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The issue of researchers' access to research information content must be addressed if the UK research community is to operate effectively, producing high-quality research that has a wider social and economic impact, according to a new report produced by the Research Information Network.
'Overcoming barriers: Access to research information content' reports that researchers are encountering difficulties in getting access to the content they need and that this is having a significant impact on the quality and efficiency of their research. Based on five separate studies, the report looks at the nature and scale of key restrictions on access to information resources of importance to researchers, the impact of these restrictions and the ways in which they might be alleviated or overcome.
The report's findings show that the impact of this lack of access on the efficiency, as well as the quality, of research across the higher education sector and beyond is very real. New technological developments, including moves towards open access publishing models and the availability of e-books may help to solve some of theses problems, but there is little evidence from the report to show that they have had a positive impact to date.
The report examines the frequency with which researchers encounter problems in accessing content; researchers' perceptions of the ease with which they can gain access and the issue of researcher access to information resources in the public and private sector which are not formally published and which are often subject to copyright restrictions. It also reviews the arrangements academic and research libraries have in place to provide access to researchers who are not members of their institutions.
The report's key finding is that access is still a major concern for researchers. Although researchers report having no problems finding content in this age of electronic information, gaining access is another matter due to the complexity of licensing arrangements, restrictions placed on researchers accessing content outside their own institution and the laws protecting public and private sector information. This means that research into important information resources can be missing. Researchers report that they are frustrated by this lack of immediate access and this slows their progress, hinders collaborative work, and may well affect the quality and integrity of the work produced.
Many librarians, and researchers, fear that unless licensing and technical issues are resolved, moves towards a digital environment may impose new barriers, as researchers face restrictions on access to resources which would have formerly been accessible to them in print. With impending funding cuts in higher education institutions' budgets next year, libraries are already facing increasingly difficult decisions about which subscriptions to keep as cancellations will only add to these problems for researchers. The report shows that libraries need to ensure they can continue to provide access to content through a range of sources, including interlibrary loans and document supply services.
A solution for researchers would be the implementation of a national library membership card to enable access and borrowing rights at all higher education institutions in the UK. The RIN study finds that the infrastructure to provide this in higher education institutions is lacking.
Libraries are also struggling to allow external researchers' access to the resources they have available online and few institutions have been able to implement the recommendations of the HAERVI (Higher Education Access to e-Resources in Visited Institutions) project, which called on the support and cooperation of institutional managers and IT services to enable libraries to offer better access.
Other barriers include intellectual property and copyright restrictions (on public and private sector information and orphan works), and researchers are concerned by current moves to strengthen these restrictions. The RIN, SCONUL and UUK will maintain a close watch on developments in the intellectual property regime and ensure that researchers' interests are taken into account.
This report calls on higher education institutions, librarians, publishers, funders and governments to work together to reduce the barriers to accessing research information content and highlights a number of recommendations for measures that need to be taken to overcome the barriers to access currently being experienced by the research community.
The report, and the five studies on which it is based, are available online.
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