About

    A brief history leading up to the Biblius.ca project

    2014-2016
    A working committee of the MEES (then known as the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports), including key stakeholders in the publishing and the education sectors, works to define and document the needs of schools with respect to electronic books.
    2015-2016
    A pilot project for e-book loans is conducted with students and teachers of the Commission scolaire de la Seigneurie-des-Mille-Îles (CSSMI). The project report, written by librarian Lyne Rajotte, is available online . It summarized the results of the trial and helps further thinking on the technology surrounding management of e-books in school settings.
    June 2018
    The MEES Digital Action Plan for Education and Higher Education is released. Measure 17 of the Plan reads: “Provide access to e-books in school libraries and encourage the shift from library to learning commons.”
    February 2019
    Signing of the contract whereby the MEES assigns the mandate to Bibliopresto to develop and roll out e-book loans for Québec school libraries.
    February to December 2019: Development phase
    Development of the platform from a technical perspective (functions, interface, etc.) and elaboration of a new economic and legal model (agreements, e-book uses, retribution, etc.). Collaboration with 7 school librarians. Preperation for the limited phase.
    Spring 2020: Scheduled start of the trial rollout / pandemic
    Cancellation of the scheduled projects for the trial rollout. About 30 schools are connected to Biblius, but the training sessions could not be offered. Postponement of the trial rollout to the 2020-2021 school year.
    2020-2021: Trial rollout and progressive deployment (pandemic)
    Participation of 35 schools from 17 school environments: overview of school environments and participating publishers, conclusion of the experimentation. Collaboration with the Chaire en littératie médiatique multimodale de l'UQAM. In parallel, start of the progressive deployment in the public schools system in order to answer the urgent need to access e-books due to the pandemic.
    2020-2021: Deployment in the public school system
    On September 29, 2021, the Biblius platform is officially launched in the public school system. Since fall 2021, 99,5% of students have access to the platform as well as to the common collection offered by the MEQ. A short test phase is also completed in anticipation of the deployment of the private schools network.
    2022-2023: start of the deployment in the private schools network and First Nations schools not under agreement
    The schedule for connecting private schools is shared in the spring of 2022. A collaboration with the Fédération des établissements d'enseignement privés (FEEP) is concluded. A trial rollout with a number of First Nations schools outside not under agreement is intended.
    2023-(...) The adventure continues!
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    Québec’s schools in a few statistics

    • More than 1,100,000 students in preschool, primary and secondary education, and more thant 250,000 students in vocational training and adult general education
    • 11 school boards and 61 school services centres
    • Close to 3,000 schools, including some 250 private schools
    • More than 100,000 teachers
    • Approximately 100 school librarians and more than 350 library technicians

    Read more on the ministère de l’Éducation (MEQ) website or in the section on target audiences for the platform.

    Bibliopresto

    Bibliopresto is a non-profit organization set up in 2012 by a consortium of Québec public libraries (ABPQ, BAnQ and Réseau BIBLIO du Québec), with the objective of developing digital products and services to support libraries’ mission.

    Bibliopresto managed the buildout of the platform Pretnumerique.ca, now in use in more than 150 public and collegiate libraries in Québec and New Brunswick. It also negotiates group licences with digital resource providers and coordinates other services for the province’s public libraries such as BibliMags, Biblionumerique.ca and Reponseatout.ca. Lastly, it is leading a digital literacy project in libraries for francophone communities in Canada called AlphaNumérique.

    With this wealth of expertise, Bibliopresto stays in the lead of the digital revolution, and is positioned as an indispensable player in digital innovations for libraries.

    Learn more at: http://bibliopresto.ca/

    The platform name and logo

    Why Biblius?

    The word is a fusion of  “biblio”, which means papyrus, book in Greek, and “novus” which means new in Latin.

    Besides the obvious reference to books and libraries (as in the French bibliothèque), the way it rolls off the tongue is a clever nod to magic spells—of the kind we might hear in the Harry Potter books, say.


    It works in French, but just as well in English: “bibli + us” = “our library”!

    Why a fox?

    The fox is an intelligent, wily animal. In Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, it’s the fox who explains that “taming” means establishing ties with others. Biblius will help students “tame” e-books and establish ties with literary works from here and abroad. And by allowing the use of books for teaching purposes, the platform will also foster ties between students and all stakeholders involved in their learning journey.

    Three parts:

    1. The head : recalls an opened book, and refers to the library.
    2. The snout : looks like a pencil, and refers to school.
    3. The eyes : made up of squares that remind us of pixels, they refer to the new digital content of school libraries.
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