CNI acts as an important and respected voice on behalf of our community in a wide range of national and international policy venues. This is accomplished through our participation in the ongoing scholarly dialogue; through collaboration with key funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Jisc; through work on advisory groups of organizations such as ITHAKA, OCLC, the American Library Association (ALA), and Microsoft Research; through service on numerous visiting and advisory committees for our member institutions; through contributions to standards efforts and standards organizations such as the National Information Standards Organization (NISO); and through participation in organizations such as the Internet Society and the Library Publishing Coalition.
Of particular note in this area are our recent contributions to the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, to various studies and programs conducted by the U.S. National Research Council, particularly in conjunction with the Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI), to the Campus Bridging Task Force of the NSF Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, to the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, the NSF-funded study on software sustainability, and the ALA Working Group on Libraries and Digital Content.
As a contributor and participant within a complex ecosystem of organizations that share common interests, CNI works with Internet2 on advanced networking applications and standards; with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) on scholarly communication, cyberinfrastructure, and preservation issues; with the New Media Consortium (NMC) on the exploration and use of new media and new technologies in higher education; with the Learning Spaces Collaboratory on development of principles for technology-enabled spaces that enhance learning; and with ALA on policy and professional development activities. Our contributions extend to the programs of our sponsor organizations, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and EDUCAUSE, particularly to the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and their policy and security programs.
In addition to specific initiatives to address CNI’s overarching program themes, the Coalition actively conducts an ongoing program of collaboration and advocacy to advance the development of digital information and its role in transforming organizations and scholarly activities. To this end, CNI works with scholarly societies, government agencies, publishers, and others. CNI is also committed to leadership development within the community and contributes regularly to the CLIR fellowship programs and the ARL Research Library Leadership Fellows (RLLF) program.
On an international level, we collaborate with other organizations concerned with networked information, including the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and Jisc in the UK, the German Initiative for Networked Information (DINI), the German Research Foundation (DFG), Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF), the SURF Foundation (the Dutch higher education and research partnership organization for network services and information and communications technology), and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).
See also Events Co-sponsored by CNI.