-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[Fwd: RYERSON UNIVERSITY CANCELS RILOSH - IMPORTANT CANADIAN SOCIAL JUSTICE DATABASE]
Date:	Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:33:04 -0500
From:	Brian Morrison <bmorriso@...>
To:	globalocchyg-list@eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	RYERSON UNIVERSITY CANCELS RILOSH - IMPORTANT CANADIAN SOCIAL JUSTICE DATABASE
Date:	Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:30:21 -0500
From:	Brian Morrison <bmorriso@...>
To:

---   NEWS RELEASE  ---

RYERSON UNIVERSITY CANCELS RILOSH - IMPORTANT CANADIAN SOCIAL JUSTICE DATABASE

2 NOVEMBER 2004

Dear colleagues and friends:

The administration of Ryerson University and Library have decided to cancel production of an important Canadian online contribution to the dissemination of information relating to social justice issues involving environmental and occupational health and safety, industrial hygiene and toxicology, employment standards and industrial relations, discrimination in the workplace, disabled workers and workers' compensation, women in the workplace, international labour standards and workers' rights. Since 1996, the Ryerson University International Labour and Occupational Safety and Health Database (RILOSH) has provided Canadian and international users online access to a wealth of current and historical information relating to human relations in the workplace. With over 160,000 citations, the information in RILOSH consists of popular and peer-reviewed literature indexed from hundreds of periodical and book sources and is aimed at helping labour movement and other professionals, scholars and students, and ordinary working men and women to understand and deal with important workplace social justice issues. RILOSH provides a decidedly Canadian perspective on industrial relations and environmental and occupational health and safety issues and seeks to provide practical information of immediate use to those involved in workplace social justice situations. The database is available free to the Ryerson community to support social justice research within the university community.

Ryerson University Library acquired RILOSH  (then known as MOLINDEX) from the Ontario Ministry of Labour in 1996 as part of an agreement by which Ryerson University acquired the assets of the Ontario Ministry of Labour Library. The aim of the Ontario Ministry of Labour - Ryerson University Agreement of 1996 was to maintain public access to an important Canadian information resource and to continue MOLINDEX/RILOSH, a recognized online source of reliable, quality information.

MOLINDEX/RILOSH represents an important Canadian online information legacy. MOLINDEX began life in the 1920s during the early development of industrial hygiene and industrial toxicology scholarship in Canada. It provides a continuous eighty year record of developments in the area of workplace health and safety legislation, enforcement, research, and scholarship, and, in later years, has been broaden to encompass other important social justice issues relating to the workplace.

The termination of RILOSH as a unique Canadian contribution to the dissemination of information on human relations in the workplace by Ryerson University is to be lamented. This termination represents a loss to those seeking information on important social justice issues from a Canadian perspective, a loss to the Canadian  labour movement, a loss to the Canadian online information marketplace, a loss to research and scholarship within the Ryerson University Community, and a loss to ordinary workers everywhere who seek access to information to protect their health and safety and to improve the quality of their working lives.

For more information, contact:
Brian Morrison
RILOSH Librarian
Ryerson University Library
(416) 979-5000, ext. 6894