Library projects

Library Services are currently involved in several key projects aiming to prototype and innovate new types of services for our library users.

All our funded projects are focussed on supporting our organisational objectives as well as sharing our learning and findings with the broader community.

Information Management and Innovation

Open University Digital Library

This new project is building the foundations for a digital library, and investigating the services and infrastructure needed to provide advice, guidance, curation and preservation services to content creators. The project commenced in August 2011 and will run until July 2013, it is building on work carried out by the AVA (Access to Video Assets) project.

Project blog: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OUDL/

STELLAR (Semantic Technologies Enhancing the Lifecycle of Learning Resources)

The STELLAR project which runs until July 2013 is working with the rich heritage of archived Open University learning materials.   Funded by JISC as part of the JISC Digital Infrastructure Programme funding call 16/11 under the Enhancing the Sustainability of Digital Collections strand, STELLAR has carried out a survey that will help to develop a detailed understanding of the types of value that academic staff and other stakeholders place on that material.  The report of the survey is available on the Stellar blog. This survey has been used to inform the selection of content for transformation into Linked Data (and will also inform the preservation policies for the Open University Digital Library).   Once the selected content has been transformed into Linked Data, STELLAR will evaluate how this enhancement impacts on the sustainability and perceived value of this type of digital collection. 

STELLAR will help to build up the evidence base for digital preservation and lifecycle management in the area of legacy learning materials, as well as providing an example of how semantic technologies can enhance the value of digital assets within a digital library environment.

Project blog: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/stellar/

Business Development

Partnerships

Library Services is exploring a range of open online resources as a first step towards providing e-library services for those partner institutions who might need them. Currently we have the following resources available:

• Information skills including some open online resources are included in OpenLearn
• Support Services to Partner Institutions
• Library and Support Services to Other Organisations site gives details of services which we may be able to provide. We will be happy to provide a quotation for services.

Arab OU

Providing an online library for students including resources such as journals, databases, ebooks and helpdesk services. The Library is supplying The Arab Open University with some open online resources including web site links, Safari, guides and helpsheets, and is providing a student helpdesk via email for advice and support until 2013. For further details download this factsheet on the Arab OU partnership.

Open Electronic Resources

Researching and making available free resources. A list of open electronic resources is available on the Open Access Information Resources site.

Information & Knowledge Management

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

University-wide project to implement an Enterprise Content Management system, Documentum.