Library
and Information Commission (1999)The LIC (Library and Information Commission) was set up in 1995 by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It was a national source of expertise, advising Government on all issues relating to the library and information sector. (In 2000 the LIC was replaced by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Resource was later renamed the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) before being abolished in 2012, when its functions were transferred to the Arts Council England and the National Archives.)
UKOLN prepared the following documents for web access and hosts them on behalf of the Library and Information Commission.
In 1999, the Library and Information Commission and Share the Vision began a programme of work, funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, to improve access to library and information services for visually impaired people.
The programme identified a number of key areas and commissioned projects to address the issues raised. A major area was the need to identify the scarce and widely scattered resources in accessible formats. Visually impaired people have the same need for information and intellectual stimulation as the rest of the population but have difficulty in accessing the intellectual content in standard print. With only five per cent of the hundred thousand new British titles published each year converted into one or more of the accessible formats, a union catalogue is a key tool in identifying which titles have been converted, into which formats, and where they are held.
To address this, Project One concerned the development and maintenance of the National Union Catalogue of Alternative Formats (NUCAF), created by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). Within Project One, UKOLN was commisioned to review the role of NUCAF and make recommendations on its future development, and to provide a technical specification of the metadata requirements of the resource.
The report was submitted to the steering committee for the programme in January 2000 and the recommendations accepted. A briefing paper on the proposed new resource - the Reveal database - has also been issued. The full text of the report and the briefing paper are available in Word7 and pdf formats.
The British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme funded a Feasibility Study on Reveal. The study was carried out by a partnership of NLB, RNIB, UKOLN and an independent library consultant between May and September 2000. An edited version of the report and an accompanying study evaluation report are available in Word7 (and will be available in pdf format shortly).
Project One part A: The future role of NUCAF and a technical specification of
the metadata requirements.
Report to the Steering Committee by Ann Chapman.
Word7 pdf
REVEAL: the National Database of Resources in Accessible Formats: a briefing
paper
By Ann Chapman
Word7 pdf
Developing a national database of resources in accessible formats: a
feasibility study
Report to the BL CPP and the Reveal Development Steering Committee by Ann Chapman
Word7
pdf
Evaluation report on the Feasibility Study
By the Feasibility Study Team and David Owen
Word7
pdf
Maintained by UKOLN on behalf of the Library and Information
Commission.
Last updated on 08-Dec-2000
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