The Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins International Institute for Cooperatives, HEC Montréal launches the International Summit of Cooperatives’ collection on CoopGateway. Its aim is to promote access, development and sharing of knowledge on cooperatives and mutuals in the digital age including both edited publications such as books and periodicals and gray literature such as annual reports, without limitation on the nature of the documents or file formats.
All the archives of the International Summit of Cooperatives have been bequeathed to HEC Montréal and all documents and objects are preserved within the Document and Archives Management Services. A selection of the archives was done to create a digital collection in CoopGateway to continue sharing knowledge on the cooperative model. The collection contains more than 1,100 items: research papers, conference papers, press releases, speeches, interviews, as well as photos and videos. These documents provide a comprehensive overview of the events, workshops and presentations that have taken place in all three editions of the Summit, and they showcase the power of cooperatives around the world.
Ensuring sustainability on CoopGateway
In constant evolution, the platform includes 30,000 digital documents in 19 languages from 43 countries, and aims to promote access, development and sharing of knowledge on cooperatives and mutuals in the digital age, both in Quebec and throughout the world. The creation of institutional collections such as for the International Summit of Cooperatives, allows to showcase the institution’s history, to share and perpetuate its heritage, and to facilitate access to knowledge on cooperatives and mutuals.
In the context of the 2012 United Nations’ International Year of Cooperatives, the Desjardins Group founded the International Summit of Cooperatives, which has had three editions – 2012, 2014 and 2016. Each edition of the International Summit of Cooperatives mobilized more than 3,000 participants from 93 countries.
