ABN NEWS With Ozline News


ISSN 1039-348X
No. 82
July/August 1995


In this issue ...

ABN news with Ozline news was edited and designed by Leora Kirwan using desktop publishing software. This publication is issued bimonthly by the Services to Libraries Division of the National Library of Australia. Subscriptions are available on application at the rate of $A40.00 p.a. from:

Editor, ABN News with Ozline News
Network Services Marketing
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600

Unless otherwise specified, for further information contact the ABN/Ozline Help Desk on (1800) 026 155, or E-mail: ABN Help Desk.


WORLD 1: Service for the Future

At the ABN Annual Users Meeting last month, the Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Warren Horton, announced WORLD 1 as the brand name for the Australian service being developed by the National Document and Information Service (NDIS) Project.

In introducing the WORLD 1 name, the Director-General said that WORLD 1 represents the National Library's vision for the future, where individuals and libraries will have enhanced access to world-wide networked information resources from a personal computer in the home, office or library. It will be a one-stop-shop for the efficient search, creation and delivery of information located globally. WORLD 1 will be user friendly and very powerful ensuring a high success rate on searches for even the most inexperienced user.

No matter what physical form the information is stored in, WORLD 1 will provide users with access to it. A key word search on 'Banjo Paterson' could, for example, provide a result that includes descriptions of books, journal articles and photographs. Users will then be able to obtain that information in a variety of ways including ordering a fax of the document or by placing an interlibrary loan request. If it is a full text document, users will be able to view it directly on their PC or print it out. The enormous choice of information in the world therefore becomes one easy-to-access resource.

In closing, the Director-General emphasised that WORLD 1 will be a world class service. By exploiting the latest advances in technology and the skills of the library community, it will provide a service to meet the rapidly growing needs of information workers everywhere.

As the project developing the WORLD 1 service for Australia is a joint venture by the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand, it will still be known by the title, 'NDIS Project'. WORLD 1 is the brand name for the Australian service.

People attending the Users' Meeting were supplied with WORLD 1 brochures, posters, pens and post-it notes. WORLD 1 brochures and post-it notes were also mailed out to all ABN and Ozline customers.

There's more to Family Thesaurus...

A list of new terms, added to Family Thesaurus since the last edition, is available free from:

Belinda Stonehouse
Australian Institute of Family Studies
300 Queen Street
MELBOURNE VIC 3000
Tel. (03) 9214 7888; fax: (03) 9214 7839;e-mail: belinda@aifs.org.au

WORLD 1:What it Will Do?

The WORLD 1 Search service will be released in Australia in August 1996. This will be a powerful and sophisticated service, for use by people in the library, education and research and business markets.

As a one-stop-shop, it will facilitate the efficient search, location, request and delivery of information of all kinds including books, journal articles and electronic documents and images. As a first-time explorer or a skilled researcher, a range of sophisticated tools will maximise the user's ability to discover, choose and obtain information.

The development project for WORLD 1 has been divided into a number of phases, with the emphasis on achieving the fastest and most efficient implementation of services. Phase 0, the analysis and design phase of the project, was completed in March 1995. Work is now progressing rapidly on Phase 1 which will deliver a state-of-the-art search service.

The work done in Phase 1 to develop the information resource and make it accessible to users, will form the foundation for the development of advanced document delivery, gateway and information management services in subsequent project phases.

WORLD 1 Search Service

The Phase 1 service will replace, improve and expand SOFI and Supersearch access to existing ABN and Ozline data. These data will be hosted on WORLD 1 as a single resource linking full-text documents, document images and document descriptions. The ability to search external information resources via transparent gateways will also be implemented, but at a later stage.

WORLD 1 users will be able to conduct a search across the whole of the information resource, choose individual databases to search, or select and search across multiple databases with a single query. It is important to note that as the new system will be implemented separately in Australia and New Zealand, users will not be able to access WORLD 1 and the New Zealand version of the system from a single interface in Phase 1. This will be delivered as part of the transparent gateway service in a subsequent phase.

