|
About LAP | Find a Library | Browse Directory | Resources | Contact us | Help |
Country report. Australia 2004
12th CDNLAO Meeting, 2004
(Back to main CDNLAO meetings page)
Library Administration
1) Library Organisational Structure (National Map)
A range of Library Councils, Associations and Foundations operate in Australia. A full list is provided on the Australian Libraries Gateway.
The Australian Libraries Gateway (ALG) is a free web-based directory service providing access to current information about Australian libraries, their collections and services. The following breakdown of the number of libraries in Australia by type was obtained from this source. Note that there are other Australian libraries not covered by the following categories which may be accessed via ALG.
| Public libraries | 1554 |
| *Academic libraries (including TAFE and branch libraries for Australia's 38 universities) | 696 |
| *Special/Private libraries (including Agriculture, Art, Audio-visual, Corporate/Business, Cultural organisation, Health/Medical, Law, Local/Family history, Mobile, Music, Religious, Research, Science/Technology, Special, & Toy libraries ) | 2,823 |
| *Government libraries (Government and Parliamentary) | 687 |
2) New libraries built last year.
Data on new or refurbished libraries is not readily available.
3) General trends of visitorship and membership
A number of Australian libraries have reported in recent years that onsite visits are declining, although visits to public libraries remains high. Use of library resources and services online is rising. In many cases library members can access subscription resources as well as free resources from their homes, offices or other sites, without visiting the library in person.
4) New features introduced into libraries
The majority of libraries in Australia have internet access and the Australian library sector is exploiting the delivery of services electronically that the Internet facilitates.
Collection Profile
1) Total volume of collections at the national level
Australia has a total collection of over 37 million items catalogued on to the National Bibliographic Database (NBD). Information about the NBD is available on the web.
2) Unique Collections / Rare Collections
Many of Australia's state, territory and national "treasures" are kept within formed collections within the National Library of Australia and the eight Australian state and territory libraries. These cornerstone collections are held by:National Library of Australia
State Library of NSW - Mitchell & Dixson Libraries
Northern Territory Library and Information Services - Northern Territory Library
State Library of Queensland - John Oxley Library
State Library of South Australia - Mortlock Library of South Australiana
State Library of Tasmania
State Library of Victoria - La Trobe Library
Library and Information Service of Western Australia - J.S. Battye Library of WA History
ACT Library & Information Services - ACT Heritage Library
A list of special collections held within Australian libraries but not yet catalogued. (this list has not been updated for several years)
3) Bibliographies and Indexes Published
A large number of bibliographies and indexes are published in Australia across all subject disciplines. Some are available via the Internet, either freely or on subscription, while others are available on CD-ROM or in print form. A good indication of the range can be found by browsing the Australian Indexes & Databases page on the National Library's web site.
In addition the Australian library sector also supports and promotes several subject gateways that list and where possible, provide direct access to electronic content. More information about the Australian Subject gateways.
4) National Databases
Kinetica, an Internet-based national bibliographic service for Australian libraries and their users, supports resource sharing and library operations for over 1000 Australian and regional libraries. The core of Kinetica is the National Bibliographic Database (NBD), which records the location of over 37 million holdings and over 13 million bibliographic records. Librarians use this database for interlibrary lending, reference, collection development and cataloguing. Through Kinetica, libraries have access to other databases, including the USA's Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN database), CURL, Te Puna (New Zealand), the Deutsche Bibliothek Database and OCLCs WorldCat. Increasingly Australians are able to use the database to identify resources for their research and access online. More information about Kinetica is available.
Infrastructure
1) Dedicated Library Networks in the country
There are several key library networks operating in Australia. Of these, the main bodies include the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL), the Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). Some information about these organisations is provided below, including links to their web sites.
The Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL)
The Council
of Australian State Libraries (CASL) is the peak body representing State and
Territory libraries and the National Library throughout Australia. These
libraries have a major responsibility for collecting the documentary heritage
of their state or territory, providing quality reference and research services
and assisting in the provision of public library services to the people of
Australia.
The CASL Constitution outlines the areas in which National, State and Territory Libraries will jointly meet the nation's needs for library and information services. Through the following actions the goal is to increase participation, provide telecommunications infrastructure, lead effective advocacy and maintain and develop heritage collections:
- promote and advance the provision, awareness and use of library and information services in Australia;
- provide a consultative forum for state and public library service management in Australia;
- enable the formulation of common plans, policies and programs for state and public library services;
- allow for the common views of state libraries to be presented to government, and to other relevant bodies.
CASL currently has several major collaborative projects in progress. This includes the work of the CASL Consortium and the AskNow digital chat reference service. These are described in greater detail below.
