Relieving the pressure for librarians with digitisation
The
pressure facing today’s university librarians is perhaps reflected by those
working in the same roles in local government. The latest report by Unison
— Under Pressure, Underfunded and Undervalued, which polled librarians,
teaching assistants and carers from across the UK — found that 75 per cent of
respondents said workload and pressure have increased in the last 12 months,
while nearly two thirds (63 per cent) believe morale has declined.
One
area that has increased pressure on librarians is digitisation, a vital service
offered by many facilities up and down the country. Over the last twenty years,
higher education institutions (HEIs) have been met with this challenge, with
the volume of scans and number of requests soaring. As a result, digitisation
has had a significant impact on the workload and workflows of librarians.
Digitizing
reading materials makes them more accessible to both academics and students and
means that library resources can more effectively support the needs of
students. The digitisation service operates under the Copyright Licensing
Agency's (CLA) Higher Education Licence for photocopying and scanning. Any
scans taken have to be copies of original text owned by the university, or be a
copyright fee paid copy of a chapter/article supplied by an organisation
holding a document delivery licence with CLA, such as the British Library. This
task has fallen to HE librarians who have had to adjust their previous
workflows dramatically in order to meet the never-ending demand for content.
In
an effort to overcome this challenge, some of the country’s top universities
have been trialling a new solution that could revolutionize the entire
digitisation system.
Middlesex
University is one of the country’s universities that has been using the new
web-based hosted solution, the Digital Content Store (DCS).
The
DCS platform, developed by the CLA, in conjunction with software expert Cloud
spring Technologies, was designed to simplify the current labour intensive
process associated with declaring digital copies and scans to the CLA. The DCS
enables users to research, record and monitor all digital book chapters and
journal articles in a bid to help all HEIs reduce the risk and potential cost
of copyright infringement.
The
DCS can be used in any browser; lists of requests from academics and lecturers
can be uploaded to the system and searched for on the bibliographical database.
This search includes a series of automated checks, confirming whether the book
or article is included in the CLA repertoire, to checking the extent limit by
calculating the percentage of the book being used. The DCS can also connect to
the institution’s library management system to determine whether the specific
book or journal is held in the library catalogue and check the ownership, which
is a requirement of the licence.
While
the pressures facing librarians working in HEIs may be greater than ever, there
are technological solutions that have been designed specifically to ease the
burden. Digitisation is one of the many elements involved in the day to day
running of a library, but with the collaborative efforts of several
universities and the CLA, all academics and students can now be copyright
compliant and the working life of a university librarian just got one step
easier.
Source | http://www.itproportal.com/features/relieving-the-pressure-for-librarians-with-digitisation/
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
Note | If anybody use these post for forwarding
in any social media coverage or covering in the Newsletter please give due
credit to those who are taking efforts for the same.
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