Since the last issue of curlnews, the Board has met twice, on 21.11.03 and 16.01.04
Completion of the Review of the Strategic Plan
The Strategic Plan, 2003-2006, was confirmed by the Members at their meeting on 9 October 03 and is now available on the curl web site at http://www.curl.ac.uk/about/strategic03-06.html All but one Task Force have began their work. Details of their membership can be found at http://www.curl.ac.uk/about/Groups.html Their remits and SMART objectives will soon be posted on the web site.
New Membership and Partnership guidelines
The Board has agreed new Membership and Partnership Guidelines, which can now be viewed on the CURL website. Two major amendments have been made: the associate membership status has been removed, and ‘other research information providers’, in addition to university and legal deposit libraries, can apply for membership of CURL, as long as they can demonstrate that they can make a substantial contribution towards the work of CURL.
There will be two vacancies for the Board at the AGM, due to take place on 25 March 04. The outgoing Board members will be John Hall (Durham) and Clare Jenkins (Imperial). John will be finishing his second consecutive term and therefore will not be able to stand for election at this AGM. Clare will be finishing her first term and therefore is allowed to stand for election at this AGM.
The Board has agreed to fund a six-month work package, costed at £19,330, to continue the work done by the MARC21 Project. The work will be done by MIMAS and will concentrate on clustering (see under RD&D Steering Group for more details). The web interface work package will be discussed at a later stage when it has been established whether or not the new RLG Eureka interface can be adapted to the CURL database.
In December 03 the CURL Board has agreed that CURL would take up a consortial subscription to COUNTER for one year, to be reconsidered when it expires, on the grounds that this initiative has strategic significance for CURL, in its broader aim of improving access to electronic resources.
The Board also confirmed at its meeting of 21.11.03 that it would not renew its membership of SPARC Europe, since several CURL members have already subscribed to the coalition.
Britain in Print (led by Edinburgh)
At its meeting on 21 November 03, the Board agreed to recommend to the Britain in Print Steering Group to go ahead with the submission to the HLF of the proposal for Phase 2 in January 04. The Steering Group has now agreed to do so.
At its meeting on 16 January 04 the Board agreed the following statement on the future governance of the collaborative collection management scheme being set up by the project:
CURL is committed to playing a leading role in seeking to maintain and develop a governance structure for a UK-wide collaborative collection management scheme beyond the completion of the CURL-CoFoR project in August 04, possibly within the context of the soon to be created Research Libraries Network (RLN).
Freedom of Information Act, 2000
At its meeting on 16 January 04 the Board agreed to accept the recommendation of the solicitors, who argued that the Act does not apply to CURL.
Dates of Board meetings, 03-04
Dates are available at http://www.curl.ac.uk/about/Meetingdates.html .
The next CURL AGM and Members’ meeting are due to take place on the 25-26 March 2004, at the Alexander Hotel, Dublin.
MIMAS’s proposal to develop a clustering mechanism for the new MARC21 database has now been approved by the CURL Board. From January 2004, MIMAS will be working on a new algorithm for delivery in June 2004. MIMAS has underlined its commitment to deliver a service modelled closely on the consultation with CURL staff in the autumn of 2002, especially with regard to defining a primary cluster member according to local priorities. MIMAS has also noted that the clustering mechanism would be compatible with Members’ proprietary Z-clients.
The indexes for the new database, outlined in the original MARC21 specification, have now been completed.
Since the last issue of curlnews, there has been the following COPAC activity:
Revision of the COPAC interface, which included:
The commencement of reloading of Cambridge and Glasgow catalogues – in response to major local changes in these institutions catalogues.
The loading of Reading Pamphlets records - approximately 3,300 records from the University of Reading Library that were created as part of the CURL-led RSLP 19th Century Pamphlets Project, were added.
The completion of the National Library of Scotland reload – some 3.5 million records - significantly enhances the materials available on COPAC.
In December, the Archives Hub passed the 15,000 record mark. In addition, since the last edition of curlnews, there have been two new developments regarding this service. First of all, in October 2003, the Tavistock Institute published its Summative Evaluation of the Archives Hub. This built on previous reports in 2000 and 2002 by the Institute on the Archives Hub, which were commissioned by the JISC. The report concludes that:
“Qualitative and quantitative data reveals that the Hub is a significant and valuable resource to a diversity of end users, including students, lecturers, private researchers, archivists and librarians. Users report that the Hub provides added value, learning benefits and outcomes, including: raising awareness of archives; promoting understanding; facilitating teaching practice; enhancing the pursuit of scholarly research; increasing existing specialist knowledge and developing new knowledge; and enhancing professional work and user services”.