Powerful search tools

To search this networked information resource, WORLD 1 will provide users with a powerful, user-friendly search and retrieval system. The user interface design will ensure that the full range of features is available directly to expert users, while also empowering the untrained to exploit these features intuitively to conduct successful searches.

Forms facilitating the entry and combining of search terms will be available for novice users. Expert users will be able to enter command line searches directly, using Boolean and proximity operators and truncation devices.

A range of matching options will be offered to users to aid successful searching, including reference structures, alternative spellings, and combining and limiting searches.

There will be tools for navigating to related information stored on WORLD 1 or an external system. A user could, for example, navigate from an APAIS citation to the scanned document image or to linked holdings; or they could navigate from an electronic address to the document itself held on another system.

Phase 1 displays and offline outputs will be available in standard brief, medium and full formats for each database. Brief and medium formats for full-text databases may be dynamically generated as document summaries.

Efficient document delivery

WORLD 1 will support document requesting as an integrated part of the search service. When a user 'sends' the request, it will be downloaded to the current ABN system.

An option will also be provided by certain databases, for example UnCover, for the request to be sent to the database provider, thereby providing a choice as to the speed and cost of delivery.

Users will have easy access to a range of delivery options for search results and documents from the full-text databases. These options will include local printer, e-mail, fax and ftp.

Full document delivery support, including document delivery billing will continue to be offered by the ABN ILL Subsystem until implemented on WORLD 1.

High quality support

High quality support from the National Library, including a help desk, documentation and training, will complement the range of online help and tutorials provided by WORLD 1. A range of other customer services will also be implemented in this first release, including a full user registration system.

Cost effective searching

The effective cost of Phase 1 services will be similar to the current systems; however, more charging options will be provided. A range of subscription, site licence and discount options will enable users to tailor their own packages to suit individual budgets and needs. The exact structures for charging are currently under development.

Easy access

Access will be provided from WORLD 1 to an Internet gateway in Phase 1. This will provide a Telnet facility, hot links via menu options to key third-party systems and access via the user's Web browser or Lynx to the WORLD 1 Web server. Users of Grateful Med software will also be able to link directly to NLM via this Internet gateway. So, although the transparent gateway service will not be available immediately, users will not be limited in their searches.

To meet the needs of the widest range of users, a number of options will be provided for access to Phase 1 services. Frequent or regular users, including search intermediaries and experienced end users, will prefer to use the state-of-the-art Windows-based graphical user interface. This interface will take the form of client software which the national libraries will supply to users. It will perform best on a 33 MHz 486 PC with 8 megabytes of memory.

A World Wide Web gateway to WORLD 1 will be provided to meet the needs of less frequent users.

WORLD 1 Database Services

The Assistant Director-General, Services to Libraries Division, Warwick Cathro, announced at the ABN Annual Users Meeting that the UnCover database will be hosted on WORLD 1 when the service is released in August next year.

UnCover is a rapid document delivery service containing table of contents records for more than 17 000 national and international journals. Although the National Library has provided Internet gateway access to UnCover since July 1994, this will be the first time that a mirror site (i.e. a complete replica of the database) has been available. The National Library has negotiated exclusive rights in Australia to host the entire database, to ensure the highest level of service for users.

Converting UnCover AUSTRALIA from a gateway service to a hosted service will provide the best possible response times. Also, the same interface will be available to search UnCover AUSTRALIA as will be used for all searches on WORLD 1. The WORLD 1 interface will be a state of the art graphical user interface-a point and click front end-similar to the Windows interface. This will enable even the most inexperienced user to exploit the capabilities of the search service.

One of the key strengths of WORLD 1 will be the precise links that it will create between citations, serials and locations. When the UnCover database is hosted on WORLD 1, the article titles on UnCover will be linked to the serial locations on the NBD, thus creating an extensive index to this holdings information.

When a useful article is found through UnCover AUSTRALIA, users will be able to instruct WORLD 1 to order that document either through UnCover in the United States or from the Australian interlibrary loan network. In this way, WORLD 1 will provide a choice, depending on the cost and speed of delivery required.

