What we do
We work with our member libraries to help health care providers gain access to the best available evidence based information. We:
- Negotiate group licenses and subscriptions to premium electronic resources on behalf of our members
- Collaborate to provide instruction on navigating new technologies and searching evidence-based health databases
- Enable the sharing of information resources across our member libraries/institutions, including supporting a union catalogue of member library holdings
- Provide ongoing continuing education for health information professionals
Members of the Consortium include all the major hospitals in five Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) in south central Ontario hospitals. Our members span the Greater Toronto Area and stretch from Oshawa in the east to Barrie in the north and Oakville in the west.
The Consortium continually seeks opportunities to share information and expertise among health information providers, as well to to partner with other organizations. See details about our activities and partnerships below.
Licensing:
Since 1999 the Consortium has negotiated group licenses for our members, achieving significant savings for all. Today our licenses include:
- Ovid - Medline, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR), PsycInfo, eBooks, Nursing @OVID, Joanna Briggs Institute Library, LWW journals
- ProQuest - ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Source, and ProQuest Hospital Collection
- EBSCO - Cinahl, Nursing and Allied Health, Biomedical Reference, Health Business and Psychology/Behavioral Sciences collections, Dynamed
- New England Journal of Medicine & Journal Watch
- Canadian Pharmacists Association- eCPS/eTherapeutics
- American Psychiatric Association - PsychiatryOnline
- Dietitians of Canada - Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition (PEN)
- McGraw-Hill - AccessMedicine
- SpringShare - LibGuides
- American Medical Association - JAMA +9 Archives
- STAT!Ref - various individual titles
Instruction on navigating new technologies and searching evidence-based health databases:
Consortium members work collaboratively to:
- provide training to health care, allied health professionals, and students on accessing and searching electronic health resources
- tailor instruction to meet the needs of health care professionals/students in a range of disciplines
All teaching hospitals affiliated with the University of Toronto belong to the Consortium. With the University, the Consortium coordinates formal instruction on navigating and searching electronic health resources for students in a number of health faculties at the University. Our members benefit from the University's suppport, sponsorship, and professional expertise and in turn provide on-site training and research support to medical, nursing and other U.of T. students in the health professions.
Sharing of information resources across our member libraries/institutions:
Access to the resources of all member libraries is one of the benefits of membership in the Consortium.
- Print resources are shared at no or nominal costs
- Members realize savings by reducing duplication of resources and services
- The Consortium facilitates the maintenance of a union catalogue for the monographic holdings of many of its members through a partnership with the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL). Over half of our member libraries have entered their monographic holdings into UTL's SIRSI Catalogue.
- Quick and easy borrowing and lending of serials, is achieved through the maintenance of the joint THLA/ Consortium Union List of Periodicals, coupled with Docline participation.
Continuing Education and Training:
The Consortium helps information professionals stay on top of rapidly evolving developments in health information to support research, teaching and patient care. We:
- offer continuing education opportunities on new databases, electronic collections, electronic search and discovery tools
- provide opportunities for our members to learn about and share best practices in service delivery
- facilitate exchanges between our members and product developers/health information aggregators to improve and enhance health information resources