The full text (.pdf format) of the report can be viewed at: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/arch/index.html
In terms of its use by archivists, the Hub has also this January provided a separate and detailed section as part of its services to contributors on topics that relate amongst other things to the creation, sending and displaying of information via the Hub. Archivists and others working in Special Collections departments in CURL libraries may be interested to view this information at Archives Hub index .
The Board at its meeting of 21.11.03 agreed to recommend to the Britain in Print Steering Group, to go ahead with the submission to the HLF of the proposal for Phase 2 in January 04, as previously planned. The proposal would be prepared by the Project Director, John Scally, and the Project Developer, Norman Rodger, with the assistance of the CURL Executive Secretary.
The CURL Representative on the Full Disclosure Implementation Group is now Ronald Milne, Deputy to the Director of Oxford University Library Services and to Bodley's Librarian, University of Oxford. See the Full Disclosure website.
By mid-January 04, which is half-way through the project, the partnership had produced 3,100 records, i.e. 62% of the overall cataloguing target.
The RD&D SG is currently taking forward two requests for co-operation and collaboration on behalf of non-Members, the Royal Society and the Cathedral Libraries & Archives Association, the result of which it is hoped will be the extension of CURL support to other stakeholders in the research information provision community, as well as the enlargement of both COPAC and the CURL Record Retrieval services with further valuable entries and records, representing the rich and unique collections that these bodies possess.
The CURL-RLG deal for 2003-2004 did not include the Digital Resources (Archival Resources, Cultural Materials, and additionally the AMICO Library) that had been included on an experimental basis in the deal for 2002-2003.
RLG very usefully extended until 19 December 2003 access to Archival Resources and Cultural Materials to those that had been subscribers within the framework of the 2002-2003 deal, so that institutions could get a finer feeling for the appropriate value of each of these services from RLG. Pamela Dewey, RLG’s Senior Account Manager, will have been in touch with the relevant CURL libraries with a new offer direct from RLG regarding the three named resources above. Any further queries in response to this new offer from RLG should be made direct to Pamela, who can be contacted at:
RLG
2029 Stierlin Court, Suite 100
Mountain View, CA 94043
001 650-691-2208
The Task Force on Communications last met on 18 November 03. Its main work was to sharpen the SMART objectives on its future activity till April 04, and to review the results of the ongoing consultation exercise with a representative cross-section of CURL Members via a series of Focus Groups. These Focus Groups have looked at both the way communications on CURL can be disseminated more effectively and inclusively, and how the CURL website can be better utilized as a communications tool for the Consortium.
Task Force on Company Business
The Task Force on Company Business last met on 8 January 04. Its focus so far has been the review of the Memorandum and Articles of Association to reflect, in particular, recent changes in the membership of CURL, and a Risk Assessment and Management exercise, which CURL is now legally required to carry out on a regular basis. The amendments to the Memorandum and Articles of Association recommended by the Task force have now been discussed and agreed by the Board. The next step is for the Executive Secretary to run all the work done by the solicitors. The Board has also commented on the Risk Assessment and Management document, which will be shortly finalised by the Executive Secretary.
Task Force on Digital Content Creation and Curation
The Task Force last met on 20 January. Its main business was to refine its SMART objectives according to the Strategic Plan remit approved by the Board, and to prepare a bid for final submission to the Board of a major needs assessment exercise of digitisation and preservation requirements in CURL institutions, which will be put to tender. Under discussion also was collaboration with the Digital Preservation Coalition.
Task Force on the Research Libraries Network
The Task Force last met on 16 January 04. The purpose of the meeting was to identify a number of activities CURL is already involved with and where the involvement of the RLN would be very beneficial for the research community. It was agreed to summarise the Task Force’s suggestions in a position paper to be ready by Easter 04.
Task Force on Resource Management
The Task Force last met on 12 January 04.
In addition to preparing its SMART objectives in line with the new Strategic Plan, the Task Force’s main work concentrated on the following.
The Task Force commented on the Acquisition and Retention Agreement, soon to be sent to the Directors of the participating libraries, and discussed governance issues beyond the life of the project, due to be competed in August 04. It suggested a wording on the governance of the scheme, which has now been agreed by the Board (see under Board).
