RSLP Call for Proposals
RSLP Circular 1999/3

Annexe A

Background to the Programme and the RSLP Vision

A Background

The Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) derives from the deliberations of the Follett Review (1993)¹ and the associated Anderson Report (1996) ². It brings together both traditional and new forms of access to library information, with specific reference to support for research. The principal beneficiaries of the Programme will be researchers employed in UK HEIs and their postgraduate research students, though there will be significant benefits for other groups. Implementation of this strategy meets directly, in a library context, the call for collaboration and sharing in the use of the research infrastructure envisaged more generally by the Dearing and Garrick reports.

B Vision

B.1 The Overarching Vision

The overarching vision of the Research Support Libraries Programme is to facilitate the best possible arrangements for research support in UK libraries by taking proactive steps to:

• Sustain and enhance personal access to research resources

• Extend collaborative arrangements for collection management

• Increase availability of information about the location of the UK’s rich information resources

• Improve ability to navigate around important collections

• Provide new technological and organisational arrangements to support the strategy

B.2 The Distributed National Resource

Within the library and information domain, with increased pressure on resources and the shift from holdings to access policies in many libraries, there is an increasing awareness and acceptance that co-operation and resource-sharing is in the interests of all libraries and their users. IT developments, in particular, have assisted libraries in providing easily accessible and greatly enhanced information about collections and their availability through online catalogues and other means.

The Anderson Report promoted the concept of a Distributed National Resource (DNR) in particular groups of disciplines or types of materials. The development of the DNR necessarily involves collaborative work of a national, regional and cross-sectoral nature, as appropriate. The concept of the Distributed National Resource has achieved a strong acceptance in the library community, and collaborative cross-sectoral work which will contribute to its development has begun to feature on the agenda of other funding agencies. A major thrust of the Research Support Libraries Programme is therefore to encourage Higher Education institutions to work consortially and with the national libraries, other research libraries and public libraries in order to move towards this vision.

1. [Follett Report] Joint funding councils’ libraries review. Joint Funding Councils’ Libraries Review Group: report (1993). Available at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/papers/follett/report/.

2. [Anderson Report] Joint funding councils’ libraries review. Report of the Group on a National/ Regional Strategy for Library Provision for Researchers (1996).
   Available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Research/Initiats/.

• To rest of Circular 1999/03

Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 14 December 1999