TOWARDS FEDERATION 2001: Linking Australians with Their Heritage Review Meeting 1993

Progress Reports 1994-1996

Section B - C: Bibliographical Activities


RCA1 That institutions other than the National, State and Territory libraries, which have significant collections of Australian newspapers, catalogue all their holdings of Australian newspapers on the NBD by the year 2001, in support of the National Plan for Australian Newspapers.

1994 REPORT

All institutions who submitted information have either catalogued, or are in the process of cataloguing, all their holdings of Australian newspapers onto the National Bibliographic Database (NBD). Under the National Plan for Australian Newspapers, the University of Sydney Library has transferred seven newspapers published in New South Wales and not held in the State Library of New South Wales to them for retention. The University of Melbourne report that both the Argus and the Australasian, which are the only two newspapers of which they have significant holdings, are in the Union List of Australian Newspapers.

1996 REPORT

University of Sydney reports that all current newspapers are catalogued onto the NBD. Closed entries for older titles will be picked up by an ongoing serials conversion project which is aimed at having all serial records on the local system and the NBD.

Australian Defence Force Academy Library has no significant collections of Australian newspapers. All that they have will be upline loaded to the NBD by 2001. University of Adelaide has a programme of retrospective cataloguing of serials and reporting them to the NBD. This will include Australian newspapers, and should be completed by 2001.

RCA2 That institutions other than the National, State and Territory libraries, which have significant collections of Australian serials, catalogue all their holdings of Australian serials on the NBD by the year 2001, in support of the proposed National Plan for Australian Journals.

1994 REPORT

Most institutions who submitted information have catalogued, or are in the process of cataloguing their holdings of Australian serials onto the NBD. The University of Sydney is completing a DEET funded retrospective conversion of serial titles in areas of collecting strengths. The University of Melbourne reported that both the McLaren and Meanjin Collections have significant collections of serials which are still uncatalogued.

1996 REPORT

At the University of Sydney Library all current serials are catalogued onto the NBD. Closed entries for older titles will be picked up in an ongoing serials conversion project aimed at having all serials catalogued on to the local system as well as the NBD.

Australian Defence Force Academy Library plans to load all bibliographic and holdings data not already on the NBD by 2001. University of Adelaide has a programme of retrospective cataloguing of serials, and reporting them to the NBD. This will include Australian serials, and should be completed by 2001.

RCA3 That organisations with an interest in bibliographic access to Australia's documentary heritage, develop strategies to provide more effective bibliographic access to their Australian documentary collections, by cataloguing and indexing both current and retrospective materials, and by converting significant retrospective files for contribution to the National Bibliographic Database. [Note: Strategies may take the form of assistance with training, provision of support staff, financial incentives, or the funding of special projects].

1994 REPORT

Cataloguing and indexing of current and retrospective materials is being undertaken by most of the institutions who submitted information, and these records are being added to the NBD.

The University of Sydney Library plans to add collection level records to ABN for all manuscript collections; and the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland is presently preparing for the automation of its manuscript holdings. The Australian War Memorial contributes holdings of Commonwealth records to the RINSE and ANGAM databases managed by Australian Archives. The cataloguing of manuscripts held in the State Library of Victoria will commence in 1995.

Institutions with retrospective material have plans for its conversion to machine readable format. Projects include the conversion of card files (1884-1980) by the State Library of South Australia; the cataloguing of the Grimwade and Foode Collections and some McLaren subjects by the University of Melbourne of special collections material; and the computerisation of the Guide to Collections, a categorised summary of accessions by the University of Melbourne Archives. The State Library of Victoria has automated the cataloguing of pictures with about 60,000 currently records on Dynix, with the key goal of bringing this material under appropriate and cost-effective control, and to make it accessible through widespread access to their catalogue. The University of Central Queensland has added holdings of the Capricornia Central Queensland Collection to ABN.

Indexing projects are currently being either investigated or undertaken by the State Library of South Australia, the University of Adelaide, and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The James Cook University of North Queensland has recently automated its North Queensland Index.

1996 REPORT

The National Library of Australia continues to catalogue current Australian monographs and serials for addition to the NBD. Cataloguing of other formats has been undertaken with significant progress in the cataloguing at the collection level of manuscripts and photographs. A number of manuscript finding aids have been mounted on the National Library Web Server (http://www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/). There is ongoing cataloguing of Australian serial titles in the Dictionary Catalogue (titles acquired pre-1965) onto ABN. Guidelines have been developed for the cataloguing of Australian Internet resources. During 1995-1996 the National Library, through its membership of the Music Reference Group, has developed strategies for the provision of more effective bibliographic access to music collections held in Australian libraries.

