SCONUL: Government Must Implement Measures in Hargreaves Review

19 May, 2011

The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) has today responded to the independent report by Ian Hargreaves on intellectual property Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth.

SCONUL welcomes the Review's proposals for a simplified licensing market to free up innovative digital businesses. It also supports calls for exceptions to be made for archival copying and for measures to be introduced to free up "orphan works" copyright works whose author cannot be found.

Ann Rossiter, Executive Director at SCONUL said:

'SCONUL is delighted with the proposals in this Review, many of which are vital to improve the UK's international competitiveness. Access to digital academic and scientific content is essential for a successful UK research community. We therefore support measures in this Review to allow researchers to use this material more freely.

'These proposals would also greatly benefit the ongoing process of digitisation occurring in our libraries. This is itself essential for the digital preservation of the UK's cultural and scientific output. The Government must now implement these measures without delay.'

David Ball, Head of Academic Development Services at Bournemouth University said:

'The current system for dealing with "orphan works" is outdated, so it is encouraging that this Review has acknowledged the need to address this. The Review is also right to propose enabling researchers to use data and text mining more freely. This is likely to improve research outputs significantly.'


Notes to editor

For more information contact John Hood on 0207 089 2084 or john@linstockcommunications.com