AGENDA
| 1. | Welcome and introduction, apologies | |
| 2. | Election of chairperson and deputy chairperson for 2000 | |
| 3. | Minutes of the previous meeting and business arising, if any | KAC/1999/2/11 |
| 4. | Director-Generals remarks | |
| 5. | Report of KAC members on meetings with NLA Council etc. (oral report) | |
| 6. | Kinetica Financial Information (to be tabled) | KAC/2000/1/2 |
| 7. | Kinetica Status Report | KAC/2000/1/3 |
| 8. | Kinetica Business Plan 2000-2005 (embargoed) | KAC/2000/1/4 |
| 9. | Charges and Budget 2000/2001 (embargoed) | KAC/2000/1/5 |
| 10. | Kinetica evaluation (embargoed) | KAC/2000/1/6 |
| 11. | A day with the National
Library of Australia: VALA Ancillary day (Oral report) |
|
| 12. | Kinetica elections | KAC//2000/1/7 |
| 13. | Kinetica annual Users Meeting 2000 | KAC/2000/1/8 |
| 14. | ELiAS visit | |
| For information | ||
| 15. | DSP report | KAC/2000/1/9 |
Kinetica Advisory Committee Meeting 11 & 12 November 1999 |
KAC/1999/3/11 |
Draft minutes of the Fifth meeting of the Kinetica Advisory Committee held at the National Library of Australia on the 11th and 12th of November 1999.
| Chairperson | Ms Helen Livingston Deputy University Librarian, Deakin University |
| Members | Ms Marian Bate Principal Librarian, University of New South Wales |
| Ms Kaye Hill Library and Information Service of Western Australia |
|
| Mr Philip Keane Head, Library and Educational Information Services, Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide |
|
| Ms Jan Maslen Associate Librarian (Technical Services), La Trobe University |
|
| Ms Sherrey Quinn Libraries Alive! Canberra |
|
| Ms Meredith Wallace Manager, Information and Library Service, Parramatta City Library |
|
| Ms Jan Fullerton Director General, National Library of Australia |
|
| Mr David Toll Deputy Director-General (Acting), National Library of Australia |
|
| Officers in Attendance | Mr Andrew Wells Assistant Director-General, Kinetica, NLA |
| Ms Bryony De La Motte Director, Kinetica Customer Service, NLA |
|
| Ms Julia Trainor Director, Kinetica Implementation, NLA |
|
| Minutes | Ms Diana King Kinetica Customer Service |
The meeting opened at 10 am.
Agenda item 1 |
WELCOME, INTRODUCTION AND APOLOGIES; |
The Chairperson introduced the meeting and arranged the agenda. There was an apology from Ms Sally Anderson, NSW Agriculture Library, Trangie
Agenda item 2 |
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING |
It was resolved:
KAC/1999/2/6
That the
minutes of the meeting of 18 & 20 July 1999 are a true and accurate record
of that meeting.
Agenda item 3 |
DIRECTOR-GENERAL'S REMARKS |
The Director-General commented on the following matters:
There is no major restructure of National Library staffing intended. The Deputy Director-General position will be filled. The name of the Kinetica division will be changed to something describing its function more effectively, such as resource sharing division. There will be no further changes to senior staff. David Toll is currently acting Deputy Director-General.
The National Library Council now has a majority of newly appointed members, with a strong emphasis on commercial focus and few members from the not for profit sector. There is a council focus on Kinetica which has been coloured by some adverse comments. The perspective of the informed community may be different however it has not been as pervasive as other views. The Chair and Deputy chair of the Kinetica Advisory Committee (KAC) have been invited to the next council meeting.
The National Library has produced a new direction statement with an emphasis on:
As ACLIS no longer exists to represent the views of the library community the National Library must find other ways to communicate with this community. We propose a national meeting on infrastructure with a probable starting point of subject gateways. The National Library supports the Australian Library Collections Taskforce. This combines users and librarians in a constructive way. A survey by the taskforce revealed a strong desire for a source of information about Australian library holdings. Importance is attached to interlibrary loan (ILL) and the National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) is focussing on ILL.
The National Library also has a role supporting the development of standards. Warwick Cathro is working on the Dublin Core, Judith Pearce on Z39.50 and Debbie Campbell is working on metadata.
NLA is a partner in RIEF grants, which provide a useful link to university library activities. The development of national database of electronic finding aids for literature is led by Pam Gatenby.
Y2K performance is also continually under testing.
This was followed by general discussion on resource direction, national infrastructure, subject gateways, and the fact that Janus is doing a similar thing. Members also discussed the role of Council, ALIA, CAUL and CASL.
