Access to information for all Australians is an important element of Commonwealth cultural policy.
Information is a key resource for all Australians - for full participation in our society, and for our quality of life. The Government will continue to work with the States to ensure that existing information resources and the new networking technologies are widely available.
The Government will work with the States to enable the resources in libraries throughout the nation to become available to all.
Vast cultural resources are spread throughout libraries and other institutions across the nation. Commonwealth strategy is based on the concept of a Distributed National Collection of library and other cultural materials, built through collaboration between Commonwealth, State and local government libraries, museums and galleries. In February 1994, the National Library of Australia established the Distributed National Collection office. The office encourages collaborative collecting of library and other materials of national significance, and records them in a National Bibliographic Database; identifies national collection strengths and weaknesses; and monitors, from a national perspective, agreements between libraries covering collecting responsibilities. The preservation of these materials as part of the national heritage is being further supported by the National Preservation Office, established by the National Library in 1993.
Information will be available through the new communication networks.
The convergence of communications and information technologies and the application of state-of-the-art technology to cultural and heritage institutions will allow improved identification of Australia's cultural and heritage resources, wherever they exist. It will become easier to see discrete and separate collections as forming one national cultural and heritage collection.
For too long Australia's cultural and heritage organisations have operated separately, without any binding framework or strong working relationships with one another, or with other organisations. The new communications and information technologies will rectify this through new technology such as in the National Library's National Document and Information Service (NDIS) project, being developed jointly with the National Library of New Zealand. The project will release library and other cultural material held in institutions throughout Australasia, and assist in their preservation.
The Commonwealth will work with the States to make new information services available to all Australia.
In line with its access and equity objectives, the Government will ensure the maximum public access to the information services becoming available. The Government is aware of the potential of networked information services to improve the quality of life both in cities and in remote areas of Australia. It is clear that it will be some years before all Australian homes have the interactive facilities needed to receive many electronic services. The Government will work with the States to form local access points to enable Australians to participate fully in open learning opportunities, government services, small business support, electronic communications, community networks and other opportunities for personal development. In particular, the 1,400 public library service points throughout Australia provide a major opportunity for linking communities to network services, such as those available through the Internet. The Government will work with the States to deliver an effective program of community access.
The Government has also been monitoring developments in the provision of government information in other countries, such as `one-stop' information centres, and information kiosks. It is examining how information from all levels of government - Commonwealth, State and local - may be made more available to the community, through greater collaboration between government agencies.
Networked information services will link Australia with our region and the rest of the world. The Government is committed to promoting Australian information and cultural resources to the world, and to providing Australians with information from the rest of the world.
Our cultural and heritage organisations help define Australia internationally. The convergence of communications and information technologies allows us a "gateway" to the rest of the world.
A good example of cultural linkage is the National Chinese-Japanese-Korean Project. This collaborative project between the National Library and 8 universities will create a database listing the location of materials written in Chinese, Japanese and Korean character. The database will use the actual script characters for these different languages rather than western transliterations.
Just as the National Library provides access to a wide range of documentary material, the Australian Archives is responsible for the management of Commonwealth records and extending access to those records after an appropriate length of time. These records are important for their historical insight into political, social and cultural values in Australia.
The National Library, established by statute in 1960, is the world's leading documentary resource for learning about and understanding Australia and Australians.
The Library's roots go back to 1901 when the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was founded to provide library services for the Commonwealth Parliament. In 1961 the National Library was formally established as a separate entity. It has a special national responsibility for developing and preserving a comprehensive collection of documentary materials of national and international significance.
The Library has developed a indisputable national leadership role in the library field. It has achieved success in developing collaborations between libraries and kindred collecting institutions.
The National Library has developed and maintains the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) which provides access to the collections of both the National Library and more than 1300 member libraries throughout Australia. The ABN database include manuscript, photographic and other pictorial and oral history collections.
The National Library believes the concept of the distributed national collection helps libraries to meet the information needs of all Australians. It has established the Distributed National Collections office to coordinate further development of the concept in the library and information communities.
A practical outcome has been the establishment of the National Preservation Office within the Library to lead and coordinate a National preservation strategy for Australian documentary heritage materials.
One of the major challenges facing the library is the impact of new technologies. The Library has an extensive network via computerised databases with State, regional and local libraries.
The Australian Archives was established as an independent agency in 1961. The Archives and its predecessors, linking back to the War Archives Committee of 1942, is responsible for managing, preserving and making accessible records of Commonwealth administration.
The Australian Archives is a recognised leader within the national and international community of archives organisations. It is particularly renowned for:
As Australia's key archival organisation, the Archives is central to the formal structures of the archives sector and contributes strongly to the archives profession, nationally and internationally. The Archives is also involved in cooperative ventures with the private sector. These include the design of special purpose repositories for private sector records, and the development of paper products aimed at preserving heritage materials.
The Archives intends to focus its activities in the next decade on making the archives of the nation more available to the public. The rising demand for access to Commonwealth records can be expected to continue as Australian society changes, technological developments increase expectations of service delivery, and people seek to resolve questions of cultural identity.
The Archives will pursue strategies to better integrate its existing automated finding-aid systems and develop their functions. In cooperation with State and Territory Archives, it will seek to make the automated finding aids to archival resources throughout Australia more readily available through information networks.
Connecting into national and international research networks will enable users to access public databases. Through exhibitions, publications and other public program activities the Archives will seek to make the archives of the nation more readily available to a greater number of Australians.
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