Ronald Milne

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Ronald Milne is a Scottish librarian, a library administrator, and prominent figure in UK and international library associations.

Milne is the Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library. He came to the British library from academia. His most recent post had been as head of Oxford University Library Services and Bodley's Librarian.^[1] Collections define libraries; and the trajectory of Milne's career has placed him at the nexus of change in an era of increased digitization and on-line library access in the 21st-century.^[2]

1 British Library
2 Oxford Library
- 2.1 Oxford-Google digitization project
- 2.2 Troubleshooter
3 Boards and other organizations
4 Published work
5 References
- 5.1 See also
6 External links

[edit] British Library

Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, has established a number of institutional goals -- which became Milne's goals as well. These broad objectives imply developing new models for the Library of the 21st Century.^[3] The times require close attention to collection development and all aspects of collection stewardship as "the Library seeks to build on its wide-ranging research and library partnerships." Plans for the Library to play a leading role in development of the digital library in a national, European and international context have brought pushed Milne's role into prominence.^[1] The Library's forward-look strategy is summarized in the open-ended phrase "Reflecting a Changing World."^[4]

In the near term, Milne's necessarily focuses on managing resources within the constraints of a tight budget^[5] and expanding the collection's accessibility in a period of increasing numbers of readers.^[6] In the long term, Milne's attention is engaged in such projects as enhancing access through collection-level description anticipates the on-going inter-library process of mapping the "distributed national collection" of books in the United Kingdom.^[7]

Milne oversees a library which contains more than 150 million items, collected over 250 years. It includes every British publication, as well as many from across the world. Each year, enough new books and artefacts are collected to fill 12.5 kilometres of shelves.^[4]

[edit] Oxford Library

Milne was promoted upwards through the hierarchy of Oxford University Library Services, eventually becoming its head.

[edit] Oxford-Google digitization project

Milne was ultimately responsible for Oxford's participation in the Google Books Library Project, which involves a series of agreements between Google and major international libraries through which a collection of its public domain books will be scanned in their entirety and made available for free to the public online.^[8] Milne's role encompassed developing digitization protocols, addressing logistical and operations issues, and administering the project. The more difficult part of his job required moderating the institutional debate about anticipated consequences inherent in conventional content-vs.-collection strategies;^[9] and sometimes he took on the role of public spokesman.^[10]

"When Sir Thomas Bodley founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford over 400 years ago, in 1602, he laid down the specific condition that this new library should not just serve his alma mater, but that it should also be a library for the worldwide "republic of letters." The emergence of the Internet, and the scope for creating digital surrogates of library materials for networked availability, have radically altered the paradigm for access to the Library, opening up a whole new meaning for the Bodleian as a 'library for the world' in the 21st century. Oxford's mass-digitization programme with Google fits perfectly into this historic context as a key modern element of the Bodleian's strategic aim for the whole of its existence: to bring its great collections to the wider world."

-- Ronald Milne, "Digitising Library Collections" Internet Librarian International Conference, keynote address (2005).^[11]

[edit] Troubleshooter

A librarian troubleshooter inevitably addresses problems which are unrecognized until someone complains. Milne's response to a Bodleian "walk-in" complaint published in the Financial Times illustrates why it is not enough to solve a specific problem encountered by one vocal user. It was also crucial to use the opportunity in enlarging Bodleian community. By publicizing how the library actually functions to ensure improved access, Milne demonstrated one of the ways a modern librarian needs to become something of an alchemist as well.^[12]

[edit] Boards and other organizations

National Preservation Office, Chairman

The National Preservation Office (NPO) provides an independent focus for the preservation of and continuing accessibility to library and archive materials held in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Institutions which are associated in the on-going NPO efforts include: the British Library, The National Archives, National Library of Scotland, Trinity College Library (Dublin), Cambridge University Library, National Library of Wales, National Archives of Scotland, The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, The National Archives of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland and Oxford University Library Services.^[13]

Digital Preservation Coalition, Chairman.^[14]

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) was established in 2001 to foster joint action to address the urgent challenges of securing the preservation of digital resources in the UK and to work with others internationally to secure our global digital memory and knowledge base.^[15] Members of this coalition include The British Library, The National Archives, National Archives of Scotland, National Library of Australia, and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program of the Library of Congress (NDIIPP).^[16]

Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles (CURL), Board member

Increasing the ability of research libraries to share resources is the goal of CURL; and the expected beneficiaries are intended to be the local, national and international research community.^[17] CURL maintains the COPAC academic and national library catalog, which links institutions throughout the British Isles.^[18] CURL is concerned with preserving extra copies of books in anticipation of an unwelcome disaster, which means prudently conserving resources beyond the collection maintained as the National Research Reserve at the British Library.^[19]

Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP), Director

RSLP is a national initiative, funded by the four higher education funding bodies, to facilitate the best possible arrangements for research support in UK libraries -- focusing on streamlining access arrangements, funding projects to enhance humanities and social science resources, and encouraging collaborative approaches in collection management in different disciplines.^[20]

[edit] Published work

Milne, Ronald. (2002). "Joined-up funding: promoting and facilitating collaborative work," Co-operation in action, Stella Pilling and Stephanie Kenna, eds. London: Library Association Publishing.
Milne, Ronald and Gill Davenport. (1999). "The Research Support Libraries Programme Access Survey," New review of academic librarianship, 5:23–39.