Agenda item 4 |
KINETICA FINANCIAL INFORMATION |
Andrew Wells tabled the Kinetica Operating Statement and introduced the
item.
At present, revenue appears likely to come in under budget, so there
is a need to reconsider pricing and the business plan. Benchmarking against
OCLC is to be tabled with the business plan. Kinetica revenue has been affected
by delay in the implementation of Kinetica Document Delivery. This caused
revenue leakage as users continued to use ABN. The real revenue situation is
difficult to predict over the next few months due to the traditional November
to January drop in activity. Employee expenses are on target, with a reduction
of four staff, so far this financial year. Some of these have been the result
of redundancies... Other expenses are being contained except RLIN, where the
level of exposure is unpredictable.. Inclusion of RLIN access in site licenses
has encouraged heavy use , and will need to be reconsidered. Some substantial
risks and problems face the service due to implementation, changing behaviour
and changing values in libraries.
General discussion ensued on costing in regard to RLIN use and strategies for dealing with this.
Agenda item 5 |
KINETICA STATUS REPORT |
Bryony De La Motte introduced the item, noting that the information is quite brief, due to the newness of the service. She also reported that:
The Reference Expert Advisory Group (REAG), consisting of experienced reference staff from customer libraries has met once plus had teleconferences. The Group looked at a long list of developments and discussed which changes should have highest priority. Some of the prominent ones are:
Kinetica is also working on useability issues for the visually impaired. This involves making the 'alternative' labels on buttons and icons more meaningful for users of assistive technology, either voice or Braille. Bruce Maguire, who is familiar with assistive technology, has been consulted and will use Kinetica Web and point out any shortcomings in this area.
This was followed by general discussion on publication of information about the activities and recommendations of the REAG. Roxanne Missingham will shortly be putting an announcement about the deliberations of the Group onto the Kinetica list, following comments from REAG members. There will be a description of what the group is doing and a refined statement of the Preferred changes list and how change will happen.
Julia Trainor mentioned the work Kinetica is doing to assist with loading to InMagic. This will be publicised through the Kinetica list and Triad InMagic.
There was also discussion about KDD payments system bimonthly billing, which is separate to Kinetica billing. Andrew Wells advised that Kinetica is working on the GST implications for KDD. This was followed by discussion about response times in KDD.
Agenda item 6 |
KINETICA BUSINESS PLAN 1998-2003: EVALUATION |
Julia Trainor introduced the item, reporting as follows on items listed for evaluation in the 1998-2000 business plan.
The biggest shortfall is the delay in batch loading, largely due to
delays by customer libraries in extracting records and delivering files of
records. Testing is still underway with library suppliers. The National Library
is seeking incorporation of z39.50 Extended Service standard into LibriVision
as soon as possible.
Uptake of the Z39.50 service is at a pleasing
level.
It is still early days for a KDD evaluation.
A customer
satisfaction survey will be carried out in the New Year.
ILANET is intended
to service small users of Kinetica.
Market leakage to OCLC is small.
Thirty-two libraries are using OCLC. These are a mixture of university and
special. University of Queensland and ANU have Kinetica site licenses, as they
like to manage their KDD use this way. They collect records from OCLC through
Z39.50 and then batch upload.
Kinetica needs to find a means of capturing
data that is being downloaded from RLIN to local systems.
Agenda item 8 |
VALA ANCILLARY DAY |
Bryony De La Motte introduced the item.
National Library issues will be dealt with in the morning and Kinetica in the afternoon. The program is not yet finalised. Promotion will be through electronic discussion lists and the Library's Web site. It was suggested that there is a need for a Fretwell-Downing representative at VALA. Mr Wells advised that Kinetica would endeavour to arrange that.
Agenda item 9 |
KINETICA ELECTIONS |
Bryony De La Motte sought advice on whether to use a web or paper vote for the Kinetica elections. Web version was thought to be possibly too ad hoc however, as there needs to be a way to avoid multiple votes from institutions and some way to ensure all voters are Kinetica customers. The electronic option was considered to be more timely. An email requesting a reply would be preferable to placing a form on the National Library Web site. Neither solution would achieve 100% return, as some people ignore emails, while paper votes historically have a low rate of return. Notification about the email can be made on the Kinetica list and other lists and there can also be a note on the web page about the KAC vote. There was agreement to go ahead with an email vote as soon as possible. Nominations will be called for whilst refining the voting methodology.
Agenda item 10 |
ANNUAL USERS MEETING |
Bryony De La Motte introduced the item.
