University of Wales, Aberystwyth Progress Report 2001

Institution

Department of information and Library Studies
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK
Aberystwyth,  SY23 3AS  United Kingdom

ELAG Contact Person:
Ms. Lucy Tedd (Lecturer) , lat@aber.ac.uk , phone:+44 1970 622168 , fax:+44 1970 622190

Institution Type: Other

Important projects

I last "reported" at an ELAG meeting in 1994 when I described the forthcoming eLib (Electronic Libraries) Programme for UK Higher Education. In 2001 I plan to provide a brief review of this programme and to describe another UK development, namely the People's Network, which is involved with the provision of Internet access in public libraries. Finally I will describe some relevant work with which I, and my department, has been involved concerning the training of library and information professionals.

In 1993 a major review of library provision in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector was undertaken which resulted in a report, known as the Follett Report. The number of UK HE establishments has grown (currently there are about 160 establishments whereas twenty years ago there were about 60) and also the number of students has greatly increased. The present government in the UK has a major education policy of lifelong learning and hopes that one in two young people will experience a university education; this compares with about one in ten twenty years ago. All this, linked to the rise in the costs of printed materials ( both books and serials) inevitably impacts greatly on the support services, such as information and library services, provided for students. A major conclusion of the Follett Report was "The exploitation of IT is essential to create the effective library service of the future". To expedite this, funding of GBP 15m ( about Euro 24.2 m ) was made available for the eLib Programme which was managed by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the bodies( known as funding councils) that pass the monies from central government to the universities in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. JISC has been involved in providing a number of centralised services, such as the academic network (JANET), BUBL ( earlier known as the Bulletin Board for Libraries), the National Electronic Site Licensing Initiative( NESLI) and now the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) to UK universities. Further details of all of the JISC's activities can be found on its website at www.jisc.ac.uk

The first two phases of eLib (1995-1998) comprised 60 separate projects which covered a variety of areas including access to network resources; digitisation; electronic journals; electronic document delivery; electronic short loan projects; on-demand publishing; preprints and training and awareness. Each project had a number of partners, most of which were HE establishments but some of which came from the publishing field (e.g. Blackwells, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press) as well as hardware/software companies ( e.g. Rank Xerox, Fretwell Downing) and national libraries. The final phase ( 1998-2001) built on the successes of the previous phases and included the following components:

• hybrid libraries. A hybrid library is seen as a bringing together of technologies from electronic/digital library projects around the world, plus the electronic products and services already used in libraries and the historical functions of the local, physical libraries. Projects in this area include BUILDER, HEADLINE, HYLIFE )
• large scale resource discovery ( or clumps). The document delivery projects of eLib identified the problems of knowing which library held which item. Therefore a key area was seen as the development of physical clumps (or what might be called union catalogues) of which the COPAC (Consortium of University Research Libraries or CURL) OPAC is a major example), and virtual clumps ( which make use of the Z39.50 protocol).
• digital preservation. The main project in this area, CEDARS (CURL Examplars in Digital Archives) is investigating the challenges of long term preservation of electronic information.

A personal overview of the eLib Programme is provided by its Director in one of the outcomes of the programme - the electronic journal Ariadne ( see www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue26/chris). Many of the projects have now resulted in services, some of which are freely available and may be( and are) used by library and information professionals worldwide. Full details are given on the eLib website at: www.ukoln.ac.uk/elib.

As part of its commitment to delivering the benefits of lifelong learning to every citizen in the UK the government has resolved to use ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) and public libraries ( of which there are 4,000) to provide access to a range of courses and information. This project, known as the People's Network has also received much funding: GBP200m (or Euro 324m.) for the network, GBP 50m ( or Euro 81m) for content creation and GBP 20m ( or Euro 32m) for training of all staff. Full details of this project can be found at:www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk . In the training section all library staff in the UK are expected to achieve the outcomes developed for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL - for details see www.ecdl.com) . In my department we have been involved in producing a range of open learning materials for use by library staff in further training programmes covering topics such as Access to electronic information sources and services, ICT, literacy and reader development and Training the user in ICT and information skills. These packages have been made available in the Welsh language as well as in English.

Training was seen as an important aspect of the eLib Programme and experiences gained there are being used in the People's Network. With the rapid developments in ICT and their use in libraries such training is, of course, not just needed in UK libraries. In the Slovak Republic, the PROLIB project has involved the training of 180 library and information professionals, using open learning techniques, in a number of modules( including Internet and new IT, Electronic Publishing, Digital Libraries) and my department has been involved in training staff in the development of open learning materials and in advising on the content of some courses. These modules were developed in the Slovak language. Finally, on a wider level, library and information staff in developing countries will be able to benefit from a teaching package on library automation being developed by Unesco in South-East Asia. As one of the so-called" experts" involved in designing that package it was fascinating for me to realise that the needs of librarians in the University of the South Pacific were very similar to those in rural Wales in terms of finding out how to access and search electronic information sources.

Reported by Lucy Tedd <lat@aber.ac.uk>

15.05.2001