Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 17:55:37 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun@mssrf.res.in> Digitizing what researchers need JISC and CURL have released a report, Digitisation in the UK: The Case for a UK Framework. Excerpt from the executive summary: In just a handful of years, an enormous amount of richly detailed and flexible digital material has been amassed in the UK as technology has expanded to make it possible: a conservative estimate suggests �130 million of public money has been spent on the creation of digital content since the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, this growth has been as unstructured as it has been phenomenal, and the material has accumulated in the absence of a UK framework for digitisation to advise on content, standards and sustainability, rather than in response to one....Moreover, digital projects have tended to be driven by supply rather than demand, spurred by opportunity instead of actual need. A wealth of material in museums, libraries, archives and journals remains undigitised, despite the pressing need to sustain the momentum, to continue to create resources of increasing value and comprehensiveness for the end user. The very existence of powerful search facilities is changing users' behaviour and expectations. Future digitisation programmes must respond to this and need to be more clearly informed by researchers' needs....In 2005, JISC and the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) commissioned Loughborough University to undertake an in-depth investigation into the current state of digitisation in the UK, and this document draws on its findings....Loughborough's research uncovered deep fragmentation in all components of the digitisation infrastructure: the records of available material, the provision of e-resources for different disciplines, the metadata and standards used, the advisory and support services, the availability of funding, the differing priorities of funders, and variable hosting, delivery and authentication methods. Yet the very interconnectedness of the elements of the digitisation process, where each impacts on the other, makes it both easier and more essential to place them within a framework which can make formal links that resonate across all operations. All shortcomings identified in Loughborough's study can therefore begin to be addressed, from inadequate metadata to lack of collaboration, by uniting the various sectors through a UK framework for digitisation. A UKwide strategy would assist in filling gaps in provision, cut across the efforts of individual funders and digitising organisations, reduce overlaps between support services and assist in the provision, take up and use of resources. Fears that any such 'nationalisation' might stifle local innovation can be allayed by emphasising the flexible nature of the framework we envisage; one which would issue clear guidelines rather than prescriptive demands, which would draw up 'gold standards' to be regularly reviewed. Such a framework, then, should be coordinated and distributed, rather than centralised, and ensure effective networking of expertise across different sectors. Also see the JISC press release (November 24, 2005).