Further details on the current progress of the CURL-CoFoR project can also be found below, under news from the CURL Community.
Monograph Inter-lending Project
The Task Force commented on two drafts: the Terms of Reference of the Project Steering Group and the job description of the Project Manager post. These will passed on to the Project Steering Group, chaired by Michele Shoebridge, whose first meeting has been scheduled for 27 January 04. It is hoped that the Project Manager post will be advertised shortly after the first meeting of the Steering Group.
Task Force on Scholarly Communications
The Task Force last met on 24 October 03. The main business of the Task Force was to align its activity to the new Strategic Plan 2003-2006. Related to this is the CURL Board’s initiative to explore the possibility of merging the three Scholarly Communications groups at CURL, SCONUL and JISC. Following a meeting with representatives of the three groups, it was agreed that a consultation paper, to be co-written by the three organisations, would be produced by Easter 04.
David Prosser, Director of SPARC Europe, reported on recent work undertaken in the cause of open access. Highlighting several developments in this area, he stressed the latest enthusiasm of some small society publishers for this model; the recent advances in the case of open access occasioned by the Wellcome Trust’s statement, the JISC Biomed Central arrangement, as well as the Berlin Declaration, and the move by SPARC Europe itself to concentrate on both open access journals and author self-archiving.
The Task Force is also contributing to the writing of the CURL / SCONUL response to the Science and Technology Committee’s Inquiry into Scientific Publications together with, for CURL, Tony Kidd (Glasgow) and Clare Jenkins, the CURL Chair.
The Secretariat “Road Show” will commence again in the late spring – last year we were able to visit 7 Members, mainly over the summer period. This gives us the chance to meet staff across CURL, to inform them of CURL activity, and to listen to what Members want on the ground. If you would like to have a visit from the Secretariat, please ask your Librarian to contact the Executive Secretary, Marie-Pierre Détraz .
Since the last edition of curlnews in September 03, CURL has obtained two new customers, Anglia Polytechnic University Library, and Harrogate District Hospital Library & Information Service. This brings our customer base to 27 Users.
RLG-CURL Joint Update meeting
After the introduction of RLG’s new Member Services Officer, Roberta Dougherty, to the CURL Secretariat last summer, it was decided to launch a joint RLG-CURL update meeting at University of London, Senate House. The day included presentations on the latest service and project developments at both RLG and CURL, and was well attended by CURL institutions. Especial thanks are owed to all the Speakers: Roberta Dougherty, Nancy Elkington, Amanda Hill, Bill Hubbard, Peter Morgan, and Norman Rodger, as well as the staff at Senate House, in particular the Director, Chris Hunt, Steve Clews, Tracy O’Callaghan and Sarah Farthing, who made the day such a success.
The CURL Secretariat along with Hugh Taylor of Cambridge University library, representing the Resource Description & Discovery Steering Group, will be meeting with OCLC at its Tricorn House headquarters in Birmingham. The discussions, to take place on Friday, 29 January, will focus on the provision of OCLC cataloguing and metadata services to CURL Members, and follows a recent consultation exercise in November 03 by OCLC on its services as a whole. If you have any comments or representations that you would like to have made to OCLC regarding your use of its cataloguing services, please contact the database Officer, Mike Mertens, before Tuesday, 27 January.
Preparation of a partners' agreement on the collaborative retention, transfer and acquisition of research materials for Russian and East European Studies is now in its final stages, and a detailed scheme of allocated responsibilities for the 20 partner libraries has been developed. This has benefitted greatly from the project's survey of UK research in REES, done in collaboration with the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, which has resulted in the fullest-ever mapping of academic activity in this field of study. The scheme will also utilise the results of the subproject on REES serials deduplication, managed by Ron Hogg at BL Boston Spa, which is producing matching lists from the 35,000-title database of 52 libraries' serial holdings. As part of its commitment to develop procedures applicable to a wide range of subjects, the project team is examining models of national governance and administration for collaborative collection management.
Gregory Walker
CURL-CoFoR Project Manager
Opening Access to UK Research.
The SHERPA project (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) has been set up to encourage change in the research communication process by creating open-access institutional "e-print" repositories for the dissemination of research findings. As part of the project, the opportunity was given to CURL members to join the original partners in the project as Associate Partners, to facilitate the dissemination of work that was being done and to encourage the installation of institutional repositories amongst CURL institutions.
