Memorandum by British Committee on Map
Information and Cataloguing Systems (OS 18)
BRICMICS has dealt with the Ordnance Survey
on behalf of all those who consult Ordnance Survey products within
a library setting. As such, the Committee has in recent years
found itself often in contention with OS representatives over
such topics as copyright fair dealing, use licences, prices and
quality of OS products, and use of OS products for planning appeals,
among many other topics. The Committee has been pleased in the
past year to witness a review by OS of its pricing structures
for use of its mapping data in libraries, local authority setting
and educational institutions. This has resulted in a more fair
and realistic approach to pricing many of its digital products,
especially for those users who fall outside the business customer
framework. However, we do also note that a constant vigil must
be kept on this issue, as recent price increases to some of its
small scale paper products has had a detrimental effect and is
felt to be prejudicial to academic and public users, who are not
well funded. While the prices for digital mapping are decreasing,
prices for paper products are considered to be already at the
upper limit of commercial viability. This is a particular problem
since concurrently, over the past year, Ordnance Survey has become
somewhat sloppy in its legally required deposit of paper products
in the Copyright Libraries, which cuts off the last resort for
users without funds to purchase conventional paper maps.
A second issue which BRICMICS has needed to
discuss over many years with OS is OS's eccentric interpretation
of the Copyright Act. Until recently OS tended to appoint non-specialists
to their copyright enforcement section with the result that OS
publicly adopted positions that were not consistent with the provisions
of the 1988 Act, particularly as related to fair dealing.
Lastly, the demise of OS's Consultative Committee
structure has already resulted in ties with the user community
being cut. The current inquiry into the HMSO regulatory framework
relating to Crown Copyright proposes that charities and educational
institutions would be required to pay for OS licences on the same
basis as firms working for profit. This is an issue about which
BRICMICS would have had lengthy discussions with OS; however,
we have only heard about it through peripheral sources. There
has been anecdotal evidence that OS representatives to the university
community were unaware of the proposal and its implications, and
that Higher Education, the Library Association and the British
Cartographic Society were not listed among interested parties
consulted. The latest consultation documents on any subject appearing
on the OS website are dated April 2001. Thus OS's promise, as
it concluded the Consultative Committee process, to find other
means of consulting with users, is off to a very poor start.
The Committee feel that the other topics of
the inquiry are outside the scope of our interest and expertise.
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