JISC

Public sector risks being left behind in information revolution, says new report

24 November, 2005. Although around £130m of public money has been spent on the creation of digital content since the mid-1990s, public sector digitisation programmes have been unstructured, piecemeal and fragmented. In contrast, Google’s Print Library Project, which aims to digitise huge quantities of books from some of the world’s leading libraries, “portends a revolution” in the world of information provision in which the public sector risks being left behind. 

So says a report published today, which calls for “a dynamic response” from public sector organisations to meet these challenges. The report, commissioned on behalf of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles) and based on research undertaken at Loughborough University, also recommends the creation of a UK-wide strategy to avoid the duplication, gaps in provision and lack of coordination that have hampered public sector efforts in this area. 

In spite of such findings, however, the report also points to the “phenomenal” growth in the “richly detailed and flexible material” that publicly-funded digitisation programmes have been responsible for in the last ten years. “Digital resources are now available to enrich educational experiences at all stages of the learning journey,” says the report, “from formalised lessons in the primary classroom to the lifelong learner’s casual browsing at home.” 

In order to maximise continuing public sector investment in digitisation, however, the report recommends the setting up of a UK task force to set clear guidelines on standards and to coordinate a national e-content strategy. The development of a single point of access to the range of services, information sources and funding streams on offer would also, the report continues, bring much-needed coordination to national efforts. Finally, the report recommends that greater attention be paid to the needs of users, which, it says, “are still not fully understood.” Gaps in provision, such as those in science and the social sciences can be filled through consultation with the relevant scholarly, subject, professional and research bodies, the report concludes. 

Stuart Dempster, JISC’s Digitisation programme manager, said: “This is the first attempt from a national perspective to stand back and look at what we have achieved over the last ten years in the digitisation field. While the report points to the work that needs to be done, it also highlights the importance of digitised resources to a range of sectors, including education and research. JISC looks forward to playing its part in taking the report’s recommendations forward in collaboration with the EU Dynamic Action Plan.” 

Jean Sykes, Librarian and Director of IT services at LSE, and Chair of the JISC Digitisation working group which is currently overseeing a £10m programme, said: “Some excellent digital materials have been created in the last ten years and many information seekers are already benefiting from them.  But now it is time to pull things together and embark on a unified UK-wide strategy for the next generation of digital resources.” 

JISC and CURL look forward to working in partnership to help resolve the issues raised in the Loughborough study and highlighted in the subsequent report. 

To access the full report please go to:  Full report 

For further information, please contact:

• Philip Pothen (JISC)
• Robin Green (CURL) on  0121 415 8106 or robin.green@curl.ac.uk