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL)
Since the first
meeting of Australian university librarians in 1928 and the formation of the
Council of Australian University Librarians in 1975, CAUL has sought to ensure
a common voice and representation for all university libraries, provide a forum
for discussion, and promote common interests. The CAUL strategic plan
emphasises collaborative activities which will contribute to the achievement of
key objectives including:
- maximising access to information resources required for the advancement of teaching, learning and research in Australian universities;
- transformation of the current system of scholarly communication;
- the pursuit of world class performance within Australian university libraries through application of the principles of continuous improvement, quality and business excellence and,
- identify and exploit all opportunities for CAUL to promote and raise awareness of the role of university libraries in improving the quality of higher education, research and the national information infrastructure.
CAUL & its members are currently engaged in a range of activities including:
- Implementing Information Literacy Standards;
- Information literacy measurement - CAUL is piloting high quality information literacy assessment tools;
- AARLIN (Australian Academic Research Library Network project);
- cooperative provision of access to electronic journals & databases;
- Australian Digital Theses program;
- contribution to Australia-wide projects to improve access to Australian collections
- determination of performance indicators for academic libraries;
- contribution to national government inquiries relevant to the future of universities and their libraries;
- collaboration in the development of new and improved services for academic library users, eg. electronic reserve collections, standardised electronic document delivery systems, etc;
- contribution to the enhancement of scholarly publishing through SPARC and the NSCF (National Scholarly Communication Forum);
- liaison with major international and national organisations, eg. CONZUL, CURL, ARL, SCONUL, CARL, Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL) and the National Library of Australia..
- contribution to the direction of Australian network infrastructure planning;
- collection and publication of Australian university library statistics; and
- publications
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA)
The
Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) is the professional
organisation for the Australian library and information services sector. It
aims to empower the profession in the development, promotion and delivery of
quality library and information services to the nation, through leadership,
advocacy and mutual support.
It does this in a number of ways. ALIA's website provides information and representation for the diverse structure of the association including branches, sections and special interest groups. ALIA Awards are presented each year to reward members of the library and information community on a national and regional level. ALIA also produces a wide range of publications including the Australian Library Journal, and a regular news magazine to members called inCite.
In addition ALIA hosts a number of conferences. These cover special interest and subject specific issues as well as the premier conference for the entire Australian library profession which is held on a biannual basis. The next ALIA conference will be held 21-24 September 2004 at the Gold Coast.
2) Connectivity at the National level
In March 2004 it was estimated that 58% of Australian households had Internet access. (note:source no longer accessible in 2005) and 84% of the population aged between 16 or over had Internet access. 25% of Internet connections are broadband connections..
3). Services
Reference Services (any new initiatives, etc)
The
National Library has experienced an increasing demand for electronic reference
services whilst demand for face to face reference service is declining. Over
the past year, the Library has purchased substantial electronic resources, many
in full text which are available in the Library's Reading Rooms. In an effort
to market and promote these resources monthly tutorials have been offered to
end users. Web site usage has increased significantly and the Library's
digitisation initiatives will ensure the availability online of many of the
Library resources, including pictorial material, rare maps and music.
The NLA continues to participate in:
CASL Consortium
This is a consortium of Australian State, Territory and National libraries
formed for the purpose of acquiring access to commercial electronic information
resources. Its aim is to simplify licensing arrangements, improve cost benefits
for member libraries, and to explore opportunities for making electronic
product more widely available to Australians, regardless of where they live.
The CASL libraries have also collaborated to develop an online interactive chat reference service for users Australia wide. The service is known as AskNow: Online Answers Australia Wide.
A key feature of the chat reference service, AskNow which distinguishes it from the email reference services already offered by the participating libraries is that a user can ask a question and receive an answer immediately. The service is available via the Internet through the use of 24/7 chat software and can be used by anyone with a standard PC and Internet connection. The service operates from Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 7.00pm (50 hours per week), taking advantage of the different time zones across Australia. AskNow is an initiative of the Council of Australian State Libraries and reference staff from the National, State and Territory libraries are rostered for three 'seats' each session. Accordingly, when a user connects to the services they may have their questions answered by someone outside their home State or Territory. The National Library of New Zealand and the National Library Board of Singapore are also participating in AskNow!
The AskNow services allows a reference librarian to chat with the user online and to send web pages through to the user's computer screen. Users can be guided through a search as the user and librarian view the same web pages. Apart from the benefit of an immediate answer to a reference enquiry from off-site users, the service also enables the complete transcription of the librarian/user interaction to be emailed to the user at the end of the session together with any web addresses which the librarian has provided during the course of the chat reference session.
