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National Round Table on Access to Overseas Monographs through Australian Libraries

28 August 1998, National Library of Australia


  • About the Round Table
  • Resolutions
  • Minutes
  • Who Attended?
  • Background Papers Available
  • Your Views are Welcome!

About the Round Table

Access to monographs published overseas is recognised as a major issue for Australian scholars and researchers, and is relevant to recent debate about Australian library collecting policies.

The purpose of the National Round Table on Access to Overseas Monographs Through Australian Libraries, held at the National Library of Australia on 28 August 1998, was to achieve a consensus on objectives and strategies to address this issue.

The Round Table provided a forum that brought together a range of key interest groups, both in and outside the Australian library sector.

The Round table Program included librarians and scholarly users as session chairs and speakers. The Agenda and Papers presented are now available online.

Resolutions from the Round Table

Using the draft resolutions that were issued before the round table as a starting point, the forum attendees developed a number of final Recommendations which are now available online. These recommendations called for the establishment of the Australian Library Collections Task Force. Papers regarding the Taskforce are available online.

Minutes from the Round Table

The complete Minutes of the round table meeting, which summarise the papers presented, are now available online.

Who Attended?

Around thirty participants attended by invitation. They included senior librarians from national, state, public and special libraries; senior university administrators; and scholarly researchers from a range of subject disciplines. Interest groups represented at the Round Table included:

  • National Academies Forum (NAF ), (which has a Round Table page on its site)
  • Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL)
  • Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA)
  • Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services (ACLIS)
  • Australian Academy of the Humanities
  • Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
  • Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
  • National Scholarly Communications Forum
  • Australian Academy of Science

Background Papers Available

To facilitate informed discussion on the day, a range of background information papers were produced in advance for participants. They are provided below in a variety of formats to download.

The papers are the result of research undertaken by the National Library of Australia (NLA), the National Academies Forum (NAF) and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL). They include:

  • The results of a NAF survey of the perceptions of teachers and researchers about the availability of overseas monographs in Australian libraries;
    • Word 97 version (.doc)
    • Adobe Acrobat version (.pdf)
    • Rich Text Format version (.rtf)
  • NLA observations on overseas monograph collecting by Australian libraries, based on the National Bibliographic Database;
    • Word 97 version (.doc)
    • Adobe Acrobat version (.pdf)
  • Information on access to overseas monographs through interlibrary lending, including recent trends in the use of the Australian Bibliographic Network Inter Library Loan network (ABN ILL) as well as issues identified by a focus group of ILL librarians; and
    • Word 97 version (.doc)
    • Adobe Acrobat version (.pdf)
    • Rich Text Format version (.rtf)
  • CAUL statistics on acquisition of monographs in Australian university libraries in the period 1992-1996.
    • Word 97 version (.doc)
    • Adobe Acrobat version (.pdf)
    • Rich Text Format version (.rtf)

Draft resolutions were also prepared as a basis for discussion at the Round Table.

Your Views are Welcome!

Attendance at the Round Table was by invitation only. However, the issues it addressed are of wide interest to the Australian library community, research scholars and other library users.

If you have views on the subject of access to overseas monographs through Australian libraries, you are most welcome to send them to the Coordination Support Branch at the National Library of Australia, email csb@nla.gov.au.

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