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

Progress Reports 1994-1996

Section A - C: Bibliographic Issues


RC1 That the National, State and Territory libraries catalogue all their holdings of Australian newspapers on the National Bibliographic Database (NBD) by the year 2001, in support of the National Plan for Australian Newspapers (NPLAN).

1994 - 1996

All the National Library of Australia holdings are already on the National Bibliographic Database.

The State Library of South Australia commenced a project some time ago to catalogue all their holdings of South Australian newspapers to the NBD via ABN. To date about one-fifth of their holdings have been completed. All newspapers currently received by the Library are recorded in the online catalogue, which is accessible via the Internet, and could thus be said to form part of a distributed NBD. The Library now has brief, subject-enhanced records for all non-South Australian newspapers on its online catalogue INNOPAC and is progressively adding similar records for all ceased South Australian newspapers. It is planned to upgrade and upload these records to the NBD once World 1 is implemented.

State Library of Queensland has holdings of Australian newspapers in machine readable format; requires conversion of data format before loading to NBD.

The ACT Library Service expect to complete this by December 1994.

The State Library of New South Wales has now completed ABN records for all New South Wales newspapers, both current and ceased.

The State Library of Victoria is proceeding with adding its Victorian newspaper holdings to the NBD. The target date for loading of holdings of Victorian newspapers on the NBD has been revised to 1999. Holdings are available on the State Library of Victoria catalogue accessible on Internet via a telnet session. Web access to the catalogue will be available by December 1996. All interstate titles are already on the NBD.

At the Library and Information Service of Western Australia current Australian newspapers have been added to the NBD. It is still the intention to add ceased titles to the database when resources are available.

The State Library of Tasmania is adding its Tasmanian newspaper titles to the NBD as interim records. Full MARC records are being progressively created on the local system, as part of the project to microfilm Tasmanian newspapers. Holdings for interstate newspapers are already on the NBD.

The Northern Territory Library has already catalogued/added holdings onto ABN for all Australian newspapers, with the exception of those held by the Northern Australian Collection (i.e. approximately 180 titles still to be added). No difficulty in cataloguing/adding holdings for the outstanding items by 2001 is anticipated - some catalogue entries may be only interim records.

RC2 That the National, State and Territory libraries catalogue all their holdings of Australian serials on the National Bibliographic Database by the year 2001, in support of the proposed National Plan for Australian Journals.

1994-1996

Almost 40% of all serial titles held by State Library of South Australia have been catalogued to the NBD on ABN already. This includes both active and inactive titles, and overseas as well as Australian titles. Summary holdings information is included and kept up-to-date. In addition, all currently received titles, and all retrospective South Australian titles, are recorded in the online catalogue, and thus accessible to AARNet participants; however, most of the locally-created records are very brief, well below the ABN Interim Record Standard. It is intended to convert serials from the card catalogues to the online catalogue over the next two and a half years. MARC records from the conversion could be made available to the NBD, but certain standards issues, notably the question of single entry versus successive entry, would need to be negotiated. The State Library of South Australia is making progress on conversion of serial titles from its card catalogues to its online catalogue.

A 5 year plan for conversion of Australian serial titles to NBD has been drawn up by the National Library of Australia . At current resource level allocated to this activity it will not, however, be possible to add all our records to the NBD by 2001. Between now and 2001 we will convert about 20,000 records, leaving about 24,000 manual records to be converted. The Library received $12,000 during the 1995/96 financial year from the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects to catalogue 19th century Australian serials. So far over 300 records have been added to the NBD and the figure will continue to grow. In addition to this, the Library has undertaken some retrospective cataloguing of 20th century Australian serials on a project basis. So far 1273 of these titles have been catalogued on to the NBD. It is expected that about 200 retrospective serial titles will be catalogued this financial year.

The State Library of Victoria has the goal of upgrading all of its serial records by 1999. It is proceeding with this task, and should complete all serials in the La Trobe Library some time in 1996. Completion of the remainder (which include many Australian titles in the main reference collection) is much more problematical, and the 1999 target date does not look achievable at this point, but this is an ongoing task for the State Library of Victoria.

At the State Library of Tasmania holdings for all serials are being added to the NBD, and at this stage, interims for all Tasmanian serials that meet the ABN guidelines. The State Library of Tasmania is committed to adding full serial records by up line loading once WORLD 1 is functional.

