the communities they serve with equitable, sustainable access to global knowledge through negotiations with publishers focused on cost-savings and best-practices in licensing.
- Grow and diversify the Canadiana collections and their descriptions to acknowledge Canada’s colonial past and surface the full breadth of experiences of people who have lived across these lands now known as Canada.
- Transform the Canadiana platform into world-leading, interoperable, open research infrastructure that facilitates widespread discovery of and access to Canadian content, mobilizes the Canadiana collections for large-scale research, and embeds Indigenous data sovereignty principles at its core.
- Through our collaborative national persistent identifiers (PIDs) strategy, champion the adoption of PIDs in Canada to support the interconnectedness and reliability of research and the systems that produce it.
The Canadian library community is strong and determined to build a better future for researchers and the public. We have bold goals and to reach them we will need to advocate effectively for our vision by making our value and impact clear to the research community and beyond. To share our collective value, we will:
- Define and mobilize the “CRKN success story” to broaden our reach, enhance our profile in Canada’s university and policy communities, and champion the vital role of libraries in enabling world-leading research.
- Strengthen CRKN’s position as an infrastructure provider within the national and international community and build partnerships to enhance open research infrastructure.
- Champion the use of data to inform decision-making, resource development, and strategies to drive the evolution of open research.
- Amplify the successes of our members and showcase the impact of CRKN and our members in driving widespread access to research and knowledge.
- Foster relationships with national and international stakeholders to ensure Canada is a leader of key global initiatives in licensing, open access, heritage content access and preservation, open infrastructure, and persistent identifiers.
As we create pathways to trusted knowledge, we will work together inclusively and creatively to build the empowered future that we believe in – and it must be a future that is sustainable for our member institutions. As we innovate and collaborate for a sustainable future, we will:
- In partnership with members and stakeholders, develop a mechanism to collectively invest in and support community-owned open infrastructure.
- Activate our power as a network to leverage technological advances to expand existing and explore new opportunities for national-scale initiatives.
- Harness and respond to developments in artificial intelligence and new technologies to evolve CRKN’s programs and services and continue to centre the needs of human users of knowledge.
- Foster an inclusive future by encouraging diverse representation and participation in CRKN initiatives and embedding equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility principles at the core of CRKN as an organization.
- Build strong, reciprocal relationships with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit organizations and communities across these lands now known as Canada to support, uphold, and integrate truth and reconciliation initiatives through all CRKN activities.
- Uphold and expand upon our collective responsibility to preserve the historic and scholarly record for future generations.
Our Values
CRKN has chosen three values that encapsulate what we strive to embody as we deliver on the goals of this strategic plan and strengthen our relationships within our team, with our members, and with the broader communities that we serve.
Connection
As a national network, connection is at the heart of CRKN and the work that we do.
Responsibility
We have a responsibility to the broader community and Canadians to provide access to trusted knowledge that can spark innovation and enable a better future.
Agility
We believe in the work that we are doing to make knowledge accessible, and we know that we need to be innovative and flexible in how we tackle this challenge.
Joint Message from CRKN’s Executive Director and Chair of the Board
"Reflecting on our 25th anniversary, we are proud of how CRKN has evolved as an organization that truly advances access to knowledge. Through our core licensing program, we will ensure that our member libraries can provide their communities with access to research knowledge from around the world. We will drive a more equitable research landscape through our open access initiatives. The growing collections and evolving infrastructure of Canadiana will provide researchers and the Canadian public with access to vital content and knowledge about Canada’s past, while upholding data sovereignty. And finally, the collaborative persistent identifiers (PIDs) program will facilitate better reliability for an open and connected digital research ecosystem. Working with our members to create these pathways, we truly believe that we can empower people with access to trusted knowledge."