Award helps safeguard UK's research journals

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has announced nearly £10 million of funding for a collaboration between higher education libraries led by Imperial College London and the British Library. The funding will enable the creation of the UK Research Reserve (UKRR).

UKRR is an agreement between higher education and the British Library whereby the British Library will store low-use journals for the HE community and make them accessible to researchers and others using state-of-the-art ordering and delivery systems.

Deborah Shorley, director of library services at Imperial, said: ‘The UKRR is a fantastic example of HEFCE, Imperial and the British Library working together to produce a better and more coherent way to access research material. It addresses the problem of libraries up and down the country with duplicate copies of low use periodicals and will offer a more sophisticated approach to providing information for the UK’s research community.’

Imperial College will be managing the scheme in conjunction with the British Library.