1967 and All That

The 1967 & All That project marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which partially decriminalised homosexuality. LSE Archives, which holds the Hall-Carpenter Archives of lesbian and gay activism, and its project partner, the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA) at Middlesex University, are collaborating on a project to conserve and promote collections significant to the Act. Funder: Heritage Lottery Fund.
Start date: January 2007. Completion December 2007

19th Century Pamphlets Online

The project will provide researchers, learners and teachers with online access to the most significant collections of 19th century pamphlets held in UK research libraries across sectors. Sponsored by CURL and led by the University of Southampton, the project is funded under the JISC's £3.8 million Digitisation Programme. As one of seven partners LSE Library is contributing 6,500 of its 19th century pamphlets for digitisation. Start date: January 2007. Completion date: December 2008

AIM25

Provided electronic access to collection level descriptions of the archives of over fifty higher education institutions and learned societies within the greater London area. The project was led by King’s College London. Start date: 2000. Completion date: 2003

ANGEL (Authenticated Networked Guided Environment for Learning)

Created middleware services to integrate 'open' library resources into 'closed' online learning environments and courseware portals, providing solutions to problems that are currently obstructing the fluent and free use of the full available information landscape by course instructors and learning technologists. ANGEL explored and developed many concepts and technologies for the management of metadata about resources and users, including principles of automated access management, which have helped to found current devolved access management methods and the JISC Information Environment architecture. The project was led by LSE with partners at South Bank University, the University of Edinburgh, De Montfort University, Sheffield Hallam University and the EDINA National Data Service. Funder: JISC. Start date: September 2000. Completion date: March 2003

The Archives Hub

Provides a single point of access to descriptions of archives held in UK universities and colleges. At present these are primarily at collection-level, although where possible they are linked to complete catalogue descriptions. Project led by CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles). Start date: 2000. Project completed.

Artist in residence in the archives

Examined questions of the changing role of artists today in a society and economy such as ours. Funded by Leverhulme Trust, directed by Sue Donnelly, Archivist, LSE and Ruth Maclennan, artist. Start date: 2001. Completion date: 2002

British Library/LSE collaborative collection development

A collaborative project to map western European government publications held at the British Library, LSE, and Oxford University Social Science Library. Selected countries are audited and the libraries’ websites indicate which location a researcher should go to for a particular series, historical or current. Researchers will benefit from improved access, detailed holdings information in one place and preservation of the collections. The collaboration has widened from the initial concentration on collections to include staff development and other joint projects.
Project led by Maureen Wade, LSE, Jude England, BL and Margaret Robb, Oxford University Library. Start date: 2002. Project ongoing

BOPCRIS (British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service)

Aims to save researchers wasting valuable research time and effort finding relevant British Official Publications over the period 1688 -1995 by providing a web-based bibliographic database.

CartoonHub

Created a national hub for research into British cartoons and caricature. The completed CartoonHub website will constitute the largest archive of cartoon images on the web. It will also carry information about cartoon collections in the UK and beyond, and about related conferences, new publications etc.  The project was led by the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, Kent University. Start date: 1999. Completion date: 2002

CC-interop Project

Copac/Clumps Continuing Technical Cooperation Project (CC-interop) had a basic aim to test the feasibility of cross-searching between physical and virtual union catalogues, using COPAC and the three functioning "clumps" or virtual union catalogues (CAIRNS, InforM25, and RIDING), all funded or part-funded by JISC in recent years. The key issues investigated were technical interoperability of catalogues, use of collection level descriptions to search union catalogues dynamically, quality of standards in cataloguing and indexing practices, and usability of union catalogues for real users. Funder: JISCStart. May 2002. Completion date: April 2004

The Charles Booth Online Archive

Provides free desk-top access to searchable catalogues, digitised images and interactive maps from the Booth archive collections at the Library at LSE and the University of London Library. The Victorian, Charles Booth, led a survey into life and labour in London (1886-1903) and subsequently produced London maps, with streets colour-coded according to social status. Project led by the Archives Division at the LSE Library. Start date: 1999. Completion date: 2001

