Meeting Minutes

Present: Mary Davies (Chair), Penny Dade, Adam Edwards, Brian Murphy, Fiona O’Brien, Ann Sainsbury, Christine Wise (Secretary)

None.

These were accepted as a true record.

In relation to the MLA Review, MD had been advised by Graham Fisher, Chief Executive of ALM London, that consultation meetings on the review were being held and would be widely advertised.

FOB noted that a discussion paper on this issue would follow in due course. [Secretary’s note: this draft paper has now been circulated by FOB to all Working Group members, and the text of this minute is reproduced from that paper].

"Libraries and Learner in London, which allows members of a public library to have referred access to HE and special libraries, has been operating in the capital for approximately two years. The scheme allows a person a single reference only visit to one of the member HE or specialist libraries. Recent feedback has demonstrated that the scheme has not yet resulted in the heavy traffic anticipated in the HE or special libraries at the outset.

In addition to other existing local arrangements elsewhere in the country, the LLiL model has now been taken up by Inspire (sponsored by SCONUL and SCL, the Society of Chief Librarians), which last year piloted two projects funded by the DfES and MLA in the West Midlands and the North West. Inspire is now set to expand under Framework for the Future (the DCMS policy for public libraries) as a national offer and London is represented on the National Steering Group for this work.

Inspire aims to be as inclusive as possible and will use a kite mark to signal that a library complies with the minimum standard required. The kite mark provides a coherent "national offer" for learners and libraries alike:

• As a minimum, library users should have reference access
• Library service plans should reflect commitment to co-operative working with Inspire partners
• Inspire is publicised within the library and information services and to the wider community
• Collection strengths promoted via the Inspire web site
• Monitoring Inspire usage to demonstrate impact by gathering statistics and/or written comment or verbal feedback is required
• All staff receive information about Inspire
• Selected staff receive in-depth Inspire training
• Trained staff ensure the Inspire list of collection strengths is promoted as an additional resources
• Inspire included in induction and update training
• Trained staff cascade training

Following discussion with the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries Collaboration & Partnership Working Group, the following queries were raised:

• Should Inspire in London be made available to over 18s only because of insurance, copyright licensing and film and video classification concerns?
• Should a limit of, say, one month or three months, be placed on non-formal Inspire learners - enough time for them to ascertain that the collection can help them and then for relevant institutions to offer them a (payable) external membership, if available?
• Should referrals now be allowed by non-public librarians into HE and specialist libraries, eg, by FE librarians? Bearing in mind that any learner, even if a registered student can gain access through LLiL by not declaring their status.
• Should referrals of FE learners be limited in comparison to other users of the scheme, say, up to three visits?

The collection strengths data for London is currently held in the printed LLiL manual (for public libraries this is complete) and through Find a Library on the M25 Consortium website - these are key elements of the national offer to enable both readers and librarians to locate appropriate collections.

Enquiries via the London libraries and WiLL website also indicate that online users are often keen to locate collections in a particular subject. In April 2005, after job seekers and advertisers, people looking for study space and particular subject collections were the most common enquirers, from which it might be deduced this information is not readily available elsewhere on a pan-London basis.

It has also been commented that such a service would fit well with the Common Information Environment, http://www.common-info.org.uk/index.shtml acting as an initial filter for searchers online.

At the January 2005 meeting of the Inspire Steering Group it was agreed that collection strengths data would be best compiled at a regional level using common standards and software to enable interoperability via the inspire website. The question remained which software and what standards.

A meeting hosted by MLA in March 2005 included representatives from UKOLN, MLA, The British Library (Cecilia), LLDA, LIEM (formerly EMRLS), Orangeleaf (software developers), as well as Sally Curry, National Partnerships Manager for Inspire and looked at how Cornucopia, an MLA database originally designed to hold museums data, could be deployed for library information.

Cornucopia, http://www.cornucopia.org.uk, is currently aimed at professional users rather than the general public and but does contain library data from the CROSSROADS project in the West Midlands. In addition, another cross-sectoral library collections mapping project, the DIADEM project in the East Midlands, is committed to using Cornucopia.

At the Inspire Steering Group meeting on 20 April 2005, we were informed that MLA have asked each regional agency to undertake regional collection mapping this year and that Cornucopia will be the repository for this collection level information, thus beginning a national and cross-domain dataset. It was agreed by the Steering Group that Cornucopia would be used to store data for Inspire.

It had already been the LLDA’s intention to collate cross-sectoral library data using the WiLL database which currently holds public library branch data but the latter has proved to be less robust than originally thought.

