Strategic direction for 2011/12

Today the new UKCoRR Committee held it's first committee meeting, or rather telcon. The plans are this year to have one of these ever couple of months to make sure we can help each other drive forward the UKCoRR agenda. I think you're going to see some exciting developments over the coming months, that I'll let my fellow Committee members tell you more about in due course.

Of course this begs the question, what is the UKCoRR agenda? Clearly maintaining the organisation and mailing list in the spirit they were set up for the benefit of our members is at our core, as the the Web site outlines. But what about 2011/12 - where should we be devoting our attention to? What are the steps we should be taking? Whom are the people we should be lobbying on your behalf and what should we be lobbying them about?

Without a doubt the committee have some ideas; but we always welcome feedback from you the membership as to where we should be focussed. After all, that's what we're here to do - to be your voice to the community and broader stakeholders in the ever evolving open access and scholarly communications arena!

Make a comment, or drop us a line with your thoughts.

New Chair greetings

Hello all, I thought it would be worth my while (and I hope yours) in writing a short post introducing myself as the new UKCoRR Chair. There's a running joke among my staff that Gareth knows everybody - it seems whenever they go to an external event that they run into people who know me. I think in part that stems back to my glorious years working for SHERPA (aka the Nottingham Centre for Research Communications these days) on the SHERPA Plus, RoMEO and Repositories Support Project back in 2006-8. Certainly for me it was my first real exposure to the field of repositories and open access. And as one of the founding members of UKCoRR it’s an honour to come back and help play my part in shaping our organisation. Today I'm based at the University of Leicester where as well as managing our repository (the LRA) I also manage our course packs and copyright team and document supply service as well. Like many of you I'm also working hard on joining up disparate systems as we move towards implementing our CRIS this year (indeed, I've been told by our Director that it's my number one priority for 2011, which is most satisfying). Back in the mid 2000s there weren't actually that many institutional repositories in the UK, and yet in a shockingly short time (thanks in no small way to JISC funding) we've seen them grow up like weeds until today any institution serious about promoting their research publications has one. So while I wasn't in at the start of the movement in the UK, I've certainly been well placed to meet many of you as you come into the field. And hopefully I'll have the opportunity of meeting more of you over my term of office. For now there’s not much more to say except to wish you all well, and to encourage you to continue sharing your experience, bringing your questions to the forum and helping us to become an increasingly powerful and influential representative force for everyone working within the repository field today. You'll find all my contact details are available here, should you need them!