COCOREES (Collaborative Collection Management Project for Russian and East European Studies)

The overall purposes of the project were to benefit research in Russian and East European Studies (REES) in the UK by creating readily searchable databases of information on collections and holdings; and to set up, and explore the usefulness of, agreements and initiatives to foster collaborative collection management between partner libraries in the interests of improved availability of research resources in REES and access to them.Start date: 1999Completion date: 2002COCOREES  was superseded by CURL-CoFoR The aim of CoFoR was to build on and develop the outcomes of COCOREES into a set of collaborative collection management tools, initially in REES, but which may also be applied to other subject areas. Start date: 2002. Completion date: 2004

David Steel and Richard Wainwright Project

2006 saw the start of a new project that will see the completion of the cataloguing of two collections regarding the history of the Liberal Party. External funding has provided LSE Archives with the opportunity to make available the papers of Richard Wainwright, (Liberal MP for Colne Valley 1966-1970 and 1974-1987) and David Steel (Liberal MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles 1965-1983; MP for Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale 1983-1997; Leader of the Liberal Party 1976-1988). The project, will open up previously unseen collections charting the role of two central Liberal MPs from the Party's revival in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, through to their amalgamation with the Social Democrats in 1988, and beyond.
Start date: 2006. Completion: 2007

DECOMATE II

Developed an end-user service which provided access to heterogeneous information resources distributed over different libraries in Europe using a uniform interface, leading to a working demonstrator of the European Digital Library for Economics. A collaborative project between the Tilburg University Library, the LSE Library, the European University Institute at Florence and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Funder: EC European Commission DG XIII Telematics for Libraries programme. Start date: February 1998 Completion date: July 2000

DELIVER

Designed and implemented practical software tools for end-users and administrators of institutional Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and Library Management Systems (LMS) to facilitate the consistent creation and ease-of-use of course-based resource lists. Funder: JISC. Start date: October 2002. Completion date: July 2003

DISC-UK

A collaboration between the Library at LSE, LSE Research Lab and the data libraries of Oxford and Edinburgh universities.  Initiated by the Data Information Specialists’ Committee (DISC), whose aims are to foster understanding between data users and providers, to raise awareness of the value of data support in universities and to share information and resources among local data support staff. The project is led by LSE.Start date: 2004 – ongoing  

FAR (Federated Access to Repositories)

The project will address needs for improved attribute-managed federated access to institutional repositories. FAR will recommend standards for attributes to describe authorisation to repositories and develop extensions to common repository software (EPrints and Dspace) so that it can be used with Shibboleth via the UK and other national access federations for education and research. LSE is partnered with Cambridge University in the project, and will also work with Australian partners to extend the same standards to the Fedora Repository software. Funder: funded under the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme call for Interoperability Demonstrators. Funder: JISC. Start date: November 2007.  Completion date: July 2008.

Find it in London

A pilot project working with library partners from the public, higher education and further education sectors, as well as archives and museums, to design a web-based look-up tool. This will allow users of all those services (plus members of the public who find FiiL on the web) to find strong library collections in London on their particular subject of interest. 

FLAME (Federated Local Access Management Environment)

The project will install production-scale services for institutional Devolved Authority Management and Attribute Release Policy control, and a facility for ad-hoc Virtual Organisation Management. These services will be supported by an Enterprise Directory (being implemented by LSE independently of this project) and be integrated with a number of key target applications (including VLE and Institutional Repository). These services will be made available to the entire end user population of LSE, and in parallel the project will mount an institution-wide awareness campaign to inform users about Access & Identity Management issues and personal Attribute Release Policy. It will conduct an in-depth study of User Attitudes and Behaviour (across the LSE user population) involved in interacting with online services and Identity & Access Management. The Library, various IT provider services, and the Information Systems and Innovation Group in the LSE Department of Management will participate in delivering the project. Funder: JISC. Start date: November 2007. Completion date: March 2009