Apart from adding significant Rare Book collection level records to ABN, the University of Sydney Library is investigating use of III special collections module to provide item level listing of the contents of significant collections. This module will be accessible via the Internet.

Collection level entries for approximately 75% of Australian Defence Force Academy Library manuscript collections have been added to ABN. The Library plans to add the remaining entries by the end of 1997. All collections have entries on the Library's OPAC, and all manuscript finding aids have now been automated. In addition, collection level entries for all manuscript collections are being gradually added to the Library's Web site.

State Library of Victoria has commenced cataloguing of maps onto the NBD. They have also commenced cataloguing of Australian manuscripts and pictorial images onto the local system. Access to the State Library catalogue is available via telnet session. Web access to the catalogue and digitised pictorial images is under development and due for completion in 1996. State Library of Victoria also has a major project to catalogue the Ken Pound Collection of Australian Children's Literature onto the NBD.

State Library of South Australia has three levels of electronic bibliographic access to report:

The National Film and Sound Archive is slowly cataloguing its retrospective holdings of sound recordings. National Film and Sound Archive catalogue data is available on CD-Rom. With the growth of open systems, accessibility of data through the Internet and the development of World 1, the National Film and Sound Archive has put further work on developing any strategy to centralise filmographic and discographic data on hold. In particular, the explosion in availability of data via the Internet offers significant potential for data sharing with kindred institutions. The National Film and Sound Archive is investigating the development of import/export programs for data from a variety of sources and will continue to contribute to discussions on copyright issues, bibliographic standards and the sharing of machine-readable data.

Since 1986 all new manuscript collections at the University of Adelaide have been described at the collection level by an entry on our computer catalogue. The Library is now entering these descriptions directly onto ABN, using the manuscripts rather than the book format, in line with National Library practice for its manuscripts. At this stage the Library has no plans for retrospective cataloguing onto ABN of the pre-1966 collections, although with appropriate funding they are prepared to undertake preparation of entries for ABN at collection level. These collections include much material both unique in itself and of significance in Australian documentary heritage generally, and this would be worth doing if funding was available.

The State Library of New South Wales reports:

RCA4 That the National, State and Territory libraries, and any other institution with significant holdings of 19th century Australiana, endeavour to achieve comprehensive coverage of their nineteenth century printed Australiana on the NBD by the year 2001.

[The Review Meeting noted that the following libraries have expressed their commitment to achieving this outcome: the National Library of Australia, the Northern Territory Library Service and the State Library of Queensland]

1994 REPORT

This has already been achieved by a number of institutions who submitted information; others will complete this as part of their retrospective conversion projects. Some significant collections which are being added to the NBD include holdings of 19th Century Australian monographs by the University of Sydney; 19th Century titles in the Dutton Library and the South Australian Medical Collection at the State Library of South Australia together with their Children's Literature Research Collection; and the Gatton College serials held at the University of Melbourne.

1996 REPORT

At the National Library of Australia some work has been done towards providing subject access to Ferguson items (monographs) on the NBD. Almost 6,000 predominantly 19th century Australian pamphlets were catalogued onto the NBD during the period 1994-1996. The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects funded a project to convert catalogue entries for 19th century serials in the Dictionary Catalogue to ABN. 391 titles were converted during this project.

Australian Defence Force Academy Library reports that virtually all of their 19th century Australiana is on the NBD already through co-operation with the RNB and other projects. Any remaining records will be added by 2001.

Progress relating to newspapers and Australian serials at the State Library of Victoria is reported elsewhere (RC1 & RC2). All monographs are catalogued on the local system, and most of them are on the NBD. Categories which may not be completed by 2001 include sheet music, pamphlets, maps and ephemeral materials.

The State Library of South Australia is contributing to this through conversion of the 1884-1980 card catalogues. Although brief records rather than original cataloguing is being done, material for which there is no match on ABN is being flagged. This would allow this material to be identified and upgraded as a priority bloc in future. As well, the information contained in the previous entry RCA3 will include some 19th century Australiana.

The Library and Information Service of Western Australia has given a priority to cataloguing Western Australian materials to the NBD, particularly those materials which would form part of the Retrospective Australian National Bibliography 1901-1950. Retrospective conversion of other collections is proceeding gradually, but this matter is only being added to the Library and Information Service of Western Australia database. This database is available for consultation on the Internet.

At the University of Adelaide a retrospective cataloguing project for monographs is being undertaken, and any 19th century Australiana, not already in the NBD, will be by 2001.

The State Library of New South Wales reports:


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