E-infrastructure report recommends creation of finding aids

A report by the Office of Science and Innovation's e-Infrastructure Working Group entitled Developing the UK’s e-infrastructure for science and innovation was published today. Among the key recommendations of the 'Search and Navigation' sub-group's report was:

5.2 Finding aids for the nation’s physical information collections In a world where access to electronic information resources is becoming the norm for researchers, the working group envisages it will be increasingly important to deliver the full range of available research material digitally. At the present time, vast quantities of material remain accessible only in traditional physical formats, discoverable only via clumsy or labour-intensive mechanisms. Recommendation: To bring these physical collections to the research community through a process of creating digital catalogues and other “finding aids”, as well as digitising content where it is feasible to do so either in collaboration with private sector partners, where appropriate, or through public funding initiatives. Benefit: Researchers and the research process will benefit from increased remote access to information resources that are currently only available in physical form at particular geographic locations. Risk: There is a risk that the cost of the process will outweigh potential benefits if the resources prove to be poorly utilised by the research community.

This was carried through to the final report (section 6.3.2) as:

Finding Aids Programme. We recommend a programme to make more accessible to the research community the vast amount of UK material that is currently accessible only in traditional physical formats, discoverable only through labour-intensive mechanisms.

I love the idea of existing finding aids being 'clumsy'! I think that the risk is rather over-stated, but overall I'm delighted to see this recommendation in the report. Let's hope that it will be translated into much-needed funding to achieve the objective.