Using collaborative projects to improve access, availability and services

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Using collaborative projects to improve access,
availability and services

• Dr. Hazel Woodward
• University Librarian Director of Cranfield
  University Press

Partnerships, Consortia 21st Century Library
Services, 23rd IATUL Conference, Kansas City,
USA, 2-6 June, 2002
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LOCATION
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ACTIVITIES Scope and Scale
Silsoe
Cranfield
Shrivenham

• Bioscience technology
• Agriculture, engineering food technology
• Water environmental management
• Land use the environment

• Aerospace
• Engineering
• Industrial manufacturing science
• Management

• Electronics electro-optics
• Mechanical, materials civil engineering
• Computing and IT
• Applied mathematics
• Defence management

• 10

• 25

• 65

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EURILIA EURopean Initiative on Libraries and
Information in Aerospace

• Three year project 1995-1997
• Funded by EC Action Programme for Libraries
• Project partners
• Cranfield University (UK)
• University of Limerick (Ireland)
• Technical University of Delft TUD (Netherlands)
• Digital Equipment Corporation (Netherlands)
• SupAero (France)
• Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial (Spain)

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Aims of EURILIA

• To develop a new pan-European service to extend
  access to, and availability of, major aerospace
  collections via participating library OPACs
• To develop a multi-site, multi-country document
  retrieval and delivery system, with a standard
  user-interface and including facilities for image
  browsing

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Main results of EURILIA

• Z39.50 access to the OPACS of all participating
  libraries
• Access to the full image of over 200 of
  Cranfields aerospace theses
• Internet links to relevant elements of the
  ESA/NASA aerospace thesaurus
• Development of software to manage a multi-site,
  multi-country document delivery system
• Analysis of different document delivery pricing
  systems to minimise cost and maximise benefit
• Pre- and post-EURILIA user studies to determine
  user perception and commercial viability

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AIM-UK Aerospace Information Management

• An investigation into the effectiveness of
  information management processes with the UK
  aerospace industry
• 1996-98
• Funded by the (UK) Department of Trade and
  Industry (DTI) and supported by the Society of
  British Aerospace Companies
• Based on interviews with over 400 senior managers
  and aerospace engineers and scientists engaged in
  aerospace research and development

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AIM-UK findings (1)

• Nearly half of senior managers regard their
  information systems as ineffective
• Existing IT infrastructure were inadequate,
  desktop access is far from universal, and
  seamless user-friendly access to internal and
  external information resources is required
• Security issues are inhibiting access

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AIM-UK findings (2)

• Ineffective project close-down procedures and an
  over dependence on the knowledge in peoples
  hands constrains the exploitation of knowledge
  assets and information
• There is a huge amount of scientific and
  technological information generated by the sector
  which is difficult to retrieve and considerable
  caution is exercised by companies in releasing
  information to external bodies

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AIM-UK Key Recommendations

• production of a comprehensive directory of
  aerospace information resources
• development of a current awareness service
• establishment of a database or network of
  interconnected databases to facilitate remote
  access to key collections
• the development of an aerospace and defence
  subject gateway to quality information resources
  on the Internet
• the development of a research skills training
  course
• AIM-EU Project started 2001

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The Resource Discovery Network (RDN)

• Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee
  (JISC)
• Free Internet service dedicated to providing
  effective access to high quality Internet
  resources for the learning teaching and research
  community
• Data provided by five hubs
• BIOME Health Life Sciences
• EEVL Engineering, Mathematics Computing
• Humbul Humanities
• PSIgate Physical Sciences
• SOSIG Social Sciences, Business Law

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MAGiC Managing Access to Grey Literature
Collections

• Aims objectives
• To enhance awareness, access and use of key
  collections of technical reports (grey
  literature) for the benefit of UK engineers and
  UK plc.
• Collection development and management
• Improving the visibility of key collections
• Enhancing access via electronic storage and
  document supply

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MAGiC Partners

• Cranfield University (lead partner)
• British Library Document Supply Centre
• DSTL (formerly DERA)
• Loughborough University, Dept of Information
  Science
• The Public Records Office
• SIRSI Limited

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MAGiC - Progress to date

• Assessment of the use and value of engineering
  grey literature
• literature review
• online use/value questionnaire
• Mapping collection management
• Mapping collections
• preliminary reports holdings questionnaire
• preliminary reports producers questionnaire
• Collection analysis methodology
• quantitative indicators
• qualitative indicators
• use of electronic discussion forums

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MAGiC - Progress to date

• National Reports Catalogue (NRC)
• Options for the NRC Z39.50
• academic libraries, BL PRO
• libraries in government and industry
• does nothing for collection rationalisation
• concerns over unresolved technical and
  performance issues associated with distributed
  searching

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MAGiC - Progress to date

• National Reports Catalogue
• Options for the NRC local database metadata
  harvesting
• Open Archives Initiative
• facilitate collection rationalisation
• consistent resource descriptions
• metadata without constraints of MARC
• Interoperability via Z39.50 and OAI-compliance

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MAGiC - Progress to date

• Full text archive
• Digitisation
• Options
• ARC Reports Memoranda
• Investigate document supply options
• Widening coverage/expanded detail
• NACA reports
• AIM-EU

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The MAGiC demonstrator service

• METReS
• (http//magic-reports.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/)

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Benefits and outcomes of collaborative projects

• Enhanced online access to bibliographic
  information, and increasingly full text
  electronic resources, across institutions
• Increased visibility and awareness of collections
  (particularly grey literature)
• Enhanced access to printed materials via partner
  initiated document delivery services
• Increased understanding of collection management
  and collection analysis methodology

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Benefits and outcomes - continued

• Skills improvement in partner institutions
  leading to improvements in local services
• Better understanding of user needs leading to
  development of user friendly interfaces and
  content aggregation
• Raising the profile of partner institutions
  locally, nationally, internationally
• Marketing, public relations, branding of services

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• Thank you for your attention
• Any questions?