In the current economic crisis, it is clear that increased collaboration will help universities manage and reduce their costs. Coupled with this driver are the technological changes of (a) cloud computing and (b) technical developments in vendor systems.
RLUK has established a Working Group which has begun work to establish what position UK research libraries should take in relation to these issues.
The Working Group proposes to look at the following;
- the potential for a national bibliographic resource based on COPAC
- cost savings available to libraries through deep sharing of back-room processes
- the needs of students and researchers for resource discovery and retrieval
- the impact of new tools in library management systems to change current practices
- the reliability and sustainability of cloud computing approaches
The output of the Working Group will be a Report which analyzes current trends and makes recommendations for future work.
Members
Paul Ayris – UCL – (Chair)
Sandra Bracegirdle – Manchester University
Rachel Bruce – JISC
Elizabeth James – V&A
Mike Mertens – RLUK
Andy McGregor – JISC
Kathryn Murray – National Library of Wales
David Prosser – RLUK
Ben Showers – JISC
June Tomlinson – Wellcome Trust
Nick Wooley – King’s College London
Image courtesy of Imperial College London Library