This Scoping Study was commissioned jointly by the British Library Research & Innovation Centre
(BLRIC) and JISC under the management of UKOLN.
The study was authored jointly by Fretwell-Downing Informatics Ltd and CERLIM (University of
Central Lancashire) with specialist contributions from Geoffrey Hare (County Librarian, Essex) and
Index Data of Denmark in their respective areas of public libraries and resource discovery
technologies.
The findings of the study are based on a consultation exercise undertaken by the partners between
February and April 1997, resulting in a strong recommendation that a National Agency should be
constituted. The study proposes that the Agency should act as a facilitator to ensure that scholarly
resources are visible and accessible across domains and other traditional boundaries in an efficient
and sustainable manner