Foyle Foundation Project

This project endeavours to widen access to a wealth of previously unseen social and political heritage. The three year project will produce detailed catalogues of 7 political archives which will bring 20th century social and political history to life. The Project will open up over 500 boxes of previously unseen material. That material covers a wide range of topics including the development of UK local government after World War II, UK administration of World War II, UK's involvement and entry into Europe, Conservative Party policy and 'One Nation' conservatism, advocacy of disability rights. Funder: sponsored by The Foyle Foundation. Start 2005. Completion 2008

HEADLINE (Hybrid Electronic Access and Delivery in the Library Networked Environment)

The project designed and implemented a working model of the hybrid library, around the concept of a Personal Information Environment (PIE) for every user. The PIE includes access, via the login process, to the user's administrative details such as status, subject area and registered courses, and is able to use this information to provide a tailored and supportive environment. The system also retains feedback from the user's actions, providing a mechanism for user profiles and preferences to be developed heuristically over time. The project was led by LSE with partners at the London Business School and the University of Hertfordshire.Funder: JISC (Hybrid Libraries Programme). Start date: January 1998. Completion date: July 2001

IBSS (The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences)

The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is a leading online resource for social sciences and interdisciplinary research which is produced by the Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science. IBSS focuses on the four core social science subjects of anthropology, economics, politics and sociology and also includes complementary material in related subjects, such as development studies, environmental studies, and media and communication. IBSS includes over 2.5 million bibliographic references to articles, reviews, books and selected chapters dating back to 1951. Over 2,800 social science journals are regularly indexed and some 7,000 books included each year. IBSS is unique in its broad coverage of international material with over 50 per cent of journals covered published outside the US or UK. Abstracts are included for over 75% of current journals and links can be set up to the full text of journal articles subscribed to by individual institutions. Start date: July 1998. Completion date: ongoing

The Identity Project

The Identity Project addressed the current practice and future needs of UK academic institutions in Identity Management. The Identity Management issues which were investigated include Grid use, Shibboleth installations of varying degree of maturity, collaborative courses and other long term inter-institutional collaborations, internal and shared dynamic virtual organisations, classes of users other than standard staff/student mix, library access schemes, and NHS involvement.
The Project Partners carried out the research in the area of Identity Management partly by accomplishing key packages with dedicated researchers, and partly by involving staff at each partner, who were familiar with local organisational structures and requirements.
This public web site is designed to exploit the closely interlinked nature of Identity Management requirements. It includes information about international efforts in the area and recommendations for future work, as well as outcomes of the research of the project partners.
Funder: JISC e-infrastructure programme. Start date: November 2006. Completion date: October 2007.

Ionian Bank Archives

Project to provide online access to the catalogue of the archives of the Ionian Bank, including digital versions of the Director's minutes, 1839-1917. The Ionian Bank Limited was founded in London in 1839 to finance trade between the Ionian Islands, at that time was a British protectorate, and Britain. After the cession to Greece of the islands in 1864, the bank extended its operations to the rest of Greece and the wider Eastern Mediterranean. Project led by the Archives Division at the LSE Library. Funder: Alpha Bank Greece. Start date: 2003 Completion 2005

M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries

The Library is a member of the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries and has been actively involved in it since formation in 1993. LSE Library staff are involved in many of the activities undertaken by the Consortium such as disaster preparedness, widening access, staff training (through the Consortium's training arm, CPD25) and resource discovery. The Secretary of the Consortium is the Deputy Librarian and the Library hosts appropriate M25 administrative support. 

M25 Systems Team

The M25 Systems Team are based in the Library and provide services and support for the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries. The Team has considerable experience in resource discovery technologies including the Z39.50 search/retrieval protocol. The Team run the InforM25 service, which includes the popular Union List of Serials; are actively promoting adoption of the Bath Profile; and provide technical consultancy services for both higher education and public library sectors.