Northern Territory Library has already catalogued/added holdings onto ABN for all Australian serials, with the exception of those held in the Northern Australia collection. Of the Northern Australian Collection (i.e. approximately 2000 titles), a start has been made, and about 25% have had holdings added onto ABN records. No difficulty is anticipated in complying with this resolution by 2001.

The State Library of New South Wales reports that over 50% of their records are now on ABN and work is progressing. However, staff shortages may delay completion until 2004.

At the Library and Information Service of Western Australia current serials are catalogued on to the NBD. Retrospective conversion of non- current Australian serials will proceed as resources are available.

RC3 That, following the completion of the Survey of Bibliographic Access to Documentary Pictorial Collections, the Working Group on High Priority Cross-Sectoral Projects initiate follow-up action, which may include:

AUGUST 1994

Awaiting completion of the survey of bibliographic access to documentary pictorial collections which is due in September 1994.

JUNE 1995

The report of the consultant, Paul Hodgson of Informed Sources, was received in October 1994 and distributed to the 23 institutions surveyed for comment on the factual descriptions of access to their collections in Part B of the report. Part B of the report was edited accordingly, and the final version of the report printed in March. The National Library of Australia promoted the report in ABN news and in various Internet lists. Part B of the report has been edited for mounting on the National Library of Australia World Wide Web Server as a directory of access to the pictorial collections of the 23 institutions surveyed. The whole report is available for FTP via the Internet from the National Library of Australia server (http://www.nla.gov.au/pict/survey1994/pictorial.html). Guidelines have been prepared to assist libraries to create collective records for the NBD to promote access to significant collections of pictorial materials. The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects is liaising with the CASL Collection Management Group to organise a round table of major institutions interested in documentary pictorial collections sometime in 1996.

JUNE 1996

A meeting of major institutions interested in documentary pictorial collections was held in conjunction with the 2nd NPO Conference held in Brisbane in November 1995. The purpose of this meeting was to formally adopt the State Library of New South Wales PICMAN thesaurus as a common standard for the use of Australian libraries.

The National Library launched the Documentary Image Collection database: IMAGES1 database. The database contains more than 13,000 images of works of art including watercolours, paintings, drawings, prints and photographs. It constitutes a sample of the images available in the National Library's Pictorial Collection. [later note: IMAGES1 replaced by Pictures Catalogue at later stage]

The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects considers that further action on this resolution in relation to other formats of Australian documentary heritage will be included as part of the National Cultural Network.

RC4 That the National Library develop a strategy through which other organisations are encouraged 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. Such encouragement may take the form of assistance with training, support staff, financial incentives, or the funding of special projects.

JUNE 1996

The National Library has continued to load MARC records to the NBD as institutions have made them available. Apart from encouraging the contribution of MARC records for Australian higher degree theses and music, the Library's strategy has focused on filling the major gaps in the NBD, in particular records from the State Library of Queensland, the University of Queensland, Unilinc, and Technilib. It has not been practical to distinguish between Australian and non-Australian records in this exercise. It has not been possible to fund special data conversion projects, but the Library expects to be able to load a greater variety of records in non-standard formats once the WORLD 1 service has been implemented.

RC5 That the ABN Network Committee consider the possibility of funding the conversion and loading to the National Bibliographic Database of data resulting from projects designed to improve access to Australia's documentary heritage.

AUGUST 1994

The Network Committee has discussed this Resolution and supports the principle (in the context of ABN priorities). Some file loads (and database authority control projects) have already been undertaken in support of this goal. However, no specific funds have been allocated for this goal in 1994/95. The Network Committee would be interested in any specific suggestions from ACLIS for appropriate files to be considered.

JUNE 1995

As a precursor to considering the funding of projects to convert and load data to the NBD, the Network Committee developed and endorsed a Strategy for improving NBD coverage by the addition of data files in November 1994. The three highest priorities which require special funding are (i) community language records from the City of Sydney Library and Moonee Valley Regional Library, (ii) the Vietnamese National Bibliography data, and (iii) the Australia's Book Heritage Resources Project data for Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia. None of these files comprises primarily Australian data. Due to the requirement to fund the development of the World 1 service, the National Library of Australia has not proposed to the Network Committee that funds be devoted to special file loads in 1995/96.

JUNE 1996

Due to the requirement to fund the development of WORLD 1, the National Library will not propose any funding for this project in 1996/97.

