How to Become a Member

If your organization is not already a member, you can become part of e-HLbc  and start experiencing the benefits of collaboration and cost savings.

The Affiliate Membership Guidelines below detail the benefits and requirements of membership with e-HLbc.

Should you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact the e-HLbc Administrative Centre at info [at] ehlbc [dot] ca.

Affiliate Membership Guidelines

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 from EBSCO and Ovid, including three indexes (Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO), and several full-text journal bundles (Biomedical Reference Collection, LWW Total Access Collection, Medline with Full Text, PsycARTICLES,  EBMR);
• Access to marketing and promotional materials;
• Ongoing vendor 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 & Responsibilities

Affiliate Member 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 or the Yukon;
• Abide by the conditions and requirements of the various vendor licenses negotiated by e-HLbc;
• Provide secure and authenticated access to resources, restricted to its bona fide members;
• Pay administrative and content license fees annually;
• Provide full time equivalent (FTE) numbers annually.

Affiliate Member 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 the 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; and
• Have appropriate staffing support so that instructional/troubleshooting assistance is available to their organization’s users.

Health Sector Affiliate Agreements and Fee Structure:

Fee structure is based on two parts; an annual administration fee to cover the costs of support and an annual licensed content fee. Content fee structure will likely change when contracts are re-negotiated in 2012 for 2012-2015 license period.

The annual content fee for the three-year period beginning 1 April 2009 is $6 per FTE, or $500, whichever is greater.

The 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.

In the first year, affiliate members will enjoy pilot 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 Requirements:

• 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 be optional)

If you have any questions, please contact the e-HLbc Administrative Centre at info [at] ehlbc [dot] ca or 778.782.5440.