Dear List members,
If your library has a backlog of items awaiting cataloguing you may be interested to read the following:
RLUK is taking part in discussions with the Joint Information Systems Committee to investigate options for making its cataloguing database more freely available with the aim of creating a larger set of holdings data describing research collections across the UK. This larger data would then be used to create new collection management tools, in collaboration with the JISC, which would enable librarians to interrogate and compare collections in order to prioritise items for digitisation, preservation or relegation. Since the bibliographical data that RLUK manages underpins Copac, this would also mean an ever-expanding resource discovery service for researchers and information professionals.
The fundamental proposition is that those libraries that are prepared to underwrite putting their collections into Copac would gain access to the 35 million MARC records in the RLUK database, for free. There would be a new, permissive licence that would allow such records to be freely circulated by all not-for-profit cultural and heritage institutions.
The hope is that this freely available and freely distributable data would help such institutions substantially to reduce their cataloguing overheads and reduce the cost of retroconversion projects. The result of such activity would help to transform Copac into a truly national catalogue, imbibing collections from libraries, museums and archives, learned institutions and private specialist libraries that represent vast and rich materials for all researchers, wherever they are based.
If you would like to be part of a campaign to renew the call for a national strategy to support retrospective cataloguing please join [log in to unmask], a news and discussion list on a national strategy for retrospective cataloguing and conversion for the library and information and archives sectors. This list is used by library and information services staff working on the retrospective cataloguing of collections in university libraries and other institutions across the UK.
To join the list just visit https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RETRO Dunia García-Ontiveros
Head of Retrospective Cataloguing
The London Library
14 St. James's Square
London SW1Y 4LG
Tel. 020 7766 4746
Fax 020 7766 4766
To reduce costs and increase efficiency we would like to use email as our primary method of communication with members. We ensure our records are secure and we will not pass on email addresses to any third party without members’ express permission. Please let us know if you do not wish us to store your email address on our database and communicate with you in this way.
|