HAERVI Project

1 October, 2006

Solutions may soon be found for the incompatibilities that arise in the UK when someone engaged in higher education (HE) visits another HE institution and wishes to use digital information resources. All too often such a simple scenario produces intractable legal, technical and administrative complications.

Aiming to analyse and solve such problems, a new joint project was launched on 1 October by SCONUL (www.sconul.ac.uk) and UCISA (www.ucisa.ac.uk). The two associations represent, respectively, the directors of library services and the directors of information systems and services in UK higher education. Both associations have a professional interest in facilitating access to digital information. Using funds provided by JISC (www.jisc.ac.uk) the project will produce a toolkit for all UK institutions of higher education to use. The project runs until May next year, and the Project Officer has just been appointed to carry out the work. He is Paul Salotti, a consultant who until recently was Director of the University Computing Service at Newcastle University.