I’ve already blogged about the LIBER meeting last week, but TDM is now a central part of my raison d’etre and there is going to be a lot on this blog. I’m close to announcing the first alpha release of our software and our BBRSC project with Bath, Matt Wills, and Ross Mounce started this week. I will be working with Ross tomorrow and probably hack some of the docs.
Meanwhile here is Paul Ayris’ report: http://www.libereurope.eu/blog/the-perfect-swell-at-the-british-library. Paul is Head librarian at UCL – he has been on the advisory group of some of our JISC projects – and he’s President of LIBER – the European library association that ran the meeting. Here’s his conclusions:
A panel session at the end of the day enabled the whole audience to discuss the points made during the formal presentations. No-one doubted the importance of the role of TDM for the future of European research and commercial competitiveness. As chair of the panel session, I attempted to summarise the findings of the day around the following points:
1. TDM is important for Europe and the European Research Area;
2. Copyright reform is required, in both the EU Copyright and Database Directives, to give a level of surety to researchers to enable them to pursue TDM;
3. A Fair Dealing Exception for the purposes of research was widely regarded as a helpful way forward;
4. Should such an Exception embrace commercial activity too? During the day, startup companies had emphasised the importance of TDM for their competitiveness;
5. Copyright reform will take time. What is needed is something more immediate, and the Horizon 2020 funding programme should be used to test what needs to be done in EU copyright legislative reform through innovative, exemplar projects;
6. A report of the day, along with a link to the video recordings, will be sent to the Commission: DG Connect, DG Research, DG Education and Culture, and DG Internal Market.
Yes. There is no doubt we are in a fight. If we don’t fight, we will be overwhelmed by the devices of the publishing industry. They will look reasonable to politicians and publishers have huge amounts of money (from us) to spend on lobbyists. This is the first time I have really got a window on politics and it’s awful what is happening.
So join our effort. There’s a need for advocacy, and a need to build an open toolkit and protocol that is overwhelmingly better than what the publishers provide (or rather don’t provide) at the moment . It takes energy and commitment.
Yours.
PS:
Special thanks should go to Susan Reilly in the LIBER Office for leading on TDM issues, and for organising such an important and high profile Workshop in LIBER’s name.
Yes, Susan, a great meeting and look forward to the report.