Follett Delegation Visits AAU, ARL

On June 5, 6, and 7, representatives of the Higher Education Funding
Council for England (HEFCE) visited the Association of American
Universities (AAU) and ARL.  The delegation included Sir Brian Follett
(Vice- Chancellor, Warwick University and Head of the recent "Follett
Review Group" that laid out a framework for managing information in U.K. 
universities during an age of technology change), Professor Graham
Zellick (Queen Mary and Westfield College, London), and Bahram
Bekhradnia (HEFCE). 

The visitors' purpose was to explore common ground between U.K.  and
U.S.  universities, frames of reference being the "Follett Report"
(1993) and the AAU Research Libraries Task Force Reports (1994).  The
main objective of the visit was to explore current copyright
developments in the U.S.  and their relationship to the escalating costs
of journal information.  Discussions were held at ARL with members of
the AAU/ARL Intellectual Property Task Force to review the options the
IP-TF is pursuing to address the opportunities and problems in the
current environment. 

Several topics recurred throughout the three days of discussion:

*	Is copyright ownership a key issue for university cost saving efforts?
What data exist or can be gathered to demonstrate that changing academic
IP ownership and management would actually save money? What information
and copyright management strategies will save money for universities?

*	What changes are desirable in faculty practices in regard to copyright
transfer or licensing? What can universities do to provide copyright
information and services to faculty?

*	What is the future of publishing? Will pre-publication peer review be
enhanced or even replaced by new, equivalent practices (wide commentary,
ranking/voting systems, readership data)? When will new modes of
publishing stabilize enough to give a sense of the best and most
appropriate models?

*	Science and scholarship are expanding, and there is intense
competition for academic positions.  This will likely continue even if
tenure were abolished and if only a handful of publications could be
submitted for a grant or promotion. 

*	There is a need at least to examine licensing models, particularly on
a multi-site scale.  While these may offer solutions to "copyright
problems" by contracting for wide copying for very low unit costs per
campus member, they may cause problems in other ways.  

All the participants in the conversations agreed that there are "no
silver bullets" (e.g., easy answers) but that experimenting,
constructing new partnerships, and transatlantic dialogues should
continue. 


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ARL 181
A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions
Association of Research Libraries
August 1995