My message earlier this week seems to have been chewed up by the system,
so I will have another go.

A NEW SOURCE OF LOTTERY FUNDING

Library and Information Commission, Building the New Library Network: a
report to government, October 1998.

Earlier this year the government asked the LIC to produce firm proposals
to translate the vision, outlined in New Library: the people's network,
1997, of a national digital network connecting all public libraries to
online information resources. This new report is being distributed to UK
library authorities and to library, archive and museum organisations,
government departments and MPs. It may be purchased from the LIC for £25
and an electronic version is available at
http://www.lic.gov.uk/publications/.

The report recommends the allocation of money from the New Opportunities
Fund (NOF), the Lottery's sixth good cause, to finance network
infrastructure, training and content creation. Archivists working within
a local authority library structure may benefit directly from this
initiative to gain connection to the network and acquire some basic ICT
training. However, all archivists in the UK are eligible to apply to the
NOF for funding projects that will deliver digital content to the
network. A total of £50 million has been allocated over four years to
this programme. By the end of 1999, 25% of these resources should be
committed with a further 50% in 2000.

The statutory requirement is for material to be of an educational nature,
broadly defined as lifelong learning and education in its widest sense.
Three areas of content for lifelong learning are identified, cultural
heritage and community identity, active citizenship and modern government
and reskilling the nation. It is in the first of these areas that
archives, as well as libraries and museums, are recognised as possessing
cultural resources which are highly suited to multimedia presentation.
Priority will be given to projects based on collaboration and partnership
across different sectors and that also benefit from sharing resources and
expertise.

Applicants are also expected to demonstrate that the eventual product
conforms to agreed professional and technical standards, takes account of
intellectual property rights (IPR), is backed by matching funding, is of
public benefit as opposed to private gain and will be made available free
of charge at the point of use. All applicants are required to contribute
a minimum of 10% of the total costs. These matching resources may
include staff time, contributions in kind and the residual value of the
IPR.

Whereas a modest sum is to be set aside for the creation of digital
finding aids, a high priority is to be given to produce integrated packs
of learning resource material and multimedia applications. The fund will
not support resource packs tied to particular aspects of a syllabus or
course of education. Higher priority will be given to material that is
of demonstrable interest and relevance to a wide audience throughout the
UK. This does not rule out applications that have a national
significance in the home countries or a strong regional significance
within any of these. Material that has a specifically local focus will
be supported provided applicants demonstrate that it will make a
significant contribution to the UK network. High priority will be given
to material that reflects the multilingual and multicultural reality of
everyday life.

The report makes recommendations for the administration of the awards and
for digital content delivery issues. Among the appendices is a review of
current activity over digital content service development in the public
library, archive, museum and gallery and higher education sectors. There
is a position statement by Stephen Green, Policy Advisor, Archives and
Libraries, Heritage Lottery Fund based on Seamus Ross, Funding the
Information and Communications Technology in the Heritage Sector, 1998,
together with a table indicating the differing policies and priorities of
the Heritage Lottery and New Opportunities funds.

As the only archivist invited to participate in the production of the
report, I sought to inform the other members of the Content Creation Task
Group of the realities of automation and digitisation in our profession.
It was obviously disappointing that local authority archive services are
not to be included in the network and their staff excluded from the ICT
training. However there is a new source of money for which archivists
from every sector are eligible to apply either independently or in
partnership with other bodies. Matching contributions are more generous
than the current rules followed by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Applications may be submitted to both the HLF and NOF but one cannot act
as matched funds for the other.

While the HLF acts to preserve and make accessible the nation's heritage,
the NOF funds content creation for the new network which is broadly
educational in nature. An archive or library in possession of an old
photographic collection might seek HLF support to digitise it in its
entirety in order to preserve the originals and network the images. The
NOF would support digitisation of some of the photographs selected for
their educational value and packaged together with interpretative text
and multimedia. In turn some of these images might be re-used in another
context to support a different educational package. Although higher
priority is given to material of broader UK significance, it is possible
to present digitised images of purely local origin to illustrate broader
historical or cultural themes.

The NOF funding programme will run for only four years. It is therefore
essential for potential applicants to prepare quickly to avoid the rush.
Even those who do not plan to join the throng might find something of
interest in the report. I particularly recommend the appendix on
intellectual property issues by Peter Wienand of Farrer & Co. More
generally those of us responsible for running ICT applications must begin
to consider the implications of a New Library Network that, together with
the National Grid for Learning, will offer access to the internet to a
vast new constituency in the UK. If in a few years' time every child in
school and every adult in a local branch library can and will access our
web sites and databases, our systems and staff may well be swamped by the
demand for information.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dick Sargent

Director of the National Register of Archives
Historical Manuscripts Commission
Quality House, Quality Court
Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1HP
tel 0171 242 1198
fax 0171 831 3550
email [log in to unmask]



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