The document talks of the advance of the 'virtual university', with services such as electronic teaching materials, bibliographic and statistical datasets and full-text journals distributed to students in geographically remote areas or in their own homes and workplaces. Academic and administrative information will be digitised and networked. The environment in which our staff and students work will see the introduction of multi-service workstations which integrate telephony with multimedia information, smartcards for access to physical and virtual facilities and improvements in admissions and financial information relating to students. Unfortunately, the quality of connections enjoyed within the UK community is not matched in its links to Europe, the US and the rest of the world, for political and financial reasons. JISC s response to this problem, meantime, will continue to be based upon greater use of facilities such as mirroring and caching.
Efficiency is the driving force behind the entire strategy.
The eLib Programme represented a new model of JISC technology funding. Its bidding and project methodology, together with the strong emphasis on evaluation, dissemination and exit strategies, is likely to be adopted more widely in other areas. JISC will continue to innovate, and wishes to play its part in developing a national electronic collection, in partnership with National Libraries, Research Councils, museums, galleries and the private sector. Its remit remains higher education, however, which excludes public libraries from direct support. Cultural change is as important as technological development.