Australian Subject Gateways Forum

Minutes of the 10 June 2005 meeting

Held in Canberra at the National Library of Australia

Welcome

Jasmine Cameron, Assistant Director-General, Executive and Coordination Support, National Library of Australia, welcomed the participants to the National Library.

Attendees

Marie-Louise Ayres, NLA; Peter Browne, APO; Jasmine Cameron (chair), NLA; Debbie Campbell, NLA; Karen Kealy, University of Melbourne; Kerry Kilner, AustLit; Barbara Rozmus, NLA (minutes); Jan Whitaker, Agrigate

Apologies

Sten Christensen, Sue Clarke, Joh Hartog, Jon Mason, Jenny Millea, Jenny White

Gateways represented

Agrigate, AustLit, APO, MusicAustralia

Minutes of last meeting

The minutes of the meeting on 22 November 2004 were confirmed with the following amendment:

Under Progress reports - MusicAustralia:

  • MARC is used for resource description (...)

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Current issues for subject gateways

Round the table discussion

Agrigate - Jan Whitaker talked to her written progress report for the October 2004 - June 2005 period. She noted the overall steady usage of Agrigate. Successful harvesting of Agrigate records into ARROW by subsetting data is now completed. A number of resources from the commercial sector were added to the gateway. Recent leadership changes for Agrigate were noted, with Karen Kealy appointed as Manager, Information Access Group. Karen's responsibilities include gateways and repositories.

AustLit - Kerry Kilner reported that in 2004 AustLit had 93,000 individual searches carried out on the system by subscribers, leading to 300,000 page views. There has been a substantial increase in the number of individual subscribers in 2004 while institutional subscriptions have remained steady. AustLit will be made a Z39.50 target for the AARLIN portal in the next few weeks. Another ARC LIEF grant application has been submitted, seeking funding for a number of projects which would move AustLit towards a sustainable position in the future. Writers of Tropical Queensland project was recently launched as an AustLit subset. Current projects include enhancements to the subject thesaurus and repurposing of data for print bibliographies and the publication of the AustLit series of early Australian literature through the Sydney University e-Press.

Australian Policy Online (APO) - Peter Browne noted the emergence of state-based and subject-based counterparts of APO (eg SA Policy Online, a child related policy website in WA) which raises questions of overlap and linkages. A discussion followed on the associated issues such as political sensitivities, interoperability, and using a DC.Coverage element to indicate geographical coverage.

MusicAustralia (MA) - Marie-Louise Ayres reported that MusicAustralia was closed as a project in early May. It now operates as a production service (Kaye McIntyre is the production manager). Governance issues have proved difficult for MA. A very successful marketing strategy followed the launch of the service in March. It involved a phased campaign which over a month covered the indentified market segments. A staff competition for the MA slogan generated greater staff awareness and engagement. The usage of MA has been very high and exceeded expectations, particularly after the service was nominated as an 'ALIA Star' during the Australian Library Week.

PictureAustralia (PA) - Debbie Campbell briefly reported that PA is currently managed by Oliver Mann. It is expected that the position will be advertised in the near future.

Outcomes of the survey of ASGF members

Barbara Rozmus tabled a report on the outcomes of the recent survey of the ASGF members. The survey asked the respondents to assess the usefulness of the ASGF activities and processes. The response rate was very poor with only 4 responses received. Therefore the results of the survey may not be representative of all the ASGF members.

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Presentations

Alternative pathways for networking for the Australian subject gateways - presentation by Debbie Campbell

Debbie foreshadowed closure of the ASGF in view of the poor attendance at the recent meetings, a low level of activity on the ASGF email discussion list, and a low response rate to the member survey conducted prior to this meeting. At present most Australian subject gateways have reached maturity and require a different form of networking. Debbie's presentation provided an overview of possible options for networking post ASGF. These included access to national information infrastructure developments, access to the National Library staff through a number of other activities (eg participation in ARC bids, inclusion in the ARROW Discovery Service, management board/reference group participation), and involvement in promulgation of standards.

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Address by Jan Fullerton, Director General, National Library of Australia

Jan stated that the National Library took on the coordinating role for the Australian subject gateways at the time when they were emerging and benefited from ongoing support and information sharing. It seems that this role has now been fulfilled. Jan asked the meeting if there is a continuing need for some form of networking activities for subject gateways. The discussion which followed concluded with an undertaking by the National Library to hold an annual ‘information infrastructure forum’, including subject gateways and other web-based services such as repository projects, as well various policy and decision making bodies, eg ARC, DEST, DCITA, Academies, CHASS, etc. The event could be organised towards the end of a calendar year after the results of the ARC grant bids are known to enable the newly founded projects to participate. The program would allow subject gateways and other infrastructure related services to report on their progress. Ample opportunities for discussion and making new contacts would be provided.

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Business arising

Future of the ASGF website

Barbara Rozmus proposed that the ASGF website be updated and then, towards the end of 2005, assigned an archival status. The content would be still accessible but an ‘Archived’ stamp would make it clear that the content is not updated anymore. This proposal was supported by the meeting.

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Other business

The group thanked the National Library for supporting the ASGF over the years. Barbara was thanked for her work in providing administrative support for the group.

Date last verified: 29 June 2005

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