One of the positive things to emerge so far from monitoring and evaluation of the service is that use of the service is coming from all over Australia and from all age groups. Forty per cent of users come from outside the major population centres. Many are unsure of the best way to search the Internet to find the information they need and by working through the search with a librarian users improve their own information literacy.
Through collaborating to bring about the AskNow service, each participant has been able to offer their users a new service and to provide an effective means of reaching off-site clients that would not be possible on their own. The nature of the service is also enabling participants to increase awareness nationally of their role and functions.
National Bibliographic (Agency) Services
The
National Library facilitates the continued development of a national
bibliography through support for Kinetica, the Internet-based national
bibliographic service. The National Library is also the Australian agency for
ISSN and ISMN.
Reading promotion and Information Literacy Programmes
The public library system in Australia promotes reading to the
community. The Australian Library and Information Association has developed an
Information Literacy
Advocacy Kit (2003).
Most Australian universities have ongoing information literacy programs, and the Council of Australian University Librarians adopted Information Literacy Standards in 2001.
The federal government has committed to a $240 million program, the Book Industry Assistance Plan (BIAP), over four years to promote the intrinsic value of books, reading and literacy, and the books of Australian writers. The 'Books Alive' concept-awareness campaign is one of the initiatives of the BIAP. ALIA is a member of the reference group. Other initiatives under the Plan include grants to school libraries, surveys of publishers, and grants to promote competitiveness in the printing industry.
Digital Library Services
Digital Services Project (DSP) The Digital Services Project is the National Library of Australia's key strategy for ensuring effective management of its digital collections.
The development and delivery of digital services is occurring within the context of the Library's strategic directions statement, with an emphasis on fast and convenient access. The key principles guiding the development of the Library's digital services architecture are:
- Support for integrated access to print and digital resources: the prime entry point to its own information resources is the Library's catalogue, since digital collections form an integral part of the total collection. Consequently the Library has ensured that all of its items in its digital collection are represented in its catalogue, and has also ensured that there are links from the catalogue records to the digital delivery systems
- Support the entire activity cycle for digital collections including collection, storage, management, discovery, access, web delivery and long-term preservation
- Ensure that every item in the Library's digital collections is citable and accessible in a persistent manner
- Support a hierarchical digital library data model, reflecting the complex nature of some collection items: for example, a sheet of manuscript material may form one of many sheets in a letter, which may form one of many letters in a series, which may form one of many series in a manuscript collection
- Provide users with contextual information, navigation pathways and service delivery options appropriate to the category of digital object being accessed
- Ensure that the Digital Collection Management System forms a logical extension of the Library's integrated library management system
With this in mind the National Library of Australia has developed an architecture for the management, discovery and delivery of its digital collections, embracing both digitised and born digital information resources. The components of this architecture interoperate using recognised standards developed by communities working in the field of digital libraries. The main elements of the architecture are:
- A Digital Object Storage System
- A Digital Archiving System (PANDAS) that provides staff with the tools to gather and manage archival copies of selected born digital Australian websites which users access via the PANDORA Archive
- A Digital Collections Manager database to record technical and management information about digital collection items and digital surrogates. The Digital Collections Manager supports the digitisation workflow by facilitating activities such as the uploading and downloading of files to and from the Library's digital storage system.
- A Metadata Repository and Search System . This activity is being undertaken as part of a project funded by the Australian government through its infrastructure research grants. The National Library is responsible for developing the repository search service.
- A Persistent Identifier Resolver Service so that all digital collection objects can be allocated a Persistent Identifier and can be accessed via the web using this identifier
- A series of Delivery Systems have been developed for digitised pictures, sheet music, maps and manuscripts in context with their bibliographic descriptions and facilities for page turning, zooming and other navigation aids. More information about this is available on the Library's website.
The Library was able to implement the lower and upper layers of its architecture (the Digital Object Storage System and the Metadata Repository and Search System) using products available in the marketplace. However, this was not possible for the middle layer, and the Library has been obliged to develop two significant software components itself. The Library hopes that it will be able to replace these components in the future with products from the marketplace.
The Library has also embarked on a major digitisation program to provide greater access to its collections through digitisation of traditional format library materials. The National Library of Australia Digitisation Policy 2000 - 2004 is available.
MusicAustralia is a web-based music service that will provide integrated access to Australian music resources and information to all Australians and other interested users. MusicAustralia will be developed and delivered as a collaboration between the National Library of Australia, ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive and other national cultural institutions and the wider Australian music community. MusicAustralia aims to make Australian music resources and information widely accessible: music in all its formats, across styles and genres, and including both heritage and contemporary material.