Minutes and documents from the AUM are to go separately on the web with links from the minutes to presentations. Andrew Wells commented that the AUM had had valuable parallel sessions, which we will allocate more time for and schedule differently in future. The AUM attracts practitioners, but perhaps shouldnt be quite so focussed on cataloguing. Activity by the REAG may encourage other types of Kinetica users to come. Marian Bate suggested a reference and ILL focus at the next AUM and that it be held in Melbourne or Sydney as that makes it easier for more organisations to send more than one representative. Further discussion covered the following areas:
Agenda item 12 |
NLA DRAFT STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS FOR 1999-2002 |
Jan Fullerton introduced this item describing the document as a shorter statement backed up with a business plan. The main points are:
Ms Fullerton explained that there is no prioritising of resources within the document. In regard to Kinetica, see the 'objectives and key priorities '. This was followed by general discussion on the emphasis given to end users and their access to material.
Agenda item 6 |
KINETICA BUSINESS PLAN 2000-2005: DRAFT |
Andrew Wells introduced the item seeking comment on the draft plan.
Kinetica statistics were tabled. This was followed by general discussion in the following areas:
The Committee went on to discuss the following aspects of the business plan.
Environment scan
Outsourcing agencies have had problems
through not predicting costs. Outsourcing depends on a shared cataloguing
service.
Need to anticipate the end of shared cataloguing and the beginning
of resource sharing.
Metadata development happening in the education
sector. Need to consider how metadata databases can be integrated with
Kinetica. Under consideration with the Z39.50 client.
Consideration of
cross sectional links, ie. Museums.
Value lies in access to unique material
rather than access to a multitude of databases.
Competitor scan
Infotrieve have a variable pricing
structure depending on the clients sector. It only competes in the copy
market. Commercial activity may limit growth in the ILL system. Libraries can
be insecure about dependence on Infotrieve due to an inability to control
pricing variations.
ILL system has a problem if there are no quality
standards set and maintained in regard to usage protocols. How much does the
Australian public sector carry the cost of ILL for the private sector?
Strengths
Strength of the service is in resource discovery
and access. A weakness is the "mud sticks" factor, which although damaging does
not need to be a long term weakness. There is a need to look at improving
access to Kinetica and working with those libraries that have response time
problems.
Opportunities
User numbers for KDD are the same as for ABN
ILL. Metadata related developments present a potential opportunity. ABN has an
established reputation for service across all libraries and particularly as a
resource for small libraries. Links between document delivery and RMIT
publishing could enhance KDD. Addition of datasets to Kinetica will improve the
service. There was consideration of which ones are relevant to Kinetica
customers and how they can be linked to document delivery.
Threat
Commercial document delivery operations pose a
potential threat to KDD.
Competitive advantage
Interoperability between NBD, KDD and
Ariel makes the combination a unique and powerful resource.
VDX can provide
links to commercial services where necessary.
The meeting was adjourned at 5 pm until 9am Friday 12 November
Agenda item 11 |
DIGITAL SERVICES PROJECT |
Warwick Cathro, Assistant Director General, Information Technology,
introduced the item.
Warwick described the Digital Services Project (DSP)
as of increasing relevance to Kinetica and explained that there are several
ways of looking at it:
Currently under consideration for the DSP are RAAM search services, a federated image collection, platforms for APAIS and use of the DSP as a testbed for system identifiers. An example of the latter is as a tool to ensure access through URL resolvers. The DSP has installed the Blue Star software and is in the process of migrating RAAM. Through Z39.50 compatibility it opens up interoperability issues with Kinetica such as simultaneous searching of the NBD and other repositories.
This was followed by general discussion on Z39.50, metadata and the types of resources that could be accessed via the DSP. Warwick described the problem of cross database searching. There is a difficulty in linking searching of MARC and Dublin Core, which has been looked at by an OCLC project. There needs to be further development in this area with an extension of work on the Dublin Core's Bath profile. The Warwick framework provides an overall architecture for complementing these datasets however working systems for these are not available yet.
The meeting then returned to the previous days last agenda item to continue discussion on agenda item 7, the draft Business Plan.
Agenda item 7 |
AGENDA ITEM 7 BUSINESS PLAN 2000-2005: DRAFT |
(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS DAY)
Discussion about various sections of the business plan continued with the following comments and suggestions.
Strategic responses
The only change to the five key
responses is that the implementation phase is over.
