As the end of another year approaches, we want to thank you for being part of the OCUL and Scholars Portal community.
Because of your support, in 2025 we celebrated some exciting developments and milestones:
- Published a new strategic plan following a 10-month consultation and development process.
- Welcomed nearly 2,400 participants across a variety of OCUL and Scholars Portal learning events.
- Surpassed 70 million articles on Scholars Portal Journals.
- Saved member libraries $10 million through license negotiations.
- Presented a successful Alpha of the new GeoPortal infrastructure to the GeoPortal Redevelopment Working Group.
- Developed a variety of programming focused on AI knowledge sharing and skill building.
- The Scholaris team completed 17 repository migrations this year, bringing the total number of institutions live on Scholaris infrastructure to 20. The team also hosted 12 community calls and upgraded all instances to DSpace 8.
- Launched two new OCUL Communities: Acquisitions & E-Resource Management and Resource Description.
- Released an updated version of the Data Explorer for Borealis and Odesi, providing bug fixes and improvements in the ability to analyze data and update metadata, and generally increased speed and performance.
- Upgraded all 20 Archivematica instances for Permafrost subscribers to version 1.6. This upgrade includes improved metadata workflows, as well as various security and maintenance upgrades.
- Hosted three OCUL Visiting Researchers: Heather McMullen (Queen’s University), Joël Rivard (Carleton University), and Dan Scott (Laurentian University).
You can read about these highlights and more in our Scholars Portal and OCUL annual reports. And don’t forget to check out Scholars Portal’s Top Hits of 2025 to see which books, journals, and datasets were most popular this year.
Looking ahead to 2026, OCUL and Scholars Portal plan to:
- Continue experimentation and learning via AI and machine learning projects to identify best-use cases for AI integration in shared library services.
- Release a Beta version of the new Scholars GeoPortal for user testing and feedback.
- Prepare for launch of a new Omni interface and user experience across 19 member libraries.
- Launch the new Journals Admin tool, which will enable us to better manage institutional entitlements as part of the CRKN transition, and will give institutional representatives self-serve access to title lists and usage reports.
- Continue building capacity for an operational Scholaris service model, with a focus on ongoing service delivery, finalizing the pricing structure, preservation support, and shared governance.
- Work with Virtual Reference coordinators to develop a new name and branding for the Ask a Librarian service with plans to roll out the new name in summer 2026.
- Work to expand and upgrade the OLRC software and hardware to meet rising demand and ensure that the storage network continues to be a performant, secure, and reliable.
- Share member libraries’ locally developed artificial intelligence training and tools through the OCUL AI Exchange.
- Gather virtually for Scholars Portal Days (June 3 and 4) and the Collaborative Futures Mini Conference (summer date to be announced).
- Explore strategies for collective collecting that honour the collection strengths of individual libraries while expanding the breadth of academic resources available to Ontario university campuses.
The OCUL and Scholars Portal offices will be closed for the winter break between December 24-January 4 (inclusive).
We wish you a happy, healthy holiday season and look forward to all the new year will bring!