Further Education, Voluntary Sector and other not-for-profit libraries have also expressed an interest in having a presence on the London Libraries website. (A number of FE and health libraries in London are also interested in becoming involved with Inspire). We are also aware that at the moment there is more information about special libraries on the LLiL pages than on the specialist library section of the main site. Currently these pages are maintained separately and have duplicate entries in some cases. We see a common database as a way of collating and maintaining data about London’s library collections as a more efficient way of publishing to the web and allowing contributing libraries to maintain their own data. It is our understanding also that by holding the data within Cornucopia it will be possible to publish many times,

The M25 Consortium Collaboration & Partnership Working Group asked whether there would be licensing costs involved in using Cornucopia and how duplication of data could be minimised. There were also queries relating to AIM25, MASC25 and ARLIS. And the costs of migrating these to Cornucopia - does MLA have funding to do this? How will the Cornucopia dataset be maintained and by whom?

The LLDA is also considering, subject to funding, a re-design of the London Libraries website that would change the focus from the types of library represented on the site to a navigation based on what a user might want to do.

This might include (illustrative only):

Find a library - by sector and

• By location
• With WFI
• With study spaces
• Where I can plug in my laptop/PDA

Find a collection in a given subject:

• London Cornucopia/regional/national Cornucopia
• Catalogues - WiLL, Inform25, BL, Voluntary Sector
• Named special collections

Learning opportunities:

• Under fives
• Homework Clubs
• Basic skills
• FE
• HE
• ICT/Learndirect

Local and family history

Reading choices

Multimedia collections

Information

• Business information
• IAC

In this scenario, we would "hide" the existing LLiL administration pages from the public website and provide a pathway through that would enable the user to say who they are (eg, if a student direct them to appropriate schemes), locate what they are interested in and be told at that point any access conditions that might apply. As with the main London Libraries site we would remove the distinction as to the type of library and the administrative information is retained on the main http://www.inspire.gov.uk website. This may be more in line with the re-engineering of learning services to support lifelong learning than the sector approach we have currently.

At the Inspire Steering Group meeting held 20 April 2005 we agreed a name for the national public website but this domain name is not available but a public site, with its own name will be set up as a priority. Any London data would also contribute to that."

MD thanked FOB for her presentation.

AS reported that she had submitted a report on behalf of the M25 Consortium to the last ALCL meeting, which she had not been able to attend. This report had mentioned inter alia the SCONUL Research Xtra and UK Libraries Plus schemes. Adie Batt of Croydon was the new ALCL Chair.

MD reported that Geoffrey Bond, a Trustee of ALM London, had been appointed Chair, and that the MLA Review process was continuing, with consultations ongoing.

BM reported that he had recently attended a focus group meeting at the British Library.

In order continue to develop the mutually beneficial dialogue with the British Library, Working Group members agreed that it would be helpful for MD to raise the matter of British Library representation at the M25 Consortium Steering Group. ACTION MD

MD continued to liaise with Peter Griffiths regarding topics of mutual interest.

A further joint HE/FE seminar would be held on Monday 25 July 2005 at the British Library Conference Centre, with the general theme of "aim higher". FOB was currently investigating detailed topics and speakers.

FOB reported on a number of key current initiatives.

Michael Clark had taken up the post of Director of LLDA on 4 April 2005.

Jemima Jones was working with Richard Osborn on the Workforce Development Confederation for Health to develop a model for information provision. (Further information on this initiative is available from http://www.nationalworkforce.nhs.uk/index.php).

Two reader promotions were forthcoming: Magical Tales, in May 2005; and Passport to Murder.

The London Portal continued under development and would formally be launched in the City of London in July 2005.

MD would invite a representative from London Higher to give a presentation at the next Working Group meeting. ACTION MD

AE continued to monitor developments in this area. He had conducted an exercise to map the key objectives of the NOWAL business plan against those of the M25 Consortium, and would continue this exercise with available documents for other regional library consortia.

CW continued to maintain a watching brief on RLN developments.

MD introduced the draft Action Plan 2005-2006 which she had prepared on behalf of the Working Group. She reported that the M25 Consortium Steering Group would be introducing new formats for the strategic and operational plans, and that the presentation of the draft Action Plan 2005-2006 could alter.

In discussion, Working Group members suggested that references could be included to relationships with organisations and strategic business such as Inspire, Routes to Knowledge, economic impact analysis with ALM London.

MD thanked Working Group members for their contributions and indicated that she would be glad to receive further contributions.

Nothing to report on this matter, pending the current review of the M25 Consortium’s membership categories, to be discussed at the forthcoming M25 Consortium AGM on 10 June 2005.

There was nothing to report.

[Secretary’s note: following discussion at the meeting, the date of the next meeting was subsequently confirmed as Wednesday 22 June 2005, at Senate House Library, University of London].

Christine Wise, Secretary to M25 Collaboration & Partnership Working Group

June 2005