Future developments

Search

During the 2012-13 financial year, Libraries Australia will be redeveloping the Libraries Australia Search Service. This redevelopment will ensure a faster, more stable search experience for Libraries Australia members. Libraries Australia Products, the Record Export Service and Z39.50 services will also be redeveloped.

In the lead up to this redevelopment, we are conducting a review of the Libraries Australia services. This review is designed to ensure that, in a changing environment, we are offering the highest-value services to Libraries Australia subscribers. We are looking at which services are being provided, the possibility of adding new services, and whether services should be offered in a different way. As part of this review, more than 500 people from more than 350 Libraries Australia subscribing institutions contributed to a detailed survey about Libraries Australia services. The review will also involve site visits, interviews with leaders in the Library sector and an environmental scan. Results from the review will be published for discussion in 2012.

Libraries Australia welcomes all input into the review. If you have any information or comments, please contact us.

Cataloguing

CBS upgrades

A configuration release of the CBS cataloguing software which underpins Libraries Australia is scheduled for December 2012. The main component will be support for RDA-related changes.

A new version of CBS , CBS 6.0, was implemented in October 2012. Among other improvements, CBS 6.0 includes SRU enhancements; CBS Job Manager, which will enable staff of the Libraries Australia office to undertake tasks such as global changes which are currently performed by IT staff at the National Library or at OCLC Leiden, and a number of improvements to match/merge of authority records.

Linking of bibliographic and authority records

In August 2012 we implemented functionality in the CBS cataloguing database that automatically links bibliographic and authority records. This development allows us to offer LA users an authority file product, Linked Authorities, that contains authority records that are linked to bibliographic records to which the library has added a holding.

Data Exchange

SRU Record Update is a protocol which supports the exchange of records in real time. It is an approach to data synchronisation which results in faster sharing of bibliographic records. It is used for sending Australian library data to WorldCat, the global library catalogue, in real time.

Libraries Australia is the second service in the world to use SRU Record Update to WorldCat; the Dutch Union Catalogue was the first. Greater benefits can be achieved as more libraries implement the protocol. The National Library of Australia recommends that libraries consider including SRU Record Update support as a requirement when they are purchasing new library management systems, or when requesting enhancements.

Libraries Australia would like to hear from libraries interested in testing the use of SRU Record Update to receive records from library management systems in Australian libraries, to increase the responsiveness and usefulness of record-sharing.

Other National Library services also provide data using this protocol, see NLA APIs for further details.

Document Delivery

Libraries Australia plans to implement another version of the Document Delivery software, VDX 6.0, in early 2013. Improvements will include:

  • Faster work queue display
  • Ability to copy an existing work queue and change it
  • From work queues, ability to obtain statistics, including performance timing; logs; explain
  • User alerts based on item format
  • Lock and allocate requests to staff members
  • Bug fixes
  • Unicode support

Libraries Australia plans to implement a Suspension and location script for the benefit of those libraries that use their own ISO ILL compliant interlibrary loan systems to interoperate with LADD. The script will support the following on VDX satellite systems:

  • Addition of new locations
  • Suspending/un-suspending locations
  • Changes to the address details of a location

Although the Suspension and location script has been developed for VDX satellite systems, it is hoped that with some development work, non-VDX systems will also be able to benefit from it.