When searching WORLD 1, users will also have access to a database of Australian document images for almost all articles indexed by APAIS since January 1995. Therefore, when a useful post-1994 APAIS citation is retrieved, users will be able to display immediately a portion of the relevant document on their PC, and then either view or download the entire document.

Annual Users Meeting

This year's ABN Annual Users Meeting in Melbourne was attended by almost 200 ABN and Ozline users, making it the largest Annual Users Meeting to date. Delegates at the meeting heard a number of reports on the NDIS project; this issue of ABN News with Ozline News carries some of them. Once again Helen Livingston chaired the event with expertise and enthusiasm.

The highlight of the meeting was the Director-General's announcement of World 1 as the name for the Australian service. Warwick Cathro described the services and data to be provided by World 1; Jan Rosi outlined progress on the NDIS project, noting the successes to date; and Judith Pearce gave details on some aspects of the project. Tim Shirley of CSC Australia presented a paper on technical architecture and Andrew Wells (Chairperson of the Standards Committee) outlined some standards issues. The Director-General also addressed the issue of governance and advice mechanisms suitable for World 1, with support from Neil McLean, Network Committee chairman. Linda Groom reported on the CJK project, describing the decision to maintain parallel Pinyin and Wade-Giles versions for Chinese records.

Warwick Cathro and Brian Cook, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Information Services, Griffith University, introduced the Joint Electronic Document Delivery Software (JEDDS) project, which is being undertaken as part of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC) Improved Information Infrastructure Program. The JEDDS project will enhance the Ariel software to provide document delivery via MIME or ftp protocols and will develop document viewing software which will be made available in the public domain. JEDDS will interface with the Interlibrary Loan protocol to link document requesting to document delivery. The JEDDS project is being undertaken by the AVCC, the National Library of Australia, the National Library of New Zealand, and the Joint Information Systems Committee of Electronic Libraries Programme (United Kingdom) or eLIB. The JEDDS software will complement the World 1 service in Australia, and will also be implemented in New Zealand. In Australia, the National Library will be licensed to distribute the software to World 1 members, except universities who will be supplied by the AVCC. Support for all World 1 members using JEDDS will be provided by the National Library. ABN News with Ozline News will continue to provide information and progress reports on the JEDDS project.

Copies of the slides used in the presentations on World 1, the JEDDS project and the Australian National CJK Project have been mailed to people who attended the Annual Users Meeting.

Helen Livingston passed on her impressions of the Annual Users Meeting, and comments from people at the meeting, in her report to Network Committee. Her comments, which were generally favourable, included the following:

Following strong expressions of concern at the workload caused by present practices, National Library staff have undertaken to review and change the method of distributing amendments to the Data Preparation Manual. Consideration will be given to ways of consolidating the updates and incorporating them into the body of the manual. If possible, the manual will be made available on diskette and via the National Library 's information server. The need for this review was endorsed by the Network Committee on the following day.

The Annual Users' Meeting passed the two following formal resolutions:

This meeting, recognising the importance, in the context of World 1, of putting users in touch with resources, requests the Director-General to use his good offices to ensure that the document back-up services for World 1 are both timely and effective, and capitalise on the collaboration between Australian libraries.
This meeting, acknowledging the strategic importance of maintaining and enhancing the accuracy and completeness of the National Bibliographic Database as the record of Australian library holdings, requests the Network Committee and the National Library to a) review the system of credits and incentives to users; and b) to continue to work with both library suppliers and contractors to ensure that the contribution of data is maintained or improved.

The meeting closed on an informal note when a presentation was made to Tony Ralli in recognition of his contribution to the meeting, made by asking the most-and most thought-provoking-questions, over the course of the two days.

Network Committee Meeting 17 and 20 July

The mid-year ABN Network Committee meeting was held in conjunction with the Annual Users Meeting, according to established practice. Also following established practice, a major ABN/Ozline user acted as host to the meeting: RMIT Library provided this year's venue. It was the first meeting attended by Maria Cabrera from Marrickville City Library, who was elected to the Committee earlier this year. Major issues considered by the Committee were chiefly related to the Annual Users Meeting, and the NDIS project; reports on both these items appear elsewhere in this issue of ABN News with Ozline News. Other NDIS issues considered by the Network Committee are outlined below.

