Dear lis-linkers
I've had an enquiry as to the level of interest in development of a
commercial consortial digitisation and hosting service, and would be
grateful for any feedback you can give me.
The proposed service has 2 aspects. For an annual subscription fee:
1) libraries and related institutions could have a certain amount of
their material digitised and made available through the hosted service
2) subscribing organisations would have access to all the (public)
content of all the subscribing members.
Additional digitisation could be done for a charge.
Should an organisation cease subscribing it would retain access to their
content in perpetuity.
The subscription model would be based on JISC bands (no cost has yet
been determined).
The intention would be to acquire membership from public and academic
sectors, to make non-HE content of teaching and research interest
available as well.
It's expected primary content to be digitised would be
newspaper/microforms, but there wouldn't be restrictions. The content
would not overlap with work done via the British Library and the JISC.
The organisers are already working with the Mirror Group on digitising
C18th and early C19th newspapers.
The provider would be keen to discuss the JISC's Digitisation call in
relation to a possible collaborative bid involving public and HE
partners.
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CURL has no direct involvement in this proposal or with the
organisation, but I am interested to see if there would be demand for
the development of such a service, so I'd be grateful for views.
If your library would like to know more or is interested in the
potential for a JISC bid I would be happy to put you in touch with the
people involved.
Thanks for any views you can give - best wishes.
Robin
Robin Green ([log in to unmask])
Executive Director, CURL
Rm.1211, Muirhead Tower, University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK B15 2TT
Tel. +44 (0)121 415 8106; Fax. ....8109; Mob. 07941 906222
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