**apologies for cross-posting**
BL/HE Task Force announcement
The British Library and the UK Higher Education sector have
a mutual interest in closer strategic collaboration.
Supported by the British Library Chairman, John Ashworth
and the Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding
Council for England, Sir Brian Fender, a Task Force has
been set up which now embraces all UK Higher Education.
Building on a history of collaborative discussion, eg
between JISC and the British Library, the Task Force aims
for specific initiatives for mutual benefit, in line with
the British Library's increasing strategic emphasis on
collaboration to deliver its objectives.
Membership includes for the British Library: Brian Lang,
Lynne Brindley, David Bradbury, Geoff Smith and Malcolm
Smith, and for Higher Education Mary Auckland, Reg Carr,
Lorcan Dempsey, Paul Hubbard, Mike Hopkins, Nigel
Macartney, Ronald Milne, Ian Mowat, Charles Oppenheim,
Malcolm Read and Alicia Wise.
The Task Force believes that strategic collaboration will
bring benefit to both parties, and will allow the national
higher educational needs for research, learning and
outreach to be met in the most coherent and cost-effective
manner possible.
To that end the BL and HE have each agreed £50,000 funding
contributions to initiate a practical agenda starting with
the three areas below.
The first area is that of potential mechanisms for
coordinating the development of a distributed national
collection of library research resources, including the
need for, and feasibility of, the creation of a national
body for this purpose. The study is being carried out by
Margaret Wallis and Nick Moore for the Information Strategy
Research Unit at the School of Information Management,
University of Brighton.
The second area will be a study of the relationship between
the British Library's and Higher Education libraries'
objectives, leading to the development of high level
performance measures of the British Library's contribution
to the HE sector.
The third area will be an examination of the way in which
the British Library and Higher Education inter-lending and
document supply services currently inter-relate, and how
the system of mutual support can be improved. There will
be discussions with SCONUL, CURL, COPAC, LAMDA and others
about the scope for greater collaboration.
The Task Force has also considered other matters, such as
the contribution of the National Preservation Office to
BL/HE collaboration, and would welcome suggestions from the
HE sector of other areas where closer strategic
collaboration is felt to be important.
Contact names are:
Geoff Smith, Director of the British Library's Co-operation
and Partnership Programme, email [log in to unmask], for the
British Library, and Joanna Harrison email
[log in to unmask] for UK Higher Education.
[David Bradbury
23 February 2000]
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Dr. Alicia Wise
JISC Collections Manager
Old Library
King's College London
Strand, London WC2R 2LS
[log in to unmask]
(020) 7848 2938 office
(020) 7848 2556 direct line
(020) 7848 2939 fax
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