National Library of Australia
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The Advisory Process for the National Library's Network Services


Introduction

The advisory process for the National Library’s network services has been reviewed on a number of occasions. It was discussed with the library community prior to the establishment of the ABN Network Committee in 1981. It was reviewed by the Network Committee in 1988, as a result of the changing nature of ABN’s membership and service groupings. It was reviewed in the context of the proposed World 1 service during 1996. Finally, it was discussed at the Annual Users Meeting in August 1997, when the Director-General undertook to further consider the issue in the context of the objectives of the Networked Services Project.

Issues affecting the advisory process

The earlier discussions have focussed on issues such as:

  • whether the National Library would continue to operate and manage network services for Australian libraries, and whether any peak committee would therefore remain as an advisory body to the Director-General;
  • whether there is an understanding that the Director-General would normally accept the advice of the committee, unless there were highly unusual circumstances or public policy constraints;
  • whether the scope of the committee’s advice is confined to network services issues, or would cover a wider range of issues such as national coordination in collecting, digital information management, preservation and so on;
  • how to deal with the distinction between the policy advice role and the communication and feedback role;
  • the need for any advisory structure to be as administratively efficient as possible;
  • whether decisions are likely to be more acceptable to users if the users have an opportunity to elect members of the advisory body;
  • if so, how to constitute the most appropriate electorate for electing members of the advisory body;
  • whether the advisory body needs to be representative of geographical areas, library sectors, types of user, or sizes of user;
  • the number of members of the advisory body, and their terms of office and continuity arrangements; and
  • how the advisory body can receive, and integrate into its deliberations, appropriate technical and user advice.

Comments on these issues

The Library believes that an advisory mechanism is necessary to provide sufficient opportunity for the library community, especially at the chief librarian level, to offer policy advice on the delivery of network services, and in particular the new Kinetica Service.

The Library would prefer to see an advisory mechanism which is focussed on the planning and management issues associated with the delivery of the Kinetica Service. On the other hand, it recognises that the changing technological and market environment requires that the scope of the advice be defined quite broadly, especially as the Kinetica Service develops access to document content in addition to bibliographic information.

The Library also believes that the advisory mechanism must be concentrated on the larger strategic and policy issues. The advisory body should not concern itself with operational details, nor with the minutiae of financial reports, but rather with the broad direction of service development, and with advice on key areas where changes are occurring in the library community which are likely to affect the way in which the rest of that community relates to the National Library.

The preferred model

Kinetica will not be simply 'ABN continued', nor will it take the shape which had been envisaged for World 1. The service will be based around resource sharing and infrastructure support, in an increasingly distributed network context. Consequently, the Library favours the establishment of a new advisory mechanism which will be different from the ABN Network Committee, and from the cascading model which had been proposed for World 1.

The Library has also been influenced in its thinking by the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997 (the CAC Act), which came into effect in January 1998. The CAC Act imposes a number of duties and legal obligations on the Director-General and Nofficers. In this context, the Library is not able to give an unconditional assurance that it would always attempt to follow the advice of any advisory body. Nevertheless, in seeking policy advice for the Kinetica Service, the Director-General aims to establish a peak advisory body whose recommendations would carry the greatest possible weight consistent with the constraints of the CAC Act and his own responsibilities under this Act and under the National Library Act.

The CAC Act also implies that the National Library Council will take a greater responsibility for the strategic and financial issues associated with the delivery of all of the Library’s services. Effectively, the Council will undertake much of the strategic scrutiny which had been envisaged as being provided by independent experts on the Executive Board in the cascading model. This implies that only a single advisory body is required in any specific advisory process for the Kinetica Service.

The Library is attracted to a mechanism in which most of the members of this advisory body are appointed by the Library and by appropriate stakeholder groups. This would increase the likelihood that an appropriate balance of skills would be represented on the advisory body, and would improve its sectoral balance.

Following discussion at the last meeting of the Network Committee in March 1998, the Library decided on an advisory body of ten persons, composed of:

  • two National Library staff, nominated by the Director-General;
  • two people nominated by the Council of Australian University Librarians;
  • one person nominated by the Council of Australian State Libraries, to represent the State and Territory libraries;
  • one person working in and representing local public libraries, nominated by the Director-General after appropriate consultation with the Council of Australian State Libraries, ALIA/ACLIS and others; and
  • four people elected by and from the entire library membership of the Library’s network services (i.e. all those libraries which take out subscriptions for the use of these services).

The Library continues to see a useful role for the Kinetica Annual Users Meeting, as a forum where the Library can receive feedback from users and set out its plans for the future development of services. Following discussions, the Library proposes that the convenors of the State and Territory user groups, or their nominees, should form a Program Committee to work with the Chairperson of the Annual Users Meeting to ensure that the program will be responsive to the concerns of users. The Library also proposes that the Chairperson of the Annual Users Meeting should be elected at the immediately preceding meeting of the Kinetica Advisory Committee.

The Library has valued the advice which it and the Network Committee has received over the years from the Standards Committee, and from State and Territory groups concerned with the delivery of interlibrary loan services. In the future operation of services, the Library considers that there would be value in establishing, as needed, ad hoc technical committees to deal with particular issues such as searching, cataloguing, document delivery and system interface matters affecting the delivery of its network services.