SFU Library - Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Collection Development

About the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI) (Website address: http://www.sici.org/)

Offices: Canada Office: at University of Calgary India Office: in New Delhi.

Named after Lal Bahadur Shastri, 2nd Prime Minister of India, 1964 – 1966.

Founded in 1968 by a joint announcement by the Government of Canada and Government of India. It operates under Addendum VIII, signed on September 1, 2003, to the first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Government of India, which had been signed on November 29, 1968. While the previous agreements had been five-year agreements, the current one is a three-year agreement that ends on March 31, 2006. The Insititute has facilitated bilateral relations between India and Canada for over 35 years. With the latest agreement, the traditional emphasis of research in Humanities and Social Sciences will remain, but with the addition of new areas of interest, including environment, health, film, economic reform, science, biodiversity, information technology, law, and distance education.

Canada has over 22 members while India has over 30 members. Some of the programs include fellowships for scholars ( including a Librarian fellowship) to do training or research, applied research development projects ( SHARP), youth internships programs, and the Library Programme. With the last, the libraries of the Canadian members receive gift of books and journals published in India. In India, there are "Canadian Studies" collections at various institutions.

SFU faculty and librarians can make selections of Indian books and journals and send them to Moninder Bubber, Liaison Librarian, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute for ordering (Tel: 778.782.4264; Email: bubber@sfu.ca).