RC6 That the Council of Australian University Libraries (CAUL) liaise with the National Library of Australia and ACLIS to identify nationally important projects that should be referred to the AVCC Standing Committee on Information Resources for funding support from the Department of Employment, Education and Training or the Australian Research Council.

AUGUST 1994

Council of Australian University Librarians has been active in identifying projects for referral to the AVCC Standing Committee on Information Resources.

JUNE 1995

No significant progress. CAUL is pursuing a number of major projects already funded by the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. These projects are restricted presently to the university sector but may have relevance to other sectors one the test periods are complete. CAUL would not wish to take on further major projects at this time.

In June 1995 DEET established a Working Group on Research Library Infrastructure, with membership from CAUL, the AVCC-SCIR, the National Library of Australia, the Higher Education Council and the Australian Research Council to examine priorities and future strategy for research library infrastructure developments funded by DEET.

JUNE 1996

In May 1995 the NLA and CAUL were successful in obtaining a grant from DEET's Evaluations and Investigations Program for a project entitled Access to Distributed National Collections: Models for the Future Development for Integrated Print/Electronic Delivery to Australian Higher Education Institutions (IDA). The final report was completed 8 May 1996, and further funding will be sought to implement some of the recommendations. The project was sub-contracted to the University of South Australia.

A paper currently in preparation jointly by CAUL and the NLA entitled "Australian Scholarly Information Infrastructure: issues in resource sharing and development by Australian Universities" identifies priorities for 1997-1999. It has not yet been released.

RC7 That the National Library commence its study of the feasibility of an Australian thesaurus with a study of the use of the APAIS thesaurus, to discover the extent of its use, both in its own right and as a source of data for building other thesauri.

JUNE 1995

The Australian Committee on Cataloguing has proposed a survey of thesaurus development and usage in Australian libraries. The survey will be conducted by ACOC in 1995/96 with funding from ALIA and the from the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects. The Working Group has requested the National Library of Australia and the State Library of New South Wales to examine the possibility of further development of existing thesauri used by the two libraries.

JUNE 1996

A survey of the use of the APAIS thesaurus was incorporated in the survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries. A report of the survey appears below (see RC18)

RC8 That the Australian Committee on Cataloguing investigate the feasibility of a coordinated approach to establishing an Australian extension to LCSH and recommend appropriately to its constituent organisations (ACLIS, The National Library of Australia, ALIA)

JUNE 1995

ACOC has recommended that the development of the Australian extension to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) should be channeled through the ABN Standards Committee's Subject Headings Review Panel. ACOC has consulted and obtained the support of ALIA and the ABN Standards Committee for this approach. ALIA has agreed that the List of Australian Subject Headings will be discontinued after the second edition has been published. ACOC and the ABN Standards Committee have asked the National Library of Australia to publicise these developments in a way which will inform libraries outside ABN about how they can contribute to the development of the Australian extension to LCSH.

ACOC recommends all Australian extension and amendment of LCSH to be centralised with the Subject Headings Review Panel of the ABN Standards Committee and its successor in World 1. Federal and state groups of the ALIA Cataloguers' Section have been consulted, and agree with this on condition that libraries not participating in ABN can submit new and changed LCSH headings to the Subject Headings Review Panel. Communication of changes to be as wide as possible. Parent bodies of ACOC to be informed shortly.

JUNE 1996

The National Library is funding the incorporation of the List of Australian Subject Headings into the Australian extension of LCSH on ABN. A formal strategy has been devised in consultation with the Subject Headings Review panel, and work will commence in September 1996. It is planned to complete the work in time to provide a marked improvement in Australian subject access in the second phase of WORLD 1.

RC9 That the National Library consult Australian libraries and other relevant organisations on their current and future requirements for the national bibliography prior to any necessary revision of the present range of national bibliographic products.

AUGUST 1994

ANB and APAIS users have been surveyed, and results are being used to develop proposals for changes in scope of these publications.

JUNE 1995

ANB subscriber survey in 1994 resulted in discontinuation of the printed annual at the end of 1994. A further survey of ANB subscribers was conducted in 1995, with a focus on microform cumulations and the publishers directory. This survey resulted in the discontinuation of the publishers directory in 1996.

APAIS subscriber survey indicated a high level of satisfaction with the scope and quality of APAIS. In response to suggestions from subscribers, changes have been made to improve the currency of APAIS and to selectively index The Australian newspaper.

