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

Progress Reports 1994-1996

Section A - Services to Special Communities
J: Multicultural Communities


RJ1 That a national Round Table on Library Services in a Multicultural Australia be established,

AUGUST 1994

There had been no progress on this Resolution by 30 June 1994. However, the National Library of Australia, Cultural and Educational Services Division, has requested that discussion of the Round Table be placed on the agenda for the CASL meeting which is to be held in September.

JUNE 1996

The State Library of Victoria is to host the round table in 1996

RJ2 That State and Territory libraries establish consultative mechanisms (where these do not already exist) linking libraries with State ethnic community organisations, to further develop policies and practices on multicultural collecting and access

1994 - 1996

In 1994, the State Library of South Australia reported open and highly satisfactory communication with the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the SA. Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission (SAMEAC), Mr Paolo Nocella, and with the Arts Development Officer of the Ethnic Communities Council of SA, Ms Isolde Davis. Specific senior level consultation with key agencies and individuals is also occurring on particular matters, such as:

The State Library of South Australia is committed to ensuring there are mechanisms established to link the library with ethnic community groups. Consultative links operate through several teams within the Branch, in concert with the Cultural Diversity Services team. Some of the major activities include:

The Cultural Diversity Services team has been developing closer links with community groups through joint projects, including the following:

Projects such as these not only involve community groups but also give the opportunity to gather their ideas towards State Library of South Australia's future directions in relation to policies, collections and programs.

The State Library of South Australia reported the following further progress in 1995:

During 1996:

Consultative mechanisms linking the State Library of Queensland with State ethnic community organisations have been established.

The ACT Library Service has made no progress to date on this Resolution. It is planned to collect the output of multicultural organisations and individuals as part of the process of developing the collections of the ACT Reference Library.

The Library and Information Service of Western Australia maintains liaison with, and participation on the Advisory Council on Library Services for a Multicultural Society.

At the State Library of Tasmania a review of Foreign Language Service is in progress. A draft will be provided to ethnic community organisations for comment. It is expected that the ethnic community and current clients of the service will be consulted if the service is changed. A proposal to put the previously closed access LOTE collection into open access is under consideration. A collection development policy for LOTE is to be developed. There are on-going informal links with the Migrant Resource Centre and with Ethnic Affairs.

Northern Territory Library is further developing its informal links with ethnic organisations. Policies on multi-cultural collecting and access are being reviewed. The Library is in contact with all ethnic organisations in the Northern Territory regarding the lodgment of appropriate material. Such links are enhanced by formal collaborate ventures with ethnic organisations - within the last nine months such joint ventures have been held in collaboration with the Chinese, German and Greek communities.

At the State Library of New South Wales there is a good and highly satisfactory communication with State and Federal bodies such as EAC, Ethnic Communities Council of NSW, OMA (Office of Multicultural Affairs), Dept. of Immigration & Ethnic Affairs, Dept. of AMES, TAFE and other government departments. Communication is also maintained at a high level with state and local community organisations such as peak community groups and peak ethnic groups.

The State Library of New South Wales's Multicultural Service Consultant liaises with a number of organisations including ethnic community organisations.

In NSW some activities involving ethnic communities are organised through public libraries. The State Library of New South Wales has a consultative role and supports activities in public libraries through its collection including 47 languages. Training for transliteration and cross-cultural awareness training are also provided by State Library of New South Wales.

The State Library has forged links with members of a number of multicultural community groups, actively collecting original materials to document the settlement of these groups in NSW, and providing a range of publishing, exhibition and other related activities to support those links.

The State Library of New South Wales has revised its policies to bring them into line with the NSW charter of principles for a culturally diverse society.

The State Library of Victoria has provided ongoing support and advice to the Slovenian community for the collection and preservation of ethnic heritage collections. It is updating its Directory of ethnic community library collections accessible to the public, which is due for publication in June/July 1995.

The State Library of Victoria has been involved in the recent establishment of a State Advisory Committee to the Libraries Board of Victoria on library services to people with languages other than English. The committee involves both library representation and ethnic community groups through the various umbrella organisations.

RJ3 That the ALIA Board of Education consult with Schools of Library and Information Studies to examine ways in which

AUGUST 1994

The Australian Library and Information Association contacted all schools of library and information studies in February 1994 requesting comments on action relating to this Resolution. They were asked to include examples of how the school's curriculum content and course delivery allowed for cross cultural awareness, and/or recommendations on how this may be best done in education and training programs. This Resolution was referred to the Australian Library and Information Association's Board of Education at its meeting of 6-7 June. Major points regarding cultural awareness under RH5 are relevant to cultural diversity issues.

JUNE 1996

For further action on this resolution, see RH5.

RJ4 That the National Library, in collaboration with the Arts, Culture and Heritage Policy Network of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, seek funds to carry out a survey aimed at identifying documentary heritage collections held in community organisations.

1994 - 1996

There has been no progress by the National Library of Australia on this Resolution.

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, including material held in community organisations.

RJ5 That the National Library of Australia ensure, through the National CJK Project and its National Document and Information Service development, that the need to provide for the scripts and complex diacritics of all major community languages in Australia is addressed as a high priority; with advice from Standards Australia Committee IT/19 on appropriate character sets.

JUNE 1996

The National CJK Service was implemented in June 1996. It supports Chinese, Japanese and Korean script. The software chosen for the National CJK Service is capable of enhancement to cater for other scripts such as Greek, Hebrew, Russian and Thai. In October 1996 funding was allocated for an enhancement to support Unicode, which is the first technical step towards supporting additional scripts. It is expected that Unicode support on the CJK Service will be implemented during 1997. Policy on extending access to additional scripts, for example via WORLD 1 or the National CJK Service, has not yet been determined.

RJ6 That the National Library of Australia report to the ABN Network Committee and ABN Users Meeting on the best ways to extend coverage of records and locations for non-English language materials in the National Bibliographic Database

AUGUST 1994

A paper on this topic was presented to the ABN Network Committee in August 1994. It will considered in November 1994 in context of other data gaps on the NBD.

JUNE 1995

In August 1994 the Network Committee considered a paper by the National Library of Australia on the Coverage of non-English language materials on the NBD, and agreed that it is often not practical for libraries to locate and extract particular categories of data in order to contribute them to the NBD. The Network Committee undertook to develop a single integrated set of guidelines identifying records to be contributed to the NBD, and in November 1994 endorsed a Strategy for improving NBD coverage by the addition of data files. The highest priority initiative in this strategy was the loading of two community language files from the City of Sydney Library and the Moonee Valley Regional Library. Due to the requirement to fund the development of World 1, 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

The National Library is unable to supply funding for loading of City of Sydney or Moonee Valley Regional Library files to the NBD in 1996/97. They plan to await complete implementation of WORLD 1 which will support the conversion and loading of some non standard files to the NBD. This is unlikely before 1998.


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