SHERPA is pleased to announce the adoption of six new associate partners: the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Newcastle and the London LEAP Consortium - UCL, Imperial, Birkbeck, Kings College, Royal Holloway and the School of Oriental and African Studies.
They join the original development partners: the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham (lead partner), Oxford, the White Rose Consortium (the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York), the British Library and the AHDS.
Each partner in the project is building its own repository to house the research findings of its own academic members of staff. By adopting OAI-PMH metadata standards for these eprint repositories (see links below) these records can be cross-searched along with those of other institutions' repositories.
This is an immensely powerful ability, as it delivers quality-marked research findings, free, immediate and direct to an academic's desktop. Search services are provided by so-called "service providers" (see links below). Since they only look at registered repositories, the search results are not clogged by the thousands of junk results that plague normal web-based search-engine results.
In this way, e-prints of research papers can be searched and read by academics worldwide, facilitating the wide and rapid dissemination of research. Researchers are able to disseminate their material quickly and easily into their subject communities and in return, their work is built on and cited.
In addition to the e-print repositories themselves, the project will produce advice on building and maintenance of repositories, guidelines on IPR and copyright issues, and advocacy materials to encourage academics to deposit their research in an institution's repository. These outputs will be made available to the whole HE community.
The development of open access repositories does not conflict with the development or use of open-access journals. Archiving material in repositories can be done in the same way whether the material is originally published in a traditional or an open-access journal. Both open-access journals and repositories work in concert to further the aim of open access to research outputs
Some subjects already have e-print archives, in particular the physics community, economists and cognitive scientists. Institutional repositories can also work in concert with these existing repositories. The institutional basis for SHERPA means that institutions can provide archive facilities for academics in these and other subject areas without having to rely on volunteer labour. The institutional focus means the archives can take advantage of existing institutional infrastructures and resources to support their foundation and long-term support for the future.
With this major expansion with the new Associate Partners, SHERPA now has 13 partners, bringing to 20 the number of individual institutions involved. The project now holds a majority of CURL members and represents a significant proportion of the research-led universities in the UK. This shows a level of effort and commitment that will make a substantial contribution to the development of the archive network.
Further Information:
OAI-PMH stands for: Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Details from http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html
A list of Service Providers (search services) is available from http://www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html
This is maintained by the Open Archives Initiative - (http://www.openarchives.org/)
Bill Hubbard
SHERPA Project Manager
email: bill.hubbard@nottingham.ac.uk
telephone: 0115 8467 657
Project web site: www.sherpa.ac.uk
News from the CURL Community
David Perrow joins Oxford University Library Services
David Perrow has been appointed to the post of Associate Director of Oxford University Library Services (OULS) where he has particular responsibility for finance and administration. David was formerly Deputy Librarian at Newcastle University and subsequently Director of Information Services at Templeton College, Oxford. He joined OULS in November 2003
Bodleian awarded Mellon Grant for a new Serials project
The Bodleian Library has been awarded a grant of $1.14 million by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a new project to improve and consolidate its serials bibliographic and holdings data. The EASEL Project (Enhancing Access to the SErials Literature), which will be directed by Peter Burnett, Head of Technical Services, will upgrade and enhance the bibliographic records for the Bodleian's pre-1988 titles i.e. those acquired before online automated cataloguing began.
Records for many of these are incomplete, inaccurate or are duplicated between the Library's pre-1920 catalogue and the more modern entries in the main Oxford OLIS database. Changes of title, often not noted in the manual systems (and therefore not converted during previous retrospective conversion projects) will be identified, and appropriately recorded. Once the records have been suitably amended, and the retrospective holdings migrated from the manual serials registers to OLIS, it will be possible to implement fully the serials registration module, so that new receipts of all our current serials (acquired under legal deposit and by purchase) will henceforth be recorded online.
A Project Manager will be appointed in the near future and the Project is planned to start in earnest from next April.
A recent report by the Research Support Libraries Group showed that 95% of researchers in all disciplines still regard access to printed journals as essential for their work. The Bodleian Library holds over 111,000 printed serials titles, one of the largest in the academic library world. EASEL, which will take about 4.5 years to complete, will make the collection more effectively available to scholars nationally and internationally.
