Dr Woodward,

Is there any intention within the MAGiC project to encourage institutions
that hold e-versions of Technical Reports to move them to a standard
interoperable archive structure such as that advocated by the Open
Archives Initiative? See:

  http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february00/vandesompel-oai/02vandesompel-oai.htm
  http://www.openarchives.org/

This should improved both the visibility and the accessibility of this
material. It would also promote the idea of open interoperable archives
of academic information which could form the basis of a new form of
academic publishing.

In addition, a distributed archive with each institution maintaining its
own collection might scale more easily than a centralised archive which
seems from your note to be part of the proposal for MAGiC.

Regards,

John Smith,
The Templeman Library,
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, hazel woodward wrote:

> ***** With usual apologies for cross-posting **************
>
> Cranfield University Information and Library Service is the
> lead partner in a new project called MAGiC (Managing Access
> to Grey Literature Collections) funded jointly by the
> British Library's Co-operation and Partnership Fund and the
> (JISC) Research Support Libraries Fund. MAGiC is one of
> only 19 projects to be funded nationwide from this fund.
> Project partners are: the British Library Document Supply
> Centre; the Defence Research and Evaluation Centre;
> Loughborough University; the Public Record Office and Sirsi.
>
> The aim of the MAGiC project is to enhance awareness,
> access and utilisation of key collection of technical
> reports (otherwise known as grey literature) for the
> benefit of the UK engineering community. The development of
> the JISC Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER)
> has yet to address the technical report literature. Thus,
> one aim of the MAGiC consortia is to raise awareness of the
> importance and value of such information for scientists and
> engineers. Key outcomes and benefits will include: a
> directory of grey literature providing more accurate
> information on the location and composition of key
> collections; case studies on the issues involved in
> collection rationalisation leading to greater openess in
> the disposition of public records; and the production of a
> collection analysis methodology for the prioritisation of
> digitisation decisions. Most importantly, MAGiC will lay
> the foundations for the development of a National Reports
> Catalogue and will establish a digital engineering
> technical report archive using Cranfield's digital media
> archive, Hyperion, from Sirsi.
>
>
> ----------------------
> Dr Hazel Woodward, University Librarian and
> Director of Cranfield University Press,
> Cranfield University, Cranfield,
> Bedfordshire MK43 0AL.
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Tel: +44(0)1234 754446
> Fax: +44(0)1234 752391
>



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