CAIRNS Final Report: An Embryonic Cross-sectoral, Cross-domain National Networked Information Service for Scotland?

The name CAIRNS is used to refer to two related things: an embryonic Scottish national networked information service or Scottish Portal that continues to develop and offers the potential of integrated access to all publicly available research materials, learning and teaching resources, and public information services in Scotland, whether digital or non-digital; it includes SLAINTE, and will add NGfL Scotland, BUBL, Glasgow Digital Library in early 2001, while work with SCRAN continues. This is receiving ongoing support within the SCONE project until December 2001 and then by the CDLR until 2004; The eLib-funded and SCURL-backed research project which created the service and ended in December 2000, having not only met all of its major objectives, but also won support in Scotland as the possible hub of a future cross-sectoral and cross-domain national networked information service. This document is the final report of CAIRNS, the research project. It: <br>•Charts the development of the project itself, and of the embryonic service;</br> <br>•Describes problems encountered during the project and lessons learned that are likely to be of value to other groups aiming to set up similar services;</br> <br>•Provides details of the project evaluation programme and its results;</br> <br>•Maps out future needs in respect of funding for additional research, development, and maintenance work and why this work would be of value to Scottish citizens and organisations aiming to compete successfully in the Information Age;</br> <br>•Indicates the extent to which growth of the service is possible in the absence of additional funding and where additional funding is needed;</br> <br>•Provides information on project finances;</br> <br>•Encompasses essential background information, such as the Cataloguing Standards and Interoperability reports.</br&gt