The Network Committee receives the formal resolutions passed by the Annual Users Meeting and passes them to the National Library for action. This year's formal resolutions include a request for preparation and distribution of more information on World 1 telecommunications options; a request for the National Library to expedite consideration of governance and advice mechanisms for World 1; support for inclusion of the AGPS central register to be included in World 1; and a proposal for more consultation with ILL practitioners to ensure interoperation between local ILL systems and the NDIS system.

NDIS Project

The committee considered detailed planning for the functions to be included in subsequent phases of the NDIS project, and the role of the Network Committee in advising the National Library on this. It was decided that the most effective means would be for members of the Enhancements Subcommittee to be included in the process, and a resolution to this effect was passed. Access to World 1 for schools and remote users was discussed and the committee suggested that the National Library negotiate with the Curriculum Corporation and Nexus, with a view to establishing transparent gateways between the three systems; and that the Library should consider possible mechanisms for linking NDIS to regional systems.

The committee recognises that copyright will be a major issue in the World 1 provision of access to electronic documents, and urged the National Library to commence negotiations with copyright owners and their representatives concerning World 1 services, pointing out the interest that Australian libraries will have in the outcomes of those negotiations. The committee suggested some principles as the basis for negotiation: royalty payment should be broadly consistent with those applicable to the UnCover service; reading a document should not be subject to royalty charges; the concept and practice of 'fair dealing' should be retained; any agreement should have an expiry date of 31 December 1997, or the passage of new Australian copyright legislation, whichever is the sooner; and negotiation should be undertaken in close cooperation with ACLIS.

The Committee also urged the National Library to expedite its review of consultative mechanisms already foreshadowed for 1995, urging the Director-General to ensure that a full range of options for governance and advice is considered. The Committee further advised the National Library of its view that the new mechanisms for provision of advice should be developed in consultation with ABN/Ozline users and other stakeholders.

At the Annual Users Meeting, several delegates indicated their concern that the National Library has not yet published a clear strategy describing options for different service levels for customers and potential customers of World 1. The Committee noted that the National Library provides strong and clear support for the ABN/Ozline hardware requirements and telecommunications and that many users, particularly smaller organisations, do not have the necessary knowledge or support to make informed decisions about their best strategy for migration to World 1. The committee asked the National Library to prepare and publish clear advice on this topic as a top priority.

After hearing strong recommendations at the Annual Users Meeting, the committee asked the National Library to arrange a meeting of ILL practitioners and other interested parties to explore interoperability between local ILL systems and the NDIS system. Also to support the document supply and ILL functionality of World 1, the committee requested the Standards Committee to consider options and opportunities to enhance the accuracy and currency of holdings data, requesting that particular attention be given to the content and format of such data, and that incentives be offered to users to contribute and maintain this data.

The committee noted the two resolutions passed by the Annual Users Meeting; the text of which is given in the report on that Meeting. Discussion about the Annual Users Meeting concluded with the Network Committee passing a resolution congratulating Helen Livingston on her 'expert and enthusiastic' management of the event.

CJK Project to help Australian Libraries Migrate to Pinyin

Australian libraries that use Romanisation in their cataloguing of Chinese material will be able to migrate from the Wade-Giles Romanisation scheme to the Pinyin Romanisation scheme, using the Australian National CJK System. This migration has been made possible by a computer program developed by CJK Project staff Murthy Manchella and CP Tang at the National Library of Australia, and is based on the work of Karl Lo, University of California San Diego.

The program reads bibliographic records in USMARC format, identifies Wade-Giles data in the records, converts the data to pinyin and reassembles the USMARC records. The program will be used by the national CJK system to convert Wade-Giles bibliographic records received from the Library of Congress, OCLC, RLIN and ABN. The converted records will be loaded to a multilingual database of half-a-million Chinese, Japanese and Korean bibliographic records.