M25 Link Project

Funded under the JISC eLib Phase 3 Programme and built a pilot virtual union catalogue or 'clump'. The pilot has been developed and now forms the 'Search catalogues' element of the InforM25 service, provided by the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries. M25 Link also investigated the feasibility of searching and retrieving holdings data for serials via Z39.50. The project was hosted and led by the Library with partners from the M25 Consortium (City, Greenwich, Middlesex, Queen Mary and Westminster universities). Start date: January 1998. Completion date: July 2001

MAGIC (Maintaining Access to Government Information Collaboratively)
 

The project will investigate solutions to the problem of government documents being published only on the web. Previously, printed documents would have been deposited at the British Library and purchased by academic libraries and kept in perpetuity; now their appearance may be transitory, with information lost for students and researchers in the future. The project will investigate the feasibility of a shared service to provide archiving and access to web-only UK government documents to support learning and research. Led by LSE, together with the British Library and Oxford Social Science Library. Funder: HEFCE. Start date: February 2008. End date: July 2008

Mapping Asia

The Mapping Asia project has been awarded funding by the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) to work in the area of Collaborative Collection Management for Asian Studies in the UK. This is a two and a half year project due to finish in July 2002. This web site will serve as a meeting place and archive for Asian scholars, librarians, archivists and other interested people to follow the progress of the project, exchange ideas and find quality information on Asian collections in the United Kingdom. 

MIDESS

Develop a digital image repository to store and manage digital content created through digitisation projects. The work will involve a partnership between The Centre for Learning Technology and LSE Archives. The intention is to develop a prototype repository for a whole range of digitised content including digitised images, sound and moving images. The project will explore how images, including multimedia collections can be exploited for use in teaching and learning. LSE are one of the partners in this project which includes CURL (Consortium of University Research Libraries), University of Leeds, University of Birmingham and University College London. Funder: JISC. Start date: July 2005.  Completion date: August 2007

Nereus

LSE is a founder member of the Nereus Consortium of European economics research libraries, which now has 19 members from 10 European countries and Australia. Nereus aims to provide high quality open access information resources to economists. Economists Online, a pilot service to showcase the research output of leading economics researchers via a search service and open access full text where available, was launched in 2005. The consortium has been chaired by Jean Sykes, Librarian and Director of IT Services, LSE since its inception in 2003. Nereus will focus its activities on the related NEEO Project during 2007-2010. Start date: April 2003. Project ongoing.

NEEO (Network of European Economists Online)

The NEEO Project, led by Tilburg University, aims to improve integration of academic economics content across Europe and to promote global visibility of European research. The project will harvest high-quality open access research papers from the institutional repositories of 16 partners from 8 European countries, make it available from a central online portal, and offer additional services to authors and readers. The Library will invite economists to participate in this project by depositing their research papers and datasets in LSE Research Online. Full text documents will form the majority of the content. A smaller number of open access datasets will also be added and linked to the related publications. LSE is leading two work packages in this eContentPlus project: User requirements and Assessment and Evaluation. Funder: European Commission. Start date: September 2007. Completion date: February 2010

PERSEUS (Portal-Enabled Resources via Shibbolized End-User Security)

The original project to address the key challenge of Shibboleth-based access management to information resources via an institutional portal has now finished. JISC has granted the project a two-year extension to support the Access Management Transition Programme. The Programme's aim is to support institutions in the transition from the current Athens access management service to federated access management. For more information go to www.jisc.ac.uk/federation. To find out about other related projects see the Angel project. Funder: JISC. Start date: July 2004 Completion date: January 2009

Retrospective Catalogue Conversion Project

Conversion of 305,000 records from the former LSE card catalogue, onto the main online catalogue is now complete. The conversion was funded from research access funding received under the Research Support Libraries Programme. As part of the project, an interim Card Catalogue Online solution was developed which allowed users to browse images of the cards. The card images were arranged in an alphabetical sequence of drawers, just as the cards were stored in the original wooden catalogue cabinets.
Start date: 2001. Completion date: December 2005

Review study of worldwide access management technologies

Part of the SECURe project, this study investigated and reviewed available and developing technologies for user identity management, authentication and resources access management, making recommendations which helped to found ongoing work by SURF to establish a national access management scheme in the Netherlands. Funder: SURF. Start date: November 2003 Completion date: February 2004