Product development and quality
The 'one stop shop' concept
is a strong issue which needs to be pushed. Kinetica should continue to work
with suppliers and user groups in regard to service and content and to deal
with internet access problems. Some mention in the document of customer focus
is necessary. There was general discussion on Kineticas relationship with
ELiAS and future product development.
Business relationships
Facilitating access to KDD is
important. Current emphasis is on KineticaWeb development as a response to
users. Need to explain in an action plan to customers where the emphasis is.
Market share
Increasing Kinetica's market share by
increasing the number of libraries using KDD should be possible. The next KDD
upgrade will make the service far more saleable. National document delivery
standards need to be developed.
There is good membership from public
libraries in cataloguing and searching.
A workflow consultancy would be
useful to assist in resolving perceived problems. It was suggested that the
Helpdesk operates in this way.
Need to find holes in the collections listed
on the NBD and to target unique collections for addition to the NBD, and
advertise this fact.
Need to include access to other organisation's digital
acquisitions.
The shift in emphasis from holdings and cataloguing to focus
on online reference sources requires support via attention to REAG results and
development of the end user interface.
Governance and management
Important to recognise and
cultivate the contribution of Kineticas major customers. This also means
finding out what there current and anticipated requirements are.
Maintain
the role of user groups, which is working well especially at those meetings
where there is a Kinetica representative to answer questions.
Need to
continue to aim for cost recovery.
Key success factors
The National Library's Executive
Support Unit is coordinating development by a consultant of a survey to measure
customer satisfaction.
The automated payments system and GST could be very
attractive to users.
Need to be explicit when targeting services in regard
to the type of service on offer and the person to whom it is being
advertised.
Need to illustrate workflows in some best practice
organisations.
Discussion on pricing strategy covered the following issues:
Type of charging selected by customers. Site license customers are being charged at a level closely comparable their level of payment under ABN. Although concurrent sessions are a known and predictable cost, very few customers have opted for them, apart from some public libraries that are using it for end user access.
Charging predictions have proved to be quite accurate in so far as they conform to customer expectations and previous ABN charges. This is especially the case for those that opted for transaction-based charging where the result is very close to their ABN charge
In setting next year's charges it will be important to consider the incentives rebate and whether the two levels are appropriate. How and to what degree should the addition of holdings be rewarded?
Batch loading charges should be set with regard to quantity, quality and timely contribution of records.
Marketing
There has been no formal marketing follow up for
organisations and individual marketing has been in abeyance while implementing
Kinetica. Emphasis is shifting from trade and industry conferences to group and
site visits. Trade exhibits have provided a useful venue. Need to look again at
those organisations with firewall problems and assist where possible.
The evaluation
Andrew asked the Committee if the evaluation
outlined in the Business Plan provided a sufficient set of performance
indicators. It was agreed that they are more understandable than those in the
previous plan. There has been a high level of availability of Kinetica and the
search engines have been working, as they should.
User group issues
User group minutes were considered and
nothing found necessary for discussion. The Kinetica list is to be unmoderated.
Training issues
Training was covered in the status report.
KTA contracts are valid till January 2001. The contract requires evaluation and
course statistics quarterly. Training needs are diminishing and web tutorial is
filling the same demand. Web tutorial requires some refinement for an end user.
A KDD tutorial is under consideration.
Other business
Roxanne Missingham's statement on
the REAG for distribution via Kinetica-l and other discussion lists was
tabled.
The next meeting was set for Monday 14 February 2000.
Action items
- Revise the draft business plan in the light of
discussions at this meeting
- Distribute some charging options for
consideration in the light of information on usage.
- Cease moderation of
Kinetica-l.
The following agenda papers were embargoed:
- Kinetica business
plan
- Kinetica draft business plan
- NLA draft strategic
directions
- Kinetica operating statement
- Kinetica search
database
- Kinetica and OCLC
- REAG preferences from Roxanne
Missingham
Not embargoed
- Minutes of previous meeting
- Status report
- VALA Ancillary day
- Kinetica elections
- AUM reports
- Digital
Services Project
The Committee moved a vote of thanks to the retiring members of the committee, Jan Maslen and Sally Anderson.
The meeting closed at 3 pm.
KINETICA STATUS REPORT |
KAC/2000/1/3 |
The period from November to January has shown a drop in most types of activity, as is expected at this time of year. Nevertheless, activity on the system has continued at a pleasing level, while the number of phone calls and emails to the Help Desk has been lower. In part this reflects growing familiarity with Kinetica functionality, and in part is a seasonal feature.
The period has been one of consolidation of the service, with the reduction in customer contact providing the opportunity to refine workflows and tasks and to complete some tasks that were not finalised during implementation.