Since the National CJK database is about to be built, it is an ideal time to convert the data to pinyin. Some of the member libraries of the CJK system, however, have large numbers of Wade-Giles records in their own library systems, and there are a number of practical problems in converting these to pinyin. These libraries require an assured source of Wade-Giles copy cataloguing for some time to come, while they study the impact of converting their own data to pinyin. For this reason, the Australian National CJK System will provide parallel databases-one containing Chinese records using pinyin, and one containing Chinese records using Wade-Giles. The two databases will be cross-updated and will contain mirror images of each other's bibliographic and holdings data. The INNOPAC software, on which the CJK system will run, has demonstrated its flexibility in being able to support these parallel databases although this requirement was not foreseen when INNOPAC was selected.

While this cross-updating involves duplication and additional work for the CJK project staff, it is seen as essential in allowing Australian Wade-Giles libraries to migrate to pinyin at their own pace. The National Library will make the conversion program available to CJK member libraries to convert the Wade-Giles records in their own library systems.

No date for the demise of the Wade-Giles database has been set; its existence will be reviewed in two year's time.

Australian Education Index (AEI) now on Ozline

We are very pleased to announce that the Australian Education Index (AEI) is now on Ozline. For some readers this database will already be a familiar friend with an illustrious past both on AUSINET-an online network focussing on business and commerce, and on AUSTROM-a CD-ROM covering numerous databases in the humanities and social sciences. We are therefore pleased to be able to offer it on Ozline as well.

This database undoubtedly ranks amongst the oldest in Australia. Coverage dates from January 1978 to the present, making it a contemporary of the APAIS database which started a few months later in April 1978. At present AEI holds 66 000 records with about 4500 coming on each year.

While the main thrust of this database is naturally education, the scope within this discipline is both broad and deep. For example, in addition to mainstream topics such as educational research, teacher education, special education, vocational education, curriculum matters etc., AEI also covers topics related to education in library and information science, psychology, sociology, training administration, labour economics as well as the social and behavioural sciences. Source documents are also broad and varied and include journal articles, monographs research reports, theses, conference papers, newspapers, legislative materials, parliamentary debates and tests.

For those not familiar with this database, there is an opportunity to search AEI free of charge during the month of September. A Fact Sheet, which includes search hints plus other extra information to help you, has been inserted in this issue of ABN News with Ozline News. So please avail yourself of the opportunity and discover the many educational gems available on AEI.

For further information or help with searches, please contact the ABN/Ozline Help Desk on:

Telephone: (02) 6262 1531
Facsimile: (02) 6273 1180
E-mail: networks@nla.gov.au

Marketing team sets the pace

The Network Services marketing team was particularly busy during June and July organising and attending trade display stands at six conferences and meetings. This busy schedule included four events within ten days in mid-July. To achieve this the small marketing team was assisted by other Network Services and National Bibliographic Database staff. The team covered a large part of Australia visiting, Brisbane, Sydney, Darwin, Melbourne and Newcastle.

Asia-Pacific Library Conference

Network Services profile was extended into the Asia-Pacific region with a trade display at the Asia-Pacific Library Conference held in Brisbane from 28 May to 1 June. Over 520 delegates, including 19 national librarians and a sizeable contingent from Brisbane and its surrounds, attended the conference. Altogether thirty-one countries were represented. Interest in the National Library's Network Services developments was high with enquiries focussing, in particular, on UnCover Australia, SOFI and Ozline. While in Brisbane, marketing staff also took the opportunity to attend the trade fair of the Queensland Chief Public Librarians' Conference which immediately followed the Asia-Pacific Conference.

Australian Book Fair

This year, for the first time, Network Services joined the National Library's trade stand at the Australian Book Fair which was held at Darling Harbour from 13 to 16 July. Tom Ruthven and Rob Walls represented the Network Services Branch, alongside National Library staff from the Cultural and Educational Services Division.

