Cuts Announced at CISTI, National Research Council
The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that "the National Research Council is conducting a major review that will eliminate three research groups, downsize another, and cost up to 300 jobs."
[T]he Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), the country’s national science library and leading publisher of scientific information would be streamlined into a smaller unit. The Research Press, the publishing arm of CISTI could be turned into a private company.
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Is anyone in Ottawa creating any kind of new jobs for special librarians? Are there any private sector special libraries left in Ottawa? Is it time to leave this city, or time to find something new to do?
CISTI is down but not out yet. It will emerge as a leaner machine.
However, this proves that it is time to explain to the powers that be why libraries exist, what libraries do for them.
To do that we have to work together and make sure the decision makers understand what libraries do for them.
The first step in that is the Records Keeping Directive. The next step is working as a group with LAC to setup Key Performance Indicators for libraries that match those of our department. Then we have to continually measure against those and make sure we are aligned.
Doing this we can start to ensure that our organizations know why we exist.
I don't think so... convincing the decision makers that CISTI is meeting organizational KPI's is underestimating what the decision makers are thinking, and not understanding what is important to them. CISTI's problem is that it is making money (bringing money in). That's a no-no in the current government's campaign. No matter how good the services CISTI has or had, it is not meeting citizen needs, specifically Canadians. Why is this so important? Well... Humm... Should it be said here... Minority Government? It's actually quite the untold strategy that the name of the game is about putting money out to industry and giving back to citizens in order to win a majority government. If that is true, CISTI is currently contributing to the exact opposite (bringing money in instead of putting money out), and the recommend transition plan would be somewhere along the lines of supporting industry by "outsourcing" CISTI. It's not about justifying organizational existence, it's not about measurement, and it's nothing personal. It's just the business of staying in power that has priority, and CISTI is considered an opportunity.
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