APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING

For Immediate Release
Contact: Emma Wright

020 7273 1459



Resource Welcomes Fiftieth Member of Online Education Initiative


London, 13 June 2001 - Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and
Libraries welcomes the announcement that BBC Factual and Learning has become
the fiftieth organisation to sign up to the Metadata for Education Group
(MEG) Concord, a Resource-funded initiative that enables the public to
access a wide variety of learning resources on the Internet.

        MEG is a collaborative project including Resource; the University
for Industry (UfI); the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the
National Grid for Learning (NGfL); Scottish Cultural Resources Access
Network (SCRAN) and the Education Department of the Scottish Executive.  The
key aim of the project is to develop a common, user-focussed approach to
describing educational content online.  To achieve this aim, a standard
means of describing educational material will be devised so that content can
easily be located on the web by teachers, pupils, and lifelong learners.

        David Dawson, Resource Senior ICT Adviser, commented:  "I am
delighted that BBC Factual and Learning has become the fiftieth signatory to
the MEG Concord.  This represents a significant development in the creation
of UK-wide standards to describe educational materials on the Internet.

        "Initiatives such as the New Opportunities Fund Digitisation
programme and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Culture Online
project are enabling cultural organisations to create new and exciting
digital learning resources.  MEG is leading the way in ensuring that
learners of all ages and from all walks of life will be able to access this
material quickly and easily over the web."

Paul Miller, Interoperability Focus at UKOLN, and facilitator of the MEG
initiative, said:  "I welcome BBC Factual and Learning to the group of
organisations supporting MEG. They represent an important addition to this
work, with their world-class expertise in the area of content creation and
delivery to the learner."


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Notes to Editors:

For further information or to interview David Dawson, please contact Emma
Wright, Press Officer, on 020 7273 1459.

The project is being facilitated by Paul Miller of the UK Office of Library
and Information Networking (UKOLN). The UKOLN website is at www.ukoln.ac.uk

Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries is a strategic
agency working with and on behalf of museums, archives and libraries.  It
replaced the Museums & Galleries Commission and the Library & Information
Commission in April 2000.

Resource has three main objectives, to provide strategy, advocacy and
advice.  The organisation undertakes work in all three of these areas to
improve the context in which museums, archives and libraries operate and to
improve services for users and potential users.

The Resource website can be found at www.resource.gov.uk.

Full text of the Metadata for Education Group Concord can be found on the
Internet at www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/documents/concord.html.


21/01



Emma Wright
Press Officer
Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries
16 Queen Anne's Gate
London  SW1H 9AA
Tel: 020 7273 1459 - directline
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: www.resource.gov.uk
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