Last week my colleague Ben Showers outlined the principles that have been drawn up for the NMS project. There are six in total and they combine together to govern how we approach the project.
The fourth of these principles ‘evidence-based’ will be of particular importance to the work I’ll be undertaking in gathering and analysing data and creating the Monograph Problem Report from which the project will work with its Expert Advisory Panel and the wider community to create an outline of possible solutions.
The scope of the NMS project is broad and the range of stakeholders wide. In attempting to both outline the problem and present a possible range of solutions it’s important we are able to effectively refine and prioritise problem areas and any relevant solutions . Ultimately any future strategy will be based on these, and our various communities need to be satisfied as to the suitability of the decisions made.
This is where the ‘evidence-based’ principle comes in. We’ll be undertaking a whole range of research such as the landscape report. But we also want to ensure we focus on tangible values. While there is value in qualitative evidence and we are already gathering personal views and anecdotes, my role will be to complement this with more qualitative data to ensure problems and benefits can be understood in economic terms. Not just economics in financial terms but also in terms of production, distribution, exchange, consumption; the conditions which impact how the ‘business’ of monographs is changing.
With this in mind we’re currently working to identify and collate any existing reports or research undertaken in this area with a view to identifying any gaps in the data. The next step will be to design ways of gathering new data to fill in those gaps and approach libraries to collaborate with us on this. Once we feel we have a complete picture of the data out there then the task of analysing the data with a view to estimating economic value begins – no mean feat!
As the work progresses in the coming months I’m sure I shall be in direct contact with many of you as I seek to enhance the data gathered.
In the meantime, if you have any additional research, reports or studies that they think we should be analysing as part of this activity please drop your links into the comment box just below or contact us directly via email.
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