Membership
18 new customers have registered to use
Kinetica this financial year, including four since 1 January. The new customers
include one from Sweden and one from Brunei. Two public libraries from Western
Australia have joined to contribute cataloguing.
Customers which have not returned an Agreement to use Kinetica have been identified, and action is being taken to contact them. If no agreement is received, passwords will be cancelled. Some of the organisations identified were listed as the result of the data migration from ABN, and failure to recognise a slight variation in name which resulted in two entries for the same organisation. At present, more than 140 libraries have been identified for follow-up; most of these continue to use Kinetica.
Usage reports
Production of detailed reports on
usage of Kinetica by individual libraries are being tested. There has been some
delay in this task, as one problem is related to KineticaWeb's failure to log
holdings transactions at the individual customer level. This logging has been
developed, and will be implemented at the same time as the new version of the
Kinetica Client.
Usage reports will be available to Kinetica customers online, with password protection to restrict access to individual libraries. Customer libraries will be able to request reports limited by date, type of transaction (search, holdings, cataloguing and authority work) and those libraries with multiple accounts will be able to restrict a report to one account, or receive a report on all their accounts.
Kinetica client version 3.2
The new version of the
Kinetica Client is being distributed during February, and will be implemented
on 28 February. This Client version was originally scheduled for installation
late in 1999, but was delayed due to concern that it could not be made Y2K
compliant before the end of November, the deadline for distribution to
customers of a Client to be installed before the end of December. It has been
the subject of extensive testing; documentation has been revised to reflect
changes, and test loads have been conducted at sites outside the National
Library.
Main features of the new Client version are:
Marketing and customer relations
Activity in this
period has been largely restricted to planning for events to be held this later
this year, most notably the Day with the NLA, the VALA 2000 trade
exhibit and the ALIA conference trade exhibit, and some visits to individual
libraries.
A meeting was held in November with members of the Federal Libraries Information Network (FLIN) to discuss ongoing their concerns with Kinetica Client access to Kinetica from their organisations. As a result of this visit, discussions were held in February with the Defence Signals Directorate, which provides advice to federal government on telecommunications security issues, and which provided a statement on Kinetica Client security risks in 1998. Further meetings will be held to assist FLIN members in achieving Client access through their firewalls.
Following the November meeting with FLIN, Kinetica staff have visited some libraries which had specific problems with use of Kinetica to resolve problems and advise on workflows.
Connectivity
Most Kinetica customers are now
experiencing acceptable connection and response times with Kinetica. However,
this remains an intractable problem for some customers. The reasons for this
vary, the main ones being inadequate access to the Internet, local network
issues, and organisational security policies. Security policies (firewalls) are
the main reason that a number of federal government libraries are unable to use
the Client to connect to Kinetica. In addition to addressing the FLIN security
conmcnerns, as mentioned above, some other actions are being taken to reduce
connectivity problems:
Customers will be surveyed to provide a clear picture of the types of equipment and the Internet Service Providers used by each customer. This information may be helpful in assisting customers to resolve their problems, by enabling Kinetica Customer Support and National Library IT staff to identify similar sites, drawing on that information to suggest possible solutions.
ELiAS is being encouraged to undertake work which will 'streamline' the Client, which at present has a number of inefficient features, which involve excessive use of the Internet. The high level of interaction in the Kinetica cataloguing process exacerbates the impact of Internet response time delays.
Kinetica staff maintain ongoing contact with sites which report connectivity problems, particularly with the Client, checking progress and keeping them informed of changes to Kinetica .
User groups
User groups are now active in all
states except Queensland, where planning is under way for the first meeting.
Kinetica staff members will endeavour to attend meetings in all states during
the year. In the first part of the year, we aim to speak on the new release of
the Kinetica client in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. A visit to the
Brisbane user group will be a high priority, when a meeting is scheduled.
In 2000, we plan to focus on other groups, such as ALIA Divisional and Special Interest Groups, and other professional librarian groups. Contact has been made with ALIA OPaLs (One Person Libraries) group to seek opportunities to speak at their meetings.
There will be a Kinetica paper at the NSW Country Public Libraries Association conference to be held in July in Cessnock.
Kinetica Document Delivery
The KDD service has now
been bedded down and has been operating fairly smoothly after the response time
problems which occurred in October were resolved. Response time will continue
to be monitored.
| Statistics for requests created: | |
| September: | 11,417 (pilot service began 8 September) |
|---|---|
| October: | 16,216 |
| November: | 16,535 |
| December: | 11,470 |
| January: | 13,687 |
| 4,502 requests were created in the week 31 January-4 February: the highest weekly totals since KDD was implemented. | |
Implementation of an update to the KDD Web interface (VDX-Web version 1.05.06) on 15 January went very well. It resulted in very few queries and received several positive comments. There should be one more small fix to this release before it is closed off.
