The vision of Electronic Health Library of British Columbia (e-HLbc) is to provide the entire British Columbia academic and health care community with province-wide, consistent, high quality, cost-effective, equitable, and easily accessible health library resources that will support and improve practice, education, and research.

Membership is potentially open to any health professional association, post secondary institution, or health organization in the province. Practitioners must be affiliated with members or affiliate members in order to have access to e-HLbc resources.

Affiliate Membership Benefits

e-HLbc provides the academic and health care community with province-wide, consistent, high quality, cost-effective, equitable, and easily accessible health library e-resources that will support and improve practice, education, and research. On behalf of its members, e-HLbc promotes coordination and cooperation among the post-secondary institutions and health sector organizations across British Colombia, provides a communications infrastructure for member leaders, and maintains liaison efforts with other agencies and councils as appropriate.

Members benefit from cost-effective services and solutions, training and professional development opportunities, and purchasing leverage for electronic databases and information management tools.

Specific benefits of membership include but are not limited to:

  • Services of e-HLbc Client Support Specialist for database troubleshooting, platform migrations, invoicing, and statistical analysis.
  • An orientation to the e-HLbc website as well as access to all the resources that reside there and are available to all members.
  • Access to a suite of electronic resources including a number of databases from Ebsco and Ovid, including three indexes (Medline, CINAHL and PsycINFO), as well as several full-text journal bundles including the Biomedical Reference Collection, LWW Total Access Collection, Medline with Full Text, PsycARTICLES, and EBMR (Evidence Based Medicine Reviews including the Cochrane Collection). The core of full-text resources and comprehensive databases includes 24/7 access to abstracting and indexing for approximately 11,000 journals, 2,000 full-text journals, 360,000 records to evidence-based reviews. Additional discovery and access tools to full text are also included in this core suite of resources — the Ovid Linksolver provides item-level linking among the various online resources in a library collection, and a browsable A-to-Z full-text title look-up tool.
  • Access to marketing and promotional materials.
  • Ongoing training for e-HLbc supported products and services.
  • Participation in advocacy, lobbying, leadership, and collaborative efforts as taken on by e-HLbc.
  • Access to group purchasing power for licensing digital resources.
  • Access to the e-HLbc communications infrastructure to assist with institutional planning purposes, budgeting, and managing change as a part of participating with e-HLbc.

Affiliate Membership Requirements

√ Embrace the vision, mission, and strategies of e-HLbc and share the core values and principles of e-HLbc.
√ Be part of a post-secondary institution or health sector organization or association operating in British Columbia.
√ Abide by the conditions and requirements of the various vendor licenses negotiated by e-HLbc. It must provide secure and authenticated access to resources, restricted to its bona fide members.
√ Pay administrative and content license fees annually as approved by the e-HLbc Steering Committee.
√ Provide full time equivalent (FTE) numbers annually.

Affiliate Members Responsibilities:

  • All institutions accepted to be e-HLbc affiliate members are required to pay an annual administrative fee. Membership allows libraries and organizations to claim ‘affiliation’ status with e-HLbc. e-HLbc affiliate members have affiliation with e-HLbc only. Affiliation status does not extend to the host site Simon Fraser University, BC Electronic Library Network (BC ELN) or BC Academic Health Council (BCAHC).
  • Institutions must agree to subscribe to the core suite of products.
  • Have adequate and dedicated library staffing levels.
  • Have functional technical support so that users can access e-HLbc licensed databases.
  • Have appropriate staffing support so that instructional/troubleshooting assistance to their organization’s users is available for licensed databases.

Health Sector Affiliate Agreements and Fee Structure

  1. Fee structure is based on two parts; an annual administration fee to cover the costs of support and an annual licensed content fee.
  2. Content fee structure will likely change when contracts are re-negotiated in 2012 for 2012-2015 license period.
  3. Annual content fee for the three-year period beginning 1 April 2009 is $6 per FTE, or $500, whichever is greater.
  4. Administrative fee will be determined by what level of support is needed from the Administrative Centre. The application process will involve a meeting to formally analyze tier support placement.
    • Tier 1- Minimal Support $500
      Prospective member can fulfill all requirements outlined below.
    • Tier 2 – Medium Support $1000
      Prospective member requires some assistance on 2 or more requirements.
    • Tier 3 - Maximum $1500
      Prospective member requires some assistance on 4 or more requirements.
  5. In the first year, affiliate members will enjoy piolot status/ At the close of the year e-HLbc will review the affiliate member’s support needs and pricing tier. Affiliate members will have the option to renew their affiliate membership at that time.

Affiliate Member Support Requisites

√ Have IP addresses that are distinct to their organization; and or the ability to administer login and passwords to authorized members of organization.
√ Provide secure authentication if off-site database access is allowed such as a member’s only secure web site.
√ After initial training, be able to administer vendor administration module with little assistance from e-HLbc Administrative Centre.
√ Supply statistics on resource use to e-HLbc Administrative Centre.
√ Have technical support at a workable level so that users can access e-HLbc licensed databases.
√ Have appropriate staffing support so that instructional/troubleshooting assistance to their organization’s users is available for licensed databases.
√ Promote e-HLbc by providing training to institution’s user group.
√ Participate in e-HLbc surveys and promote the project to members.
√ Participate in new product suggestions processes (subscription to additional resources beyond the core suite of products will likely be optional).

If you have any questions, please contact the e-HLbc Administration Centre at info@ehlbc.ca or 778.782.5440