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Dear MCG'ers, I need to enroll your support in a piece of work we are doing at the moment. We have a window of opportunity in which we may be able to influence the UK Government and European Commission to make special provision for cultural organizations managing copyright material and making it available online. They are well-disposed, but we urgently need evidence to support our case. Please, if you can, could you complete the short survey linked from the email below - as an added incentive, there may be £100 in it for you! Let me know if you have any questions, Many thanks, Nick The Collections Trust and Strategic Content Alliance Orphan Works Survey: Help Us to Address Barriers in the Provision of Access to Public Sector Content The Collections Trust and The Strategic Content Alliance are carrying out research to examine the impact of 'orphan works' (works for which the copyright owner is unknown or cannot be traced) on the delivery of services to library, archive, museum and information service users in the UK and other European countries. Background information on the research and its sponsors is provided below. As part of this research project, we would be very grateful if you could fill out a short online questionnaire. It will take just a few minutes to complete. As a thank you for taking part you will be entered into a prize draw to win £100 (or the equivalent in Euros), and we will also send you a synopsis of the findings once the research is complete. To fill out the questionnaire click here <http://surveys.omni-web.co.uk/start.aspx?sid=5DZ6VD> or copy the link below into your web browser: http://surveys.omni-web.co.uk/start.aspx?sid=5DZ6VD The closing date for completion of the Survey is Friday 16 January 2009. We apologise if you have received multiple copies of this email. It is being distributed by various project partners who hold their own contact lists which may overlap. If you know anyone else who might be interested in completing the survey, we would appreciate it if you could forward this email on to them. Thank you, Naomi Korn, IP Officer, Collections Trust. Background to the research The past 10 years have seen a tremendous investment in the development of public access to collections - whether online, on site, or through outreach and community engagement. 'Orphan works' - works for which the copyright holder is either unknown or cannot be traced - present one of the most significant barriers in the provision of access to content across the Public Sector, to the detriment of the growth of the Knowledge Economy. Currently the library, archives, information and museums professions and their institutions have a major opportunity presented by both the UK government's implementation of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property and, in particular, by the European Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy to lobby for orphan works solutions both in the UK and throughout the EU. Yet, there exists almost no systematic evidence of the scale and impact of the 'orphan works' problem. This lack of evidence is preventing public sector stakeholder communities from exploring potential solutions, whether legislatively or through collective approaches to licensing and indemnity. We hope this survey will generate a good response and provide the evidence we need to help us raise the profile of the issues that we face and the need for appropriate solutions. The Project Partners The Collections Trust is the UK's focus for standards and best practice in Collections Management, representing the interests of cultural heritage collections. See: http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk The Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) is led by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) which serves the higher and further education community in the UK and works with various European partners. Membership of the SCA also includes the BBC, National Health Service, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Becta, The British Library and several other key bodies. The purpose of the SCA is to identify and remove the barriers to public engagement with e-content, which includes digitised records, images, text and many other forms of media and information. See: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/eresources/contentalliance.aspx This online survey is being managed by DJS Research, an independent research agency. See: www.djsresearch.com/<http://www.djsresearch.com/> To fill out the questionnaire click here <http://surveys.omni-web.co.uk/test.aspx?sid=7cd13b56-d66e-47e3-9cd7-539c177e28a5&id=1> or copy the link below into your web browser: http://surveys.omni-web.co.uk/start.aspx?sid=5DZ6VD Nick Poole Chief Executive Collections Trust Registered offices: 22 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1JP Registered Charity no. 273984 Telephone (switchboard): 01223 316 028 www.collectionstrust.org.uk www.collectionslink.org.uk www.culturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk www.discs-uk.info ************************************************** For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk **************************************************