RLUK

RLUK is sponsoring a comprehensive survey designed to deliver a national review of where we are in the UK in relation to 'hidden' collections and moves to ensure that collections are exposed to a much larger audience.
The last summary of the position in the UK of the state of retrospective cataloguing was in 2007, in the report, Uncovering Hidden Resources, published by the Research Information Network. The aim of the present survey however is eventually to establish a National Register of retrospective cataloguing, in the context of advances since then in the area of resource discovery and in the ongoing movement to open up library-related data for free re-use. The recently launched RLUK/JISC Resource Discovery Task Force vision has stated for example that the bedrock of future resource discovery in the UK will consist of “Providing open and flexible aggregations of metadata about institutional resources”. This metadata it is envisaged will come from libraries, museums and archives both within and beyond the HE sector.

Therefore, RLUK has been working with The London Library to produce this survey: it is a joint effort, the outputs of which will be made publicly available. We enjoin you to take part, and add your collections to the register.

The survey, set-up and maintained with help from staff at MIMAS, is online at;

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/322159/RLUK-Retrospective-Cataloguing-Surv...

The deadline for completion is *01 September, 2010*

The survey covers a range of issues related to the description, cataloging and retroconversion of 'hidden' collections, and will take some 25 minutes to complete.

Since we want to receive as much information as possible, those who complete the survey will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers.

With many thanks in anticipation,

All best wishes,

Mike Mertens, RLUK
Dunia García-Ontiveros, The London Library