PictureAustralia is a web service hosted by the National Library of Australia on behalf of a range of Australian cultural institutions including galleries, museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies. It provides access to many pictorial collections from the one search screen - bringing Australia's cultural heritage together and to the fingertips of users. The service is based on a Dublin Core metadata index hosted at the National Library which links to digitised images held on the web sites of participating cultural agencies, and relies on the Internet for its delivery. At present, over one million images may be viewed via PictureAustralia from the collections of thirty eight institutions.
Other Australian Digitisation Projects
Information about digitisation projects in Australia is available online on the
Australian Libraries Gateway.
The service aims to record and make accessible information about the projects
and the digitisation procedures being used by Australian cultural
organisations. It is aimed at Australian art galleries, libraries, museums,
archives and other public and private institutions that are engaged in cultural
projects involving digitisation. It assists in keeping up to date with
developments in digitisation and locating other institutions to share expertise
and experience with. Key projects include: Picture Queensland.
Regional Directory
The Libraries of Asia Pacific
directory was redeveloped during 2003 to enable all libraries with an entry to
update that entry themselves. All libraries in the region are encouraged to
update their entry, or add their entry if they are not already included. A printed
version was distributed to all CDNLAO region libraries with an entry in the
directory.
Inter-library loan and Document supply
The
National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) was established in 1999 to
examine interlibrary loan (ILL) / resource-sharing issues between libraries and
recommend actions to improve services to users. The NRSWG's membership comes
from many types of libraries around the nation. The group revised Australia's
interlibrary loan standards and released the Interlibrary Resource Sharing
(ILRS) Code as a result. It has also completed a major study, the NRSWG
Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Benchmarking Study, which identified
factors for high performance in ILL/DD and indicates the broad trends in
interlending in Australia.
The 8th IFLA Interlending & Document Supply International Conference was held at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, Australia, in October 2003. In November 2004, an international conference, Archiving Web Resources, will be held at the National Library of Australia.
Copies Direct is a fee paid service provided by the National Library of Australia to supply users with copies of articles, chapters of books, pictures, maps, manuscripts, music, transcripts or other material from the National Library of Australia's collections under the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968. Copies Direct also supplies copies that are not available in the National Library of Australia but can be sourced from other Australian or overseas collections.
Special Services - (eg. Disadvantaged, etc)
In
March 2002 representatives of library, disability and government organisations
attended a one-day Forum on Library Service for People with Disabilities
convened by the National Library of Australia. The purpose of the Forum was to
identify areas in which library services to people with disabilities could be
improved through action taken at a national level. The background papers for
the Forum are prepared by a range of the participants. A follow-up meeting was held in early 2004, and papers for that meeting are
also available at the URL above.
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) summarises the library sector's response to the issue of providing disability services in their Statement on library services for people with disabilities. In effect, the library community abides by the Disability Discrimination Legislation (1992) and related legislation of the states and territories to ensure that services provided to people with disabilities offer equal opportunities and further the integration of people with disabilities in the community and complement services available generally to people in the community.
Services for the multicultural community occur in libraries at all levels. In mid-2004 the National Library produced a kit and convened a workshop for community groups wishing to preserve documentary heritage materials. Several state libraries have multicultural programs, and many public libraries maintain collections in community languages.
Training
Number of Professional Librarians
The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has over 5000
personal members which is the best indicative data available at this stage on
the number of professional librarians working in Australia. It is thought to be
a substantial underestimation but more accurate data does not yet exist.
Number of Library training schools
The Australian Library and
Information Association (ALIA), publishes a guide to courses in library and
information studies on an annul basis. The Courses in library and information
studies information is available online.
Essentially, there are twenty six institutions offering accredited
qualifications for professional librarianship and library technicians.
Copyright
Number of Copyright/IPR Watchdogs or Associations
The main
copyright associations in Australia are:
- The Australian Digital Alliance (ADA)
- Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (sister organisation to the ADA)
- Australian Copyright Council (ACC) (Australia Council-funded legal service & advocacy body)
- Dept. of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts' Intellectual Property Branch
- Federal Attorney-General's Department
Copyright Collecting Societies
(These are organisations which
collectively administer their members' copyrights)
- Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA), which administers musical copyrights.
- Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), which administers a different type of musical copyright)
- Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), which administers largely text-based copyright)
- Audio-Visual Copyright Society Limited (Screenrights), which administers copyright in audio-visual material such as films)
- Phonograph Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), which administer music copyright owned by record companies)
- Visual Arts Copyright Collecting Society (Viscopy), which administers copyright in visual arts such as paintings
Major changes in the Copyright / IPR laws impacting libraries
The
Copyright
Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (DAA), was introduced to meet the
challenges of electronic technology and is the most comprehensive piece of
copyright legislation since the principal Copyright Act was passed in 1968. The
DAA contained a number of library and archives exceptions.