University of Derby Electronic Library
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040709 |
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| Pages | 35-42 |
| Author | Andrew Brown |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
University of Derby
Electronic Library
by Andrew Brown, IT Adviser
Electronic information delivery
has
a significant
part to play in the teaching and learning
strategy at the University of
Derby.
Delivery
systems have been implemented
to
support
the shift towards
resource-based
learning
including an electronic library service
developed by Library and
Learning
Resources.
A Microsoft Access document management
system linked to a
Web
server enables
documents to be delivered
across
the campus.
Further
developments
are currently underway
to enable secure delivery
to
distance learners
by the millennium.
UDEL background (288/250)
In 1996 the university sought internal bids for
teaching and learning projects through its aca-
demic development fund. The library submitted a
plan for a project entitled 'University of Derby
Electronic Library (UDEL)'. This project was
conceived to deal with two circumstances which
had arisen within the library service. Firstly, a
successful print resources collection had been built
up by Resource Development Co-ordinator, Linda
Swanson, in the Mickleover campus learning
centre. This collection provides CLA (Copyright
Licensing Agency) licensed print copies of reading
list materials to support courses taught from the
Mickleover campus. By late 1995 this collection
was so successful that resources allocated to it in
terms of space and staff hours were fully utilised,
and an alternative way of providing the materials
needed to be found.
A second influence on the development of the
electronic library was the shift in university strat-
egy from teaching to student-centred learning. As
more courses shifted to student-centred learning,
academic staff found increasing pressure on them
to produce, organise and distribute resource-based
materials.
In summary, the problems could be defined as
follows:
• Assistance was required with the
distribution of resource-based learning
materials to students
• The need to alleviate problems of space and
to use library staff resources more
efficiently
The bid to the academic development fund was
successful, and the project began in earnest in
December 1996 with the appointment of
a
project
officer.
UDEL objectives
The main objectives of UDEL project were:
• To store in electronic format and provide
access, via a World Wide Web interface, to
a wide range of information resources
previously distributed only in hard copy
format.
• To allow University of Derby staff and
students to view, print, or download these
resources from any networked computer
with access to a WWW browser.
The need for a copyright
management system
At the outset of the project it was recognised that
an early milestone would be to set up a system to
track copyright permission seeking. Until the
recent CLA electrocopying scheme, the only
means of electronic copyright permission seeking
has been to agree contracts directly with the rights
holder. We sought advice from Project ACORN,
the eLib (Electronic Libraries Programme) funded
project based at Loughborough University. Project
ACORN had a copyright management system
already up and running based on their own copy-
right management process model1. In the spirit of
eLib,
Project ACORN gave us the framework of
their database CLEAR (Copyright-Licensed
Electronic Access to Readings) to assist us in
designing our own database. We also constructed
our own tailored version of the ACORN copyright
management model which is illustrated in Figure 1.
VINE
114
—
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