Another significant advance on 10 January was the provision of online reports which allow users to obtain a complete picture of their requesting and supplying activity on KDD for any time period.
The KDD payments scheme has been implemented. Reports for transactions up to 5 January were sent to users in late January; invoices and cheques will follow. Future reports, invoices and cheques will be produced bimonthly.
Archiving of requests will be necessary to limit the size of users files and preserve the performance of the system. Archiving has been tested and will be implemented after users have had sufficient time to examine their payments scheme transactions and run retrospective online reports.
Beginning in March Kinetica staff will be testing the next version of the underlying VDX software, which is the version the LIDDA sites will be using. As well as testing KDD functionality we will be testing interoperation with the LIDDA sites and Te Puna Interloan, transfer of requests from KineticaWeb and display of holdings from CJK.
A requirements statement for enhancements to the Web interface, based on user feedback, has been given to Fretwell-Downing and we are awaiting their response. Priorities for the items on this list are being discussed with the National Library of New Zealand. A meeting will be held with Fretwell-Downing on 15 February to discuss the timeline for these enhancements.
Business relationships
An agreement has just been
concluded with the British Library to provide access to the inside web
service for Kinetica customers at reduced subscription and with reduced
document supply charges. The annual subscription for a 100 password licence
will be $A475 per year for Kinetica customers (compared with the standard
subscription of £1570), and the document delivery charges will be reduced
by 20% for Kinetica customers. There will be no reduction in copyright
fees.
Negotiations continue with the National Library of New Zealand for Z39.50 gateway access between Kinetica and Te Puna. Testing of the ability to provide this access is also under way.
ISBN Agency records
The Australian ISBN agency has
contributed several files of pre-publication records to the NBD. Users continue
to complain about the poor quality of the records, which causes duplicate
records to be loaded. The NBD team is analysing the problem.
Batch*link
The batch loading service has four
regular users: Deakin University (Innovative), University of Adelaide (Dynix),
the University of Ballarat (Innovative) , and Coutts Library Services (library
supplier, on behalf of the University of Western Australia). The University of
Queensland has contributed 1179 MARC records for manuscripts, but has not yet
commenced regular loads. The University of Melbourne (Innovative), University
of Technology Sydney, and Masons Book Centre (library supplier, on behalf of
the ACT Library Service) have completed testing, and are expected to commence
regular loading soon.
Testing is currently under way with La Trobe University
NBD coverage for the Western Australian Group of University Libraries was reviewed in December, following their outsourcing of technical services in 1999.
Discussions have commenced with CSIRO with a view to batch loading CSIRO holdings to the NBD.
OCLC
Under an agreement with OCLC, holdings of
Australian libraries are transferred weekly from OCLC to Kinetica. Although
over 30 Australian libraries have registered to use the holdings transfer
service, only three libraries are making active use of the service: Macquarie
University, University of South Australia, and the Northern Territory Library
Service.
Data enhancement
The National Library has funded a
project to identify Australian literature records on the NBD. The target is to
flag records on the NBD as Australian for all the works by 3,700
authors. To date 6,700 records by 1,357 authors have been flagged. The project
will be completed in May 2000.
NBD coverage: electronic resources
The National
Library is planning to use Kineticas resource sharing services to improve
coverage of electronic collections on the NBD. An Expert Advisory Group on
Access to Electronic Resources is being appointed, with representation from the
National Resource Sharing Working Group, the CAUL Electronic Information
Resources Committee, and Kinetica libraries.
Three members of the KAC are elected by Kinetica customer libraries. In the inaugural KAC these were Philip Keane, Jan Maslen and Sally Anderson, all of whom were elected in mid-1998. At this time it was decided that Mr Keane would serve a term of three years as he was the first elected, while Ms Maslen and Ms Anderson would serve terms expiring at the end of 1999. Accordingly, nominations were called in November 1999 to fill these two positions.