Peter Burnett
Head of Technical Services
Bodleian Library
Broad Street
Oxford OX1 3BG
Tel: 01865 277015
Fax: 01865 277036
email: ppb@bodley.ox.ac.uk
New Advanced Study of Social Sciences Library for Oxford University
The University of Oxford will be opening a new Centre for the Advanced Study of Social Sciences Library in October 2004. It will amalgamate the collections of six social science departments and selected social science collections from the Bodleian Library. This event has provided the impetus for a study of the research support needs of Oxford University’s social scientists. The study consisted of three one-hour focus group sessions with academics, followed by a web-based survey emailed to members of the Sociology, Politics and International Relations, Economics, Social Policy and Social Work, Criminology, and Socio-Legal Studies departments. The results of the study have been used to determine how much space should be allocated to print publications (which formats, which years) and to inform librarians about the types of services that might be introduced in a new library to support social scientists. A version of this report has been published on the IFLA website and presentations have been delivered on the research findings in Berlin, Goteborg and Oxford.
Margaret Robb
Social Studies Librarian
margaret.robb@ssl.ox.ac.uk
All change in Information Services at the University of Birmingham
Information Services has recently undergone a change management programme built around a new collective vision for the service. The service brings together staff with a variety of skills and backgrounds with the requirements of the operating environment having changed since the service was created in 1995.
The vision for Information Services is:
The first phase of the programme is now complete, with significant restructuring within Learning Research Support (LRSD) and Information & Computing Systems (ICSD) Divisions. This has established a more coherent and focussed approach to divisions. The second phase of the programme focuses on cultural change.
Michele Shoebridge, Director of Information Services, said: ” The change management programme is the result of a new vision for IS and will allow us to continue to deliver a quality service. The change brings a new style of management and new ways of doing things, as a result there will be new management training available and operational staff have the opportunity to become involved in working groups which focus on the eight vision strands.”
Lisa Barwick
Communications and Marketing Officer
Information Services
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
l.t.barwick@bham.ac.uk
Compendium from Leeds University Library
Virtual Learning Environment Service
Following re-organisation of support for the University Virtual Learning Environment (Bodington), the Library has now taken on responsibility for a new team set up to support the use of the VLE. The new VLE Service will run, maintain and support the Bodington system for the University. Key activities will include the management of a help desk service, provision of training and documentation, development of a VLE user group and involvement in the development of a University-wide e-learning strategy. Paul Wheatley has been appointed as Team Leader for the VLE Service.
The Library continued to run its successful Scholarly Publication Forum, aiming to raise awareness across campus of the growing inequities of the scholarly publishing market, particularly in relation to scholarly journals. A number of events have now been held with a range of speakers, including a representative of the JISC-funded project SHERPA of which Leeds is a member as part of a 'White Rose' grouping, which also includes the Universities of Sheffield and York.
The Library gained funding under the JISC DiVLE funding strand for the development of a resource list system in the University Virtual Learning Environment. The Library, with the University of Oxford and the Learning Development Unit has produced a tool which academic staff can use to develop online resource lists for their courses. The tool resides within the University's VLE. For more information see:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/portole/
Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
This is a three-year joint project with the School of English, funded by the AHRB Resource Enhancement Scheme, to work on the archives of the former Institute of Dialect and Folklife Studies, now housed in the Library. The project staff have made good progress with the preliminary assessment, sorting and listing of materials, and with the transfer of audio material to digital format. Cataloguing in Encoded Archival Description (EAD) format is now under way, which will allow the comprehensive presentation of descriptive hierarchies online. The Library expects to gain invaluable new experience of the use of EAD through the project.
For more information see:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/activities/lavc/
Palaeography Self-Tutorial Project
This joint initiative of the Library, the School of English and the Flexible Learning Development Unit at Leeds supports teaching and learning by presenting digitised images of selected manuscripts from the Special Collections department for users to transcribe on-line. Individual words can be enlarged, for easier reading; the program can be asked to check the transcription at any time; and assistance of various kinds is provided, including palaeographical commentaries and specimen letter forms. The project began with manuscripts from the English Renaissance period. More recently a grant from the University's Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund has enabled the development of a medieval module, again using manuscripts from the Library, which has greatly extended the chiefly postgraduate user constituency. Broader, possibly commercial, exploitation is being considered.
For more information see:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/
Frances Norton
Head of Public Service Strategy
Brotherton Library
Leeds University Library
Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: 0113 34 35546
Fax: 0113 34 35561
email: f.a.norton@leeds.ac.uk
curlnews 13 will be published on Wednesday, 31 March 04. Contact the curlnews editor, with your views and contributions, by Monday, 24 March 04.