The survey of coverage of theses on the NBD has been completed, and results are being edited for wider dissemination.

JUNE 1996

Significant reductions in the Library's budget for 1996/97, and a continuing decline in subscriptions, prompted the decision to discontinue the production of the Australian National Bibliography after the end of 1996. Alternative options, such online searching of Supersearch and the provision of a classified listing on the National Library's World Wide Web server, are being developed to assist users to scan newly published Australian titles arranged by subject. The delivery of national bibliographic publications from WORLD 1 is being considered in the light of new options for delivery, such as the inclusion of a wider range of materials (maps, newspapers), the ability to tailor the subject coverage to the interests of the user, and the ability to deliver the bibliographic information in a wider range of physical formats (diskette, FTP, CD ROM). The consultative mechanisms of the NDIS project (Expert Advisory Groups) will be used as the main vehicle for consultation on the proposed WORLD 1 national bibliographic services.

RC10 That the Working Group on High Priority Cross-Sectoral Projects assess the outcomes of its Study of In House Indexing, its Priority Listing of Nationally Important Retrospective Bibliographic Projects, and the report of the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand (Adelaide, 1993) and, after wide consultation, prepare a short list of high priority projects.

AUGUST 1994

The Working Group is currently funding two projects which were listed of high priority in the Priority Listing of Nationally Important Retrospective Bibliographic Projects. These are the microfilming of the index to the Argus (1860-1909); and the indexing of the literary content of the Bulletin for 1921-1987.

The outcomes of the Study of In House Indexing Stage One, and the report of the Annual Conference of the Bibliographic Society of Australia and New Zealand have yet to be assessed. A pilot of Stage Two of the Study of Inhouse Indexing has just been commenced in Western Australia.

JUNE 1995

The Working Group continues to support projects which were listed as being of high priority in the Priority Listing of Nationally Important Retrospective Bibliographic Projects. The Library and Information Service of Western Australia is finalising its report on Stage 2 of Inhouse indexes in Australian libraries.

JUNE 1996

The Working Group has continued to support projects which were listed as being of high priority in the Priority Listing of Nationally Important Retrospective Bibliographic Projects. Indexes in Australian Libraries, consisting of the results of Stage One of the study of inhouse indexes in Australian libraries was published in late 1995. Information from Stage Two of the project, a pilot study of indexes in Western Australian public, government and historical society libraries will be incorporated into a later edition of Stage One. It is also hoped to incorporate information on indexes of national importance from other states as this project progresses. The DNC Office plans to mount Indexes in Australian libraries on the Internet, with a self-reporting form to enable libraries to amend or add entries as necessary.

RC11 That the Australian Committee on Cataloguing, in conducting its survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries, make use of the results of the Survey on In House Indexing conducted by the Working Party on High Priority Cross-Sectoral Projects, and extend the information by surveying special and other appropriate libraries.

AUGUST 1994

The Australian Committee on Cataloguing is preparing an ACLIS Research Grant proposal. This will be submitted by ACOC to ACLIS in August 1994.

JUNE 1995

A research grant proposal to conduct a survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries was completed by the Australian Committee on Cataloguing in December 1994, and submitted to parent bodies of ACOC (ALIA, ACLIS, and The National Library of Australia) in January 1995. As a result of this proposal, the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects, has provided ACOC with a grant from the High Priority Projects Fund.

ACOC has noted resolution RC11. ACOC's survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries, to be conducted in 1995/96, will build upon and extend the Survey of In House Indexing which included thesaurus usage in state and university libraries.

JUNE 1996

ACOC's survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries, conducted in 1995/96, built upon and extended the Survey of In House Indexing which included thesaurus usage in state and university libraries. Only those university libraries which had reported in house thesaurus usage were surveyed again by ACOC (to obtain more detailed information). The coverage of special libraries in the survey was determined by sampling. A report on the survey is provided below (see RC18).

RC12 That the National Library of Australia consider the form of any bibliography of nineteenth century Australiana in the light of its consultation on current and future requirements for the national bibliography.

1995 - 1996

The National Library of Australia anticipates that the implementation of World 1 will provide opportunities for significant review of the delivery of national bibliographic information and services. During the NDIS development project, the Library will develop plans for delivery of national bibliography services from World 1. The specification of requirements will be developed by the end of 1996, and is expected to cater for the production of publications with specialised coverage, such as a bibliography of 19th century Australiana.