A strong field of eight candidates nominated for the vacancies and ballot papers were distributed to all Kinetica customer libraries in December, with voting closing on 14 January 2000. The nominees were:
Margaret Allen from the State Library of South Australia
Sally Anderson from Trangie Agricultural Research Centre Library, NSW Agriculture
Shannon Azzaro from the Monash University Library
Kaye Baudinette from the Flinders University Library
Glenda Henderson from UNILINC Limited
Jan Maslen from the LaTrobe University Library
Shirley Oakley from the University of Western Australia Library
Trevor Wakely from the National Meteorological Library, Bureau of Meteorology
All Kinetica customer libraries are entitled to vote in elections for the KAC, and 220 valid votes were received in this election. The following table shows the details of counting the votes.
| Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Round 6 | ||
| Allen | 35 | 36 | 42 | 43 | 45 | 47 | |
| Anderson | 35 | 35 | 36 | 40 | 44 | eliminated | |
| Azzaro | 11 | eliminated | |||||
| Baudinette | 22 | 22 | eliminated | ||||
| Henderson | 24 | 25 | 26 | eliminated | |||
| Maslen | 26 | 32 | 38 | 44 | 48 | 55 | Elected Round 6 |
| Oakley | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | eliminated | ||
| Wakely | 40 | 41 | 47 | 50 | 61 | 80 | Elected Round 6 |
| exhausted votes | 0 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 22 | 38 | |
| 220 | 220 | 220 | 220 | 220 | 220 |
Nominations were also called for the position of chair of the Kinetica Annual Users Meeting, to be held in August 2000. As no nominations were received, an appointment will be made, and the chair announced later this year.
The November 1999 KAC meeting received a report on the user feedback following the 1999 Annual Users Meeting. Overall feedback was positive, with some specific comments providing useful guidance for the planning of this year's meeting. Advice and comments from KAC members has also been taken into account in developing the attached draft agenda.
The following comments were particularly valuable in drafting the agenda:
These points will be noted in the conduct of the meeting:
There were also comments indicating that, in addition to Mick Fortune, the ELiAS representative, meeting delegates would have liked to hear presentations from IBM_GSA staff who were present, and whose role at the meeting was unclear, and from Fretwell-Downing Informatics who were not represented at the meeting. Fretwell-Downing attendance to explain the delays would have been very well received by users. Despite these comments, they have not been included in the draft agenda, as it was thought that these comments apply particularly to the implementation and early days of Kinetica.
The venue for this year's AUM is the Hotel Sofitel, 25 Collins Street, Melbourne. Bookings have been made for the main auditorium and three 'breakout rooms'. This will enable four parallel sessions to be held, and allow demonstrations of system features at other times. There will be a cocktail reception, also in the Hotel Sofitel from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
As it stands the draft agenda occupies 8.25 hours. The proposed sessions times are:
| Day 1 | 9.30-11.00 |
|---|---|
| 11.30-1.00 | |
| 2.00-3.30 | |
| 4.00-5.30 | |
| Day 2 | 9.00-10.30 |
| 11.00-12.30 |
At the 1999 Annual Users Meeting, it was decided that the chair of the 2000 meeting should be selected by election, to take place in conjunction with the election to fill the forthcoming KAC vacancies. Accordingly, nominations were called at the same time as nominations for the KAC. No nominations were received, so a suitable person must be identified, and invited to perform the function. Advice from KAC members on people who might chair the meeting effectively will be welcomed by the National Library.
Bryony De La Motte
3 February 2000
| Minutes | Item | Speaker | Comments |
| 10 | Opening and welcome Arrangement of agenda, housekeeping etc |
AUM chair | |
| 10 | 1999 minutes, business arising | AUM chair | |
| 30 | Report on the year's activities and outcomes | Andrew Wells | Brief report on current services,
with info on accessibility, external relationships (LIDDAs, BL's Inside
service, Te Puna and other innovations and coming attractions) Not descriptions of services, but rates of take-up, user satisfaction, responses etc. Include some comment on user satisfaction survey Use handouts to give statistical info |
| 10 | Report from KAC | KAC chair | |
| 5 | Reports from Expert Groups Intro by AUM chair on role of Expert Groups |
Nominee from each Group | |
| 15 | KDD | ||
| 15 | Access to electronic resources | ||
| 10 | Subject headings | ||
| 10 | CJK | ||
| 15 | Reference and end user access | ||
| 30 | Report on end user trials | Time required depends on number of reports. They should not last more than 10 minutes each. We could put out a kinetica-l message asking for volunteers, since three may be trials in progress that we aren't aware of. | |
| 80 | Reports from state user groups | User Group representative | 10 minutes each focusing on issues and priorities |
| Future of Kinetica services | |||
| 15 | KineticaWeb | ||
| 15 | Client | ||
| 15 | KDD | ||
| 90 | Parallel sessions | Facilitated by KAC members | (Papiya is finding out the cost of
having more than 3 groups) include EAG reps as facilitators? |
| 15 | Questions on notice | When calling for these questions, announce that we reserve the right to respond to certain questions outside the meeting, via kinetica-l, the web site, or directly to the questioner? | |
| 15 | Questions without notice | Announce at commencement of session, that questions that are not of general interest will be noted, and responded to via email. Or say Kinetica staff will be available at a separate session - during second half of lunch break? - to respond to detailed questions about use of the system? | |
| 45 | Reports from parallel sessions | Facilitators | 10 minutes each Facilitators to compare notes and consolidate into one report? |
| 15 | NLA response | Andrew Wells | Brief, on-the-spot comments on major issues. More considered response to be placed on Web site. |
| 5 | Next year's venue | AUM chair | |
| 5 | Confirm resolutions if any | ||
| 5 | Close | ||
Introduction
The Digital Services Project is the
key strategy for ensuring effective management by the National Library of its
digital collections. It aims to support the management of both born
digital publications (in a fully functioning PANDORA service) and of
digitised collections.