SECURe: Secure Environment for Certificated Use of Resources

Funded by the JISC Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting Programme (06/02). The project addressed two key issues within the Access Management arena:An institution-wide deployment of PKI and authentication using personal digital certificates. The creation and operational use of Web services and directory components to enable cross-domain access management, implementing essential 'shared services' elements of the JISC Information Environment. Start date: November 02Completion date: April 2005

SHERPA-LEAP

LSE is one of 13 libraries in this University of London partnership, led by UCL. SHERPA-LEAP aims to create institutional repositories of open access research material, to promote the use of institutional repositories to academic researchers, and to support individual institutions in the development of their repositories. LSE academic staff are invited to deposit their research in LSE Research Online. Related projects include: ShibboLEAP. Start date: 2004. Project ongoing

ShibboLEAP

A collaborative project to create a Shibboleth Identity-Provider ('Origin') service for all academic and support staff (at each of seven partner institutions in the SHERPA-LEAP consortium) who are involved in controlled access to their respective institutional Eprints servers, and will implement modifications to their respective Eprints servers to enable them all as Shibboleth Resource-Providers ('Targets'). The project partners are LSE, Birkbeck College, SOAS, Imperial College, King's College, UCL and Royal Holloway. Funder: JISC. Start date: April 2005. Completion date: April 2006

UKeduPerson Study

A study that established the scope and requirements for a UK-specific metadata schema to provide for consistent descriptions and classifications of all students and staff involved in post-16 education.Funder: JISC. Start date: January 2004Completion date: July 2004

UKRDS (UK Research Data Service)

The project will investigate the feasibility of a UK-wide shared service for the management of research data. Currently, individual researchers, academic departments, and whole institutions are suffering from the “data deluge” and it is set to get worse. A national framework could help to ensure that important data could be safely maintained, accessed and re-used as appropriate by other researchers, and re-purposed where possible for new uses. Harnessing data created in the research process and making it available and re-usable has the potential to add to the sum of top-quality research for which the UK is already known.
Funder: HEFCE.  Start date: March 2008.  End date January 2009

VERSIONS

An 18 month project to address the issues and uncertainties relating to versions of academic papers held in digital repositories. Different versions of the same paper frequently co-exist in publicly available electronic form, alongside traditionally published versions. VERSIONS aims to investigate researcher needs and current practice before producing a toolkit of guidelines for stakeholders. The toolkit will offer practical guidance about retention of author copies, standardised description of versions, and related advice about the deposit of papers in open access repositories. In addition, the project will deliver a set of recommendations concerning standards for versions of eprints to JISC.
VERSIONS is being led by LSE, with the Nereus consortium of European research libraries in economics as associate partners. The VERSIONS project team is currently finalising reports for publication in late 2007. Funder: JISC. Start date: July 2005.

Version Identification Framework

A 10 month project working towards creating a framework for the identification of versions of objects in digital repositories. The project will provide a common infrastructure for the naming and understanding of issues relating to versions of scholarly works. The project will build on the work of the LSE-based VERSIONS project and the RIVER Scoping study, and is funded by JISC under its Repositories and Preservation Programme, concluding with the dissemination of the Version Identification Framework to the JISC and wider digital repository communities. The project team comprises of expertise from within LSE and from partner institutions University of Leeds, Erasmus University Rotterdam Science and the Science and Technologies Facilities Council. Start date: July 2007. Completion date: May 2008

Victorian Times

Research, consolidate, digitise and provide access to original material relating to social, political, and economic conditions, events, people and actions from the Victorian era and, with the help of a subject expert and his advisors, develop contextual information to supplement and enrich this material. Project led by LSE. Start date: 2002. Completion date: 2004

WAM25 (Walk-in Access to e-resources in the M25 Consortium)

A project on behalf of the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries will investigate the provision of reciprocal walk-in access to electronic resources in academic libraries across Greater London and the South East. Although publisher licences often permit walk-in access to staff and students from other universities, technical and operational difficulties often mean such access is not provided by libraries. A feasibility study will be carried out into the viability of an initial pilot amongst six partners, with the ultimate aim of a full reciprocal service across the 58 members of the M25 Consortium. Funder: HEFCE. Start date: February 2008. End date: June 2008