RC13 That in the light of the National Centre for Australian Studies proposal to produce a Bibliography and guide to twentieth century literary and semi-literary periodicals, the National Library take action to obtain comprehensive bibliographic coverage of these materials on the National Bibliographic Database.

AUGUST 1994

This Resolution has not been included in the National Library of Australia, Services to Libraries Division Operational Plan for 1994/95. However the ABN Network Committee has agreed to consider guidelines for contributing data to the NBD as a precursor to funding under RC5.

JUNE 1995

The National Library of Australia's collection of twentieth century literary and semi literary periodicals is catalogued partially on the NBD and partially in its pre-1967 card catalogue. Contribution of records for twentieth century literary periodicals to the NBD will be undertaken as part of the Library's retrospective conversion of the card catalogue. It is intended that this task be completed by 2001, however the Library will focus on 19th century holdings in 1995/96.

JUNE 1996

During 1995/96 the National Library assigned a Librarian Class 2 to undertake some retrospective cataloguing of 20th century serials. To date 1668 titles have been converted. These titles are mainly general university/ society/ association publications.

RC14 That the National Library of Australia, in consultation with other appropriate organisations in the Australian book trade, including the academic centres for Australian centres, publishers, and the National Book Council, continue to identify opportunities for greater integration of bibliographic activities with the booktrade, by means of specific projects and more general cooperation.

AUGUST 1994

The National Library of Australia has been liaising with booksellers who offer MARC records with books, with a view to assisting booksellers to improve these services for Australian libraries. The intention is to ensure that holdings are reported to the NBD as a by-product of the cataloguing operation, and to encourage Australian libraries to purchase their MARC records from ABN. Baker & Taylor have successfully implemented a service to automatically add libraries' holdings to the NBD and to download MARC records from ABN. A similar service is being developed by Blackwell North America, and the National Library of Australia is assisting with documentation, advice and the use of a test signon.

JUNE 1995

The National Library of Australia is preparing to offer electronic access to full text documents in World 1. The Library has an arrangement for the creation of digital images of articles indexed in its APAIS indexing service, and plans to extend this to the Australasian Medical Index in 1995/96. Negotiations with publishers and the Copyright Agency Limited are underway.

JUNE 1996

Negotiations with additional booksellers are underway to provide MARC records with books.

Negotiations with Copyright Agency Limited are continuing.

Forms for ISBN, ISSN and Cataloguing in publication requests have been set up on the Library's server to enable publishers to submit requests electronically.

The National Library sought advice from the Australian Book Publishers Association on its members requirements in relation to the scope of ISBN coverage. This information is to be forwarded to the International ISBN Agency.

RC15 That the National Film and Sound Archive and other appropriate organisations in the Australian film, video and sound fields continue to investigate the desirability and feasibility of greater integration of their bibliographic activities in the longer term.

AUGUST 1994

The National Film and Sound Archive reports that a strategy has been developed that outlines the steps necessary to set in place structures appropriate to the achievement of RC15, "greater bibliographic control over the output of the Australian film and video industry". Funds will be made available to undertake the task of implementing the first stage. It is anticipated that by the end of 1994, the first three steps of this five step plan will have been completed.
  1. Identify the major holders/collections of audio-visual material;
  2. Identify the nature/extent of audio-visual bibliographic activity pursued by each institution;
  3. Identify the major fields considered essential for proper identification and retrieve; of a/v materials with the aim of identifying a core record concept;
  4. Endorse concept of a distributed national collection for a/v with local requirements handled locally; and
  5. Establish a database (AARNet, ABN) to hold the core record with local holdings to other information attached.

JUNE 1995

The National Film and Sound Archive report that no further progress has been made on this resolution.

JUNE 1996

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 the earlier strategy on hold. In particular, the explosion in availability of data via the Internet offers significant potential for data sharing with kindred institutions. The NFSA will be 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.

RC16 That in order to assist collecting institutions to avoid duplication in recording oral history interviews, the National Library develop guidelines to enable organisations to report to the National Bibliographic Database any oral history projects which are planned or in progress, and that these guidelines be developed in consultation with other appropriate organisations such as the National Film and Sound Archive, the Oral History Association of Australia, CASL and the ABN Standards Committee.

