The Canterbury Process

BLRDD Lecture on the Carpenter Davies Report: Section C (Europe)

I've been asked to talk about Category C, the European public sector funded programmes in Europe. I intend to follow the structure of the main report and talk about:

1. The Professional Resource

2. The market for UK LIS expertise

3. Sources of information and opportunities

4. Key issues

5. Comment on some of the objectives to be achieved

6. Strategies

7. Training

8. The Future

1. The professional resource should be substantial, since Europe is near at hand and, as I shall explain, there is plenty of information around on sources of funds. Within Europe we are seen as one of the leading countries professionally, and the British Library is seen as a model of how to do things. We have a National Focal Point for the Plan of Action for Libraries which, although it meets in a desultory way, allows all sections of the community to be represented, while its Secretariat at BLRDD does excellent work in the dissemination of information. Yet very few libraries have made any serious attempt to crack European funding, although a number of individual consultants do quite well from it. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the undoubtedly enormous bureaucracy which surrounds every project. Another is an unwillingness or perhaps an inability to recognise the need to nurse Europe. Money does not simply appear through saying please, but through working on programmes over a period of time. Another reason is insularity, quite literally. A little regarded reason is linguistic skills and the lack of them in our profession. In continental Europe, to speak one language other than English is considered poor, while two is considered normal. Few of we British can manage a second language adequately, far less a third. A final reason, which I constantly labour is the high entry cost in terms of time and effort which has no guarantee of a return.

2. I believe the market to be much larger than is generally supposed. Libraries have had money from the IMPACT, TEMPUS and Plan of Action Funds. But other programmes such as ESPRIT, COSINE, DELTA, AIM, COMETT all have potential information related funds. Even the European Social Fund can be and has been pressed into service in some areas. There is an increasing recognition of the value of information and an equal growth in the recognition that it can be a strategic resource. For example a recent CEFIC report looked at the Biotechnology area, found that up to two million jobs could be created in this field, and concluded that it was inadequate to assume that by allowing the United States to control the information dissemination flow through agencies such as the National Library of Medicine, we could expect equal and fair treatment. It was seen as essential that the information about biotechnology was also collected and disseminated in Europe. The same sort of argument has resulted in the creation of genome databases at Heidelberg. Thus non-library programmes are recognising and allowing for the strategic value of information. We could have a role in this.

3. Turning then to sources of information, this is in a narrow sense quite easy, since all EC funded projects are advertised in the Official Journaland there is every opportunity for knowing what goes on. Similarly the rulebooks for project submissions will overload you with information rather than the opposite. The trouble is that in reality you have to spend time on Europe. As with the other markets, it's a bit like a bank and you can only get out what you put in. I expect to spend one to two days a month in Europe, sniffing out opportunities, keeping up with the news and gossip and discussing possible bids for funding. Few if any of my colleagues are willing to make that commitment and some would argue that they have no business trying to acquire European contracts. Creating and having contacts is how you acquire information which allows you to read between the lines on what is wanted. That information has cost my employer a lot of money and is not therefore something I am willing to trade easily. Having said that, the National Focal Point did for a time fulfil a useful role. It brought together most of the key players and by making it clear that there was enough room and money for everyone ,allowed a degree of trading of information which was seen as non-threatening. The size of the market is simply enormous and even as it stands, it appears to support a number of individual consultants. The other interesting feature about Europe, which I will return to, is that there are opportunities to shape the research programme before it is published.

4. The next theme is key issues. The first key issue relates to missed opportunities and there are all too many of those. I want to mention the gloomy side of all this before we go any further. Commission programmes have been running in a number of areas for a number of years now and so there is a fair experience of what happens when a call for proposals is issued. If you look at the figures for the various Commission programmes, the odds against winning a contract are fairly high. They vary from 3-1 against to as high as 20-1 against in some programmes. I'm not sure how many of you have selected a shortlist for interview from a pile of sixty or more applicants; well think of this process as something like that. Your application must be tailored to make the shortlist, to be relevant, to be clearly within the programme lines, to be crisply presented and proposing something worthwhile. Yet it is astonishing how many fail at the very first administrative hurdle through failure to have the correct number of copies or are signed in the wrong place. That lack of attention to detail is fatal.

One other important point here. Most of my remarks have been aimed at the Plan of Action for Libraries. I find that all the effort I have time for is devoted to that. Yet it is quite clear that there are half a dozen other funding programmes from which libraries could extract funding. As far as I am aware, no one else is nursing those programmes, making the contacts and ensuring that some money does come to the UK.

There may be room here for properly funded dissemination of information. There is a story that in one of the earlier Framework Programmes, Strathclyde University paid to have someone full time in Brussels lobbying and information gathering. It is claimed that as a result Strathclyde University received more contracts than Denmark. It is undoubtedly the case that having an inside track makes a difference. Some institutions and some consortia have such representation, but it is difficult to see how the small number of serious Europeans in the LIS sector could support such an initiative. Yet, curiously, post-1992 we have perhaps more reason to be fully involved in Europe than in anything else..

