The UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is calling on experts who create and curate digital content from public sector organisations across Europe to contribute to JISC’s international survey on ‘orphan works’ called ‘In from the Cold Europa 2010’.
There are millions of so-called ‘orphan works’ which risk becoming invisible because rights holders are not known or easy to trace. The survey, commissioned by the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance in conjunction with the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) and the Wellcome Trust, will focus on this topic.
The survey aims to establish how much time, effort and money is spent on orphan works across Europe by people working in the public sector and to find out the effect orphan works have on cultural heritage preservation at an international level. Organisations such as universities, archives, libraries, museums, health services and public service broadcasters are invited to participate. Although no particular technical knowledge is required, the survey does ask participants to fill in relatively detailed information about the collections (digital and analogue) held or licensed by an organisation.
In May 2009 over 500 organisations took part in the UK only orphan works online questionnaire which showed that rich primary resources are being ‘warehoused’ at public expense – with little or no prospect of them being delivered online to the public without additional costs and/or risks being imposed on the public purse.
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