RGA1 That institutions with collections of Australian documentary heritage of national significance prepare preservation policies and strategies, including disaster preparedness programs.
Disaster preparedness programs also operate in most institutions who submitted information, including the National Library, the Australian War Memorial, and the University of Central Queensland. The Northern Territory Library Service will instigate a plan after the move of the State Library to the new Parliament House in December; the State Library of South Australia has cooperated with Artlab on disaster planning for North Terrace, Adelaide, cultural institutions. The University of Queensland Libraries has a disaster preparedness plan for the collections of the Fryer Library, but not the libraries' collections overall.
Material on open access is covered by the University of Sydney Library's ongoing conservation activities. Significant rare book material is covered by Rare Book's own conservation/restoration activities. A disaster preparedness plan has been implemented. The Library disaster response guide is accessible on the Web at http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/staff/contents.htm.
The recent extension to the Australian Defence Force Academy Library was designed to provide purpose built accommodation for the preservation of its rare book and manuscript holdings. The Australian Special Research Collection follows accepted basic preservation strategies, and will prepare both formal preservation and disaster preparedness policies by the end of 1996, following a professional conservation survey of the collections.
State Library of Victoria has active preservation and disaster recovery programs. Preservation policy document and disaster preparedness plan close to finalisation.
State Library of South Australia is augmenting its Preservation Policy with practical guidelines, and a more streamlined approach to priority-setting for a range of collections. Disaster awareness training is about to start for all State Library of South Australia staff, with more intensive training for key staff. Library and Information Service of Western Australia has a Preservation Policy and a Disaster Recovery Plan in place.
National Film and Sound Archive has a published Preservation Policy and has developed a Disaster Preparedness plan this year. This will be tested later this year with a series of recovery operations on deselected materials. The University of Adelaide does not yet have a formal policy, but we do have guidelines which serve the same purpose.
State Library of New South Wales reports that policies, strategies and programs to preserve Australian documentary heritage materials of national significance in all formats are in place. This ensure that the collection is appropriately stored, housed and retained. Strategies and programs in place included:
Results of these strategies and programs include:
Where appropriate these principles have been taken into account at the University of Sydney Library. The Australian Defence Force Academy Library is monitoring developments in the preservation of electronic information. University of Adelaide will consider.
The State Library of Victoria is watching with interest the work of the National Library SCOAP Committee. Issues relating to long-term "collecting" and preservation of Victorian networked information will be addressed in 96/97. Library and Information Service of Western Australia is examining ways of preserving electronic documents and is cooperating with other bodies such as CASL and NLA who are also looking at these issues.
In 1996 the State Library of South Australia established a Working Group on Non-Print Materials to consider this and other issues relating to electronic information. The first task was to compile a list of all equipment and material formats held, which has been completed, and the working group is now about to do a stocktake of non-print materials in State Library of South Australia. It has also compiled a list of suppliers, distributors and specialists in the area that State Library of South Australia can call on for help with maintenance and other queries. The working group will next be looking at listing those preservation methods State Library of South Australia currently uses and those it would like to be using.
The State Library of New South Wales has continued to participate actively in the development of national principles, policies and strategies for the preservation of information in digital format. Resources have been allocated for State Library staff involvement in the Heritage Collections Committee and its Conservation Working Party, the National Preservation Office Advisory Body, pre-conference and post-conference workshops on preserving digital information at the NPO's 2nd Annual conference, participation in a one-week workshop on digital imaging and preservation at Cornell University, and assistance to the consultants to the PADI Working Party (including the completion of their surveys).
RGA3 That in considering retrospective catalogue conversion projects institutions give priority to recording items and collections they regard as of national significance.
All institutions who submitted information agree with this resolution. Conversion projects focusing on items and collections of national significance have been, or are currently being undertaken by 50% of institutions. Specific projects which have been mentioned are the conversion of South Australian printed and published materials, especially serials of national significance, and all South Australian newspapers, by the State Library of South Australia; and the inclusion of the Tasmaniana, Crowther and Allport collections at the State Library of Tasmania in their retrospective catalogue conversion.
No major retrospective conversion projects are planned at the State Library of Victoria except as reported elsewhere. During the current retrospective conversion of the State Library of South Australia 1884-1980 card catalogues, where there is no match on ABN more detail is being added for South Australian titles and for titles in Special Collections. These details include notes, illustrations and pagination. Also, more standard fixed field coding is being done to facilitate loading to ABN in future. The conversion of the Mortlock Archives Collection is 90% completed with brief records on INNOPAC. As mentioned in RCA4, the monograph collections of the J.S. Battye Library of Western Australian History have been added to either the NBD or the Library and Information Service of Western Australia database
The State Library of New South Wales reports that retrospective conversion has been largely abandoned because of high costs/slow progress. It has been replaced by projects to image the card catalogues. The 1.4 million cards in the General Reference Library catalogue have been imaged and are available via OPAC's. In 1996/7 options for scanning Mitchell Manuscripts, Pictures and Dixson Library catalogues will be investigated. Some retrospective conversion is done for circulating materials such as Inter-library Loans. It is intended to resume full retrospective conversion for high use materials such as Shakespeare, World War I and collections of high significance such as Australian Children's literature in 1997.
All catalogued items of national significance at the National Film and Sound Archive have been converted to the MAVIS collection database.
The DNC Office, in consultation with the National Preservation Office and the National Library, have developed a Model for recording preservation and conservation activity on Conspectus. This model provides the facility to record items and collections regarded as of national significance in collection assessment records.
The Australian Defence Force Academy Library will consult the NPO, the Australian Archives or the National Film and Sound Archive for advice before beginning any significant digital preservation projects. University of Adelaide will do so with any digitalisation projects - none are planned.
State Library of South Australia is presently undertaking some pilot digitisation projects working to standards discussed at the 1995 preservation conference in Brisbane. When completed State Library of South Australia will be in a position to assess the usefulness of the standards and will inform relevant organisations of the outcome.
The State Library of New South Wales is undertaking projects to create digitised copies of items through liaison and co-operation with appropriate institutions, companies and individuals; participation in the Advisory Body of the National Preservation Office and other national forums.
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