JUNE 1996

Given the decision on RC20 not to record oral history collections on the NBD, the National Library has decided that it is no longer appropriate to report planned oral history projects to the NBD. This Resolution is therefore completed.

RC17 That the Working Group on High Priority Cross-Sectoral Projects consider a survey, building on the recent Australian Society of Archivists survey, of descriptive standards and control systems in use by institutions with significant collections of archives/manuscripts; and following the survey a consultative mechanism be established by Council of Australian State Libraries, involving Council of Australian State Libraries, the National Library of Australia, Australian Council of Archives, Australian Society of Archivists, the National Film and Sound Archive and the Australian Archives, to determine a course of action.

JUNE 1996

The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects considers that archivist groups such as the Australian Council of Archives and the Australian Society of Archivists should be leading these issues.

The Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects has funded a project which will replace and expand upon the current Guide to collections of manuscripts relating to Australia with an on-line directory, mounted on the National Library's server. It will provide summary information about holdings of manuscripts and private archives in Australian repositories. Consultation about the project has taken place through the Aus-archivists discussion list, and with the Australian Council of Archives as well as with libraries and archives in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. In general, there has been positive support, particularly from reference officers who are aware of the difficulties of researchers in locating manuscripts and private archives in Australia.

RC18 That, following the completion of the National Library funded study of the APAIS Thesaurus and the Australian Committee on Cataloguing investigation of an extension to LCSH, the national Library consider, in consultation with the Australian Committee on cataloguing, the Australian Databases Development Association and other appropriate bodies, a feasibility study into the establishment of a commonly accepted thesaurus of Australian terms suitable for the subject indexing of Australian materials in all formats.

JUNE 1996

In 1995/96, ACOC commissioned a survey of thesaurus usage in Australian libraries, as the first step in assessing the feasibility of developing an Australian thesaurus. The survey was funded by the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects, and was conducted under contract by AIMA. The survey covered 270 libraries, including all state libraries, selected university libraries, and a sample of special libraries. The results of the survey demonstrated widespread use of LCSH on ABN (which includes Australian additions and changes) and the APAIS thesaurus. Although a wide range of other thesauri were identified, nearly all were subject specific and used only by the compiling agency.

The results of the survey did not suggest that there was a need to develop a new Australian thesaurus. However, the results did confirm the value of consolidating the two Australian supplements to LCSH: ALIA's List of Australian subject headings (LASH) and ABN's additions and changes to LCSH (ABN subject authorities). Following an agreement between ALIA and ACOC in 1995, these two lists are being combined by the National Library in consultation with the ABN Subject Headings Review Panel.

In response to a request from the First National Roundtable on Library and Archives Collections and Services of Relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects has agreed to fund the publication of the Aboriginal thesaurus., to be published by the National Library of Australia in November 1996. It will be launched at the ATSILIRN Conference. The thesaurus will use the ABN list of Australian languages, which is based on the database compiled by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The National Library will use the Aboriginal thesaurus as a source of ideas for improving Australian subject access in the APAIS thesaurus and in LCSH on ABN, where appropriate.

RC19 That, in order to promote bibliographic access to local collection materials, the National Library develop guidelines to assist public libraries and other organisations to create collection level bibliographic records for local collection materials on the National Bibliographic Database.

JUNE 1995

Guidelines have been prepared to assist libraries to create collective records on the NBD for collections of photographic materials. These guidelines to be extended to cover all formats in 1995/96.

JUNE 1996

Draft guidelines for Pictorial Collections were widely distributed by the National Library for comment in October 1995 and the final version is published in April 1996. The guidelines were publicised in ABN, as well as on various Internet discussion lists and in the ALIA local studies newsletter. Guidelines for other formats will be included in WORLD 1 documentation if appropriate.

RC20 That the National Library investigate the feasibility of creating collection level records for oral history collections on the National Bibliographic Database as a complementary project to the creation of the directory of Australian oral history and folklore.

JUNE 1995

The National Library of Australia has examined the proposed data format for the oral history and folklore database, and recommended that the data is not suitable for entry as collective records in the National Bibliographic Database. The National Library of Australia has suggested that a more suitable method of promoting access to oral history and folklore collections would be to have the database hosted on the Ozline network. Accordingly the National Library of Australia has recommended that the database be submitted for assessment in late 1995 with a view to mounting it on Ozline if suitable.


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Last updated 209 July 1998