Booksellers, as well as librarians, were interested to know what ABN, Ozline, UnCover and NDIS could do for them in a business sense. The Book Fair was open to the public over the weekend with many people stopping at the stand to browse National Library publications, learn more about our network services, and to surf the Internet from two specially installed terminals.

National Library Technicians Conference

Caroline Scharrer and Ursula Hewitt represented the Network Services Branch at the national Library Technicians Conference held in Darwin from 12 to 14 July. The Conference was attended by over 340 delegates from all parts of Australia. This was the first time that a trade fair has been included at this conference and business at the National Library's stand was brisk. Caroline also presented a conference paper entitled 'The National Library NDIS Project to replace ABN and Ozline'.

Ozline Showcase

The Ozline Showcase was held in conjunction with the ABN/Ozline Annual Users Meeting in Melbourne on 18 and 19 July. Eight Ozline database producers attended to promote their databases to AUM delegates. Network Services staff were also on hand to help with demonstrations and to provide information about Ozline. Most delegates at the meeting took the opportunity to talk with the database producers and to explore the databases using one of the three free demonstration terminals which were installed for the showcase. Database producers and delegates all reported that this was an excellent addition to the Annual Users Meeting agenda.

Country Public Libraries Conference

The Country Public Libraries Association (NSW) met in Newcastle on 19 and 21 July. Around 260 delegates from all over New South Wales attended. Caroline Scharrer from Network Services Marketing and Mary Gorman from NBD Section staffed a trade fair stand. WORLD 1, the brand name for services being developed by the NDIS Project made its trade fair debut at this conference with much interest generated by the announcement.

But wait, there's more!

If you haven't yet managed to catch up with the marketing team there are many more opportunities during the next six months. Network Services staff look forward to meeting you and talking about ABN, Ozline, UnCover Australia and the exciting new WORLD 1 service at the following conferences:

Thesaurus in World 1

World 1 will bring new opportunities for thesaurus and authority control. At last the enormous effort which goes into compiling thesauri and authority files will be fully exploited in World 1 to improve online access to information. It will be easier to develop and maintain thesauri and authorities, and there will be opportunities for collaborative effort in the development of thesauri. Let us look at each of these opportunities in more detail.

Support for online access

Easier development and maintenance

Thesaurus development and authority control are among the most costly aspects of cataloguing and indexing, but they play a vital role in the subject approach to information. World 1 will support the development of thesauri and the maintenance of authorities in the following ways by providing:

Collaboration in thesaurus construction

Rationalisation of effort. World 1 will offer opportunities to rationalise the number of different thesauri being constructed in Australian libraries. Margaret Henty's Indexes in Australian Libraries: A Towards Federation 2001 Survey identified several thesauri being used in State, parliamentary and academic libraries. The most commonly used thesaurus uncovered by the Henty survey was the 'inhouse thesaurus'! Given that this survey did not cover special libraries, where thesaurus development is particularly strong, it would be useful to know the extent to which thesaurus development has been going on in libraries. The Australian Committee on Cataloguing will be conducting a survey of thesaurus construction and use in Australian libraries, including special libraries, during 1995/96. This survey, like the Henty indexing survey, has been funded by the Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects, which supports selected projects arising from the Towards Federation 2001 Conference. We can expect the ACOC survey to uncover opportunities for collaboration among libraries, and to shed light on the demand for and feasibility of an Australian thesaurus for implementation on World 1.

Division of work, sharing the load. Thesaurus construction is a necessarily solitary activity, but World 1 will support the joint compilation of thesauri by limiting access to authorised compilers. For example, the Aboriginal thesaurus was compiled collaboratively, with authorised compilers constructing the various parts of the thesaurus concurrently. In World 1, compilers will be able to ensure at all times that their own portion of the thesaurus is integrated with the structure of the thesaurus as a whole.

The next two years

To summarise, World 1 will fully exploit thesaurus and authority data to improve online access. World 1 will allow the creators of data to develop and maintain thesauri more easily, and collaborate in the development of thesauri to rationalise costs. These opportunities should set the agenda for the next two years work in our committees and online discussion groups, so that we have the policies and projects in place by the time World 1 permits it all to happen.

