A chance meeting with a tourist at my library led to a fruitful exchange of information and ideas with staff at the Ontario Legislative Library (OLL), which is developing an Ontario Documents Repository.

Annemarie Toth-Waddell of OLL was kind enough to send me a presentation she made on the respository to the Canadian Library Association in June 2006. She gave me permission to post it her at FGI and I think you'll find it well worth browsing through.

A few highlights to whet your appetite for the Powerpoint file:

• As of June 5, 2006, the Library has archived 10,915 monographs, 710 serial titles and 3,203 press releases.
• Only PDF files are stored in archive. Library will convert if not already in PDF.
• Access to repository is currently through catalog.
• Monographs are stored on a dSpace server, but serial titles are stored on a dedicated server.
• All documents are stored on library-controlled servers. Copies of monographs will eventually be stored on a dSpace server sponsored by the Ontario Council of University Libraries.
• OLA appears to view future as one of cross-jurisdictional repositories.

Please look it over. Hopefully more information will become available as the project matures further.

Moral of the story - be nice to all your visitors! It's not just a good idea, but could be a great networking opportunity!

updated 8/23/2006 with clarifying information from Annemarie Toth-Waddell.