Tilting at windmills: BLDSC and the UK higher education community

Abstract

Purpose-To provide an overview of, the relationship between the British Library and higher education libraries in the 1990s, with particular relation to document supply. It also goes on to explore current developments in scholarly communication. Design/methodology/approach-The author played a role in several of the events described and uses the available literature to enlarge on a personal view of that decade. Findings-The paper shows that the relationship was a strained one caused in part by a mismatch of resources, but is in any case dwarfed by the larger external forces and changing opportunities and technologies for scholarly communication. Originality/value-Provides a record of the period.

Document supply and open access: an international survey on grey literature

“…Projects in the area of grey literature and OA projects The British Library contributes to OA projects mainly through the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP), which indicates improved relationships with the UK higher education community (Law, 2004;Ceeney, 2004); one pilot project was the MAGiC cooperation with Cranfield University on scientific and technical reports (Needham, 2002). The British Library is working with higher education institutions on the "Electronic Theses Online Service" (ETHoS) [13], to develop an infrastructure to enable fulltext electronic access for researchers.…”

Interlending and document supply: a review of the recent literature – 52

“…The need to educate the next generation of library leaders comes from Bill Arms -professor at Cornell (Arms, 2005). A penetrating and typically controversial piece describes the often tense relationship between the British Library and the UK Higher Education community (Law, 2005). One of the world's outstanding practitioners in the field of bibliometrics highlights Maurice's important contributions to the field (Meadows, 2005).…”