The Project is also aimed at supporting search access to these collections, including access through gateways which support federated searching of significant Australian digital collections, such as digitised pictorial collections.
Progress to date
The Library announced in October
1999 that it had selected the Blue Angel MetaStar Enterprise software to
support metadata repository and search services providing access to digital
collections. The Library will use this software to migrate and further develop
search services for the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts (RAAM),
IMAGES1, ImageSearch (a cooperative project which will support federated
searching of digitised pictorial collections of a number of cultural
institutions) and other key digital services. Priority is being given to
support for the ImageSearch Project.
In August 1999 the Library released a Request for Tender for a Digital Collection Management System. Responses were received on 18 October. Following a careful evaluation, the Library has concluded that none of the tenders would have provided the Library with a satisfactory solution to its requirements.
The Library concluded that one tendered product would meet some of its requirements for the Object Management component. However, it also concluded that this product would require significant enhancement before it could meet all of the Librarys requirements in this area.
In the Project Risk Management Plan, the Library had identified as a high risk that "our expectations are beyond what the market can currently deliver; significant development is required even for critical components". Consequently, the outcome of the tender evaluation is not a major surprise. The Library has now reviewed its strategies for achieving its requirements. As a result, the Library proposes to undertake a series of medium scale projects, one of which involves a modest amount of software development. The proposed strategies are set out in Appendix 1.
The strategies are based on a consideration of the extent to which suitable products are available in the marketplace. The Librarys assessment is that suitable products are available to support the Digital Object Storage and Delivery System; that at least one product, given the completion of identified enhancements, may be suitable to support the Object Management System; and that no suitable products are available to support the Collecting System.
Work on the Collecting System Project has now commenced.
Conclusions
The Library has completed the
evaluation of tenders for the Digital Collection Management System, without
identifying a suitable tender. The Library now proposes a modular approach to
advance the Digital Services Project, using a mixture of in-house development
and procurement of hardware and software. The Library will continue to roll out
digital search services based on the Blue Angel Metastar product.
SUMMARY OF STRATEGIES FOR COMPONENTS OF THE DIGITAL SERVICES PROJECT
| System component | Functions | Strategy | Timeframe |
| Collecting System | Will manage the collection of digital publications from the Web or from physical format sources, their conversion to a standard format, and the extraction of associated descriptive information | Undertake in-house project to review alternatives to the PANDORA collecting software and develop a new collecting system | Feb. 2000 to Dec. 2000 |
| Digital Object Storage and Delivery System | Will manage the storage of digital objects and associated copies, provide access to the objects via a Web interface, and collect relevant transaction data | Issue a Request for Quotation to acquire this system | Sep. 2000 to Jun. 2001 |
| Object Management System | Will allow collection managers to maintain curatorial information at the collection, item and sub-item level, and maintain the gathering schedule, access conditions, rights information and other administrative data about each resource | Refine requirements for PANDORA and Images 1 and evaluate options including a key product tendered in the RFT | Feb. 2000 to Jun. 2001 |
| Component Integration | Integration of the Digital Object Storage and Delivery System with the Object Management System | To be undertaken by the supplier of the Object Management System | Jul. 2001 to Dec. 2001 |
| Metadata Repository System | Will manage the building and maintenance of metadata repositories, support powerful text retrieval, and support a system of persistent identifiers allowing users to reliably find a resource | Use MetaStar Enterprise software | Acquired |
| Gateway System | Will allow searches to be targeted at multiple databases based on standard search protocols, launch queries and route them to these databases | Use MetaStar Enterprise or LibriVision software | Acquired |