Unusually, in Europe it is possible to influence the direction of the research programme and this is a key area. Plans take years to formulate and each member state has a say in what is proposed. Again the National Focal Point gives a neutral focus where there is enough non-competitive space for useful mutually supportive work to be done, with the aim of moulding the plan to what are seen as the strengths of the key players. This applies only to the Plan of Action for Libraries, but it is conceivable that a more wide-ranging co-ordination could be attempted across a number of programmes where we thought funding might be sensibly sought.

Marriage broking and team building is a much bigger issue since it usually requires one to work across national boundaries. Apart from anything else, I regard it as essential to visit prospective partners and meet their staff and see the physical environment. Its one thing to reach expansive agreements with congenial colleagues over pleasant meals at some conference or other. Its quite different to translate that into a series of milestones and deliverables which overworked staff will have to produce. In my view a library has to assume that a project bid will require an initial speculative investment of a couple of thousand pounds with no guarantee of any return, and few libraries are willing to make that commitment. Finding partners cannot be done by staying at home. You need contacts in almost every EC country and contacts you know you can trust to be helpful and frank. Again I see no alternative to having a high profile, because these contacts are hard won and represent an investment which few are likely to want to share.

The contrast between practitioners and full-time consultants is perhaps a false dichotomy, although you will not doubt which side I stand on. It is certainly a false dichotomy in Europe and confuses some of the proposed outcomes in the Carpenter Davies report. In Europe, as elsewhere, there is a need for consultancies based on individual skills. However, far more often, there is a need for institutional skillsand indeed contracts are usually awarded to institutions. Let me give a concrete example. Any database listing my skills would contain no reference to Greek language skills, to interests in transliteration or to work on character-sets. It would omit interlending and any suggestion that my knowledge of Spanish ran to more than ordering a couple of beers. Yet our last two contracts at King's were on interlending with Spain and on Greek transliteration with Crete. The point being that my role was that of entrepreneur, using the resources of my institution to put projects together. That role is open to anyone.New blood should not then find a problem with Europe, given that the commitment is there. Europe will not be handed to new blood on a plate and the entry fee in terms of commitment will scare many off, but there is plenty of room and plenty of support for those who show evidence of commitment.

Quality control is not, on the whole, an issue in Europe. I know that there have been some complaints about the individuals and libraries chosen for some particularwork items when a closed tendering process is used. On the whole however, open tendering and formal refereeing ensures that the quality of those chosen is as it should be.

I have no easy answer on the interface with the book trade and other related trades. European Commission programmes are often a problem for them because, although the Commission often wishes to encourage projects with commercial partners, the lead times can be very lengthy and this can be very offputting to commercial companies.

6. Let me next look at the summary of objectives as they relate to Europe:

* Better co-ordination of information is certainly needed

* Flying the flag for the UK is perhaps less important, since we are seen as leaders. What is important is for more libraries and librarians to be committed to the continent we inhabit. It actually matters very much to all of us that Eastern Europe is properly integrated and whether the biotechnology industry does create two million jobs or not.

* Staff development is important and again with mobility of labour in Europe this will become more important.

* Widening the pool of expertise is relevant but not specific to Europe.

* Better co-ordination is manifestly required, although the National Focal Point offers a sound beginning

* Quality control is not on the whole an issue since proposals are generally refereed.

* There are enormous sums of money in Europe which we have scarcely tapped. Much of it comes as matching funding, which requires a degree of management.

* Widening the market is a very real possibility here.

7. I don't propose to comment on the strategies offered at this stage, except briefly to repeat the point that Europe is more often concerned with institutions than individuals, even if it is individuals who make the running.

8. Next comes training needs. Awareness of overseas conditions is perhaps less important in Europe, which is increasingly familiar to most of us if only through holidays. I would never again undertake a project without visiting a partner though, since the range of abilities which a partner has can vary dramatically within far less between countries. I would single out project management skills as an area of real need. This is particularly relevant to Europe where the Commission has a very formal set of rules and regulations to be met. easy when you know how, but difficult to grasp at first. Passing on opportunities to the commercial sector seems to me very necessary and in a way a cultural problem as much as anything. Language is a vital concern. English is the working language of Europe, but language competence is a mark of commitment, helps to gain approval and entry to the club and is necessary if you are to understand what is going on. Putting some of this into LIS curricula, especially project management skills does seem worth considering.

9. As to Section 9 on the future of the study - well that's for the rest of the day. Perhaps all I need to close with is the obvious remark that it is less and less sensible to consider continental Europe as overseas. It will increasingly be part of the bread and butter of our daily lives and will more than repay the effort of becoming involved. It is a huge market with huge potential - and it is our market.

Carpenter, J., Davies, R., & British Library. (1992). International expertise databases and opportunity information systems and services relevant to the fields of librarianship and information science (LIS) and information management (IM). London] (2 Sheraton St., W1V 4BH: British Library Research and Development Department.