Attention all Cataloguers!

This item is to inform all users of ABN cataloguing records about the NOQ notes you will find in some Australian records.

As you may be aware, since March 1993 we have been producing the Australian National Bibliography from the ABN database by carrying out a Supersearch each month and processing the records through a PC-based system (ProCite and Word for Windows) to turn out the printed and microfiche versions of ANB.

A key part of the record selection is the NOQ note, which is along the lines of NOQ/a/ANB 95/06 (this appears in Supersearch as LISTED IN: ANB95/06). This note is added by the National Library's Australian cataloguing team, as items are received by this library and judged to meet the selection criteria for ANB. It is added to original cataloguing and, as we add our holdings, to records for items catalogued by a limited number of other Australian libraries (hence the Contributed Cataloguing notes in ANB). To ensure all material within scope for ANB is picked up by our regular Supersearch, it is important that other cataloguers do not remove or amend the NOQ notes in records.

If you have any questions about the Australian National Bibliography, please contact Angela Brown, the current editor, on (02) 6262 1163 (email: abrown@nla.gov.au)

Profiles of Full Service Users
James Cook University of North Queensland

James Cook University is located in Townsville, with campuses in Cairns and Mackay. The library was established when operations commenced at the University College of Townsville in 1961. It has been a search and products member of ABN since 1985, and recently upgraded to full membership.

The main library, at Douglas in Townsville, also supports a library service at the Vincent Campus which caters for the Music and Art and Design departments. A branch library, which recently moved to Smithfield on the northern outskirts of the city, was established in Cairns during 1987 to provide services for the expanding Cairns Campus of the university. Library support staff are also located in study centres in Mackay and Mt. Isa.

The university library has formal cooperative relationships with the libraries of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and the Health Sciences Library of the Northern Regional Health Authority. It continues, together with the State Library of Queensland, newspaper companies, and local government authorities, to fund a project to microfilm North Queensland newspapers.

There are 380 000 monograph titles, 5200 current serial titles and 65 000 nonbook materials (including 3700 scores) in the library's collection. The collection supports the diverse teaching and research activities of the university with specific interests in applied science and engineering, life in the tropics, and marine science and technology.

The library has a special collection of North Queenslandiana, which it aims to acquire exhaustively. The monograph holdings in this collection have enhanced subject data which are searchable through a separate index on the online catalogue. A range of important archival manuscript material is held, including the Jean Devanney Collection and business records from companies involved in the North Queensland pastoral and sugar industries. There are plans to provide bibliographic access to these archival materials in 1996.

The library has operated an automated system since 1975. Card catalogue conversion was completed in 1987 and all catalogue records are now included in the online catalogue TROPICAT. Since 1990 James Cook University Library has had a Dynix system with automated acquisitions, cataloguing and circulation. The serials module was added in 1993 and a project to convert the current periodical subscription records from the KAL to the online database was completed in 1994.

The library began using ABN as a dial-up member, for reference enquiries and copy cataloguing, with MARC records requested through the tape service. Library holdings have been notified to the National Bibliographic Database since 1992 when an initial retrospective load of 161 000 holdings was added. Today the library uses AARNet to access ABN for all the services, including the downline loading of MARC records and participation in the Interlibrary Loan scheme.

University of Technology, Sydney

The University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) is the fourth largest university in New South Wales. The university library comprises four branch libraries, located on three campuses, and services the information needs of 21 000 students (49% of whom are part-time) and 2 000 academic staff members, as well as 500 staff and students of the Insearch Institute of Commerce and the Insearch Language Centre. Reciprocal borrowing agreements with other university libraries, TAFE and Unilinc members extend the range of the Library's clients.

The library houses over 600 000 books, journals and audio-visual items. It collects in a wide range of subject areas including architecture, business, computing science, design, education, law, leisure and tourism, life sciences, mathematics and nursing. In order to support user needs arising from the diversity of courses, the library is increasingly moving into electronic formats, both online and CD-ROM. The vast information resources of AARNet and the Internet are also