Sir, Professor Evans (letter, July 22) has made a number of unfounded comments about the UK Research Reserve scheme, which we launched with our partners last week.

We are not suggesting that any books should be burnt, nor that the British Library should dispose of any material that it now holds. We are proposing that universities should dispose of rarely used back numbers of journals that many of them now hold, thus releasing expensive space for more productive use. We propose this on the basis that the British Library will ensure that this material is available on demand through an enhanced version of the highly valued service that its document supply centre already delivers to higher education and other users, and that two further copies of this material will be retained by designated UK higher education libraries.

The British Library service will provide printed copies on request, and will offer researchers the increasingly preferred option of electronic delivery direct to their desks. This has nothing to do with the separate question of access to digitised journals provided by their publishers.

There are no plans to extend the scheme to cover books, though the possibility of rationalising multiple holdings of any lightly used printed material remains attractive wherever this can be achieved without denying access. Unique copies of rare material held in the British Library and other national collections are not at risk, and UKRR will retain at least three copies (not one) of the material that it covers. All of this is good news for researchers and for the taxpayer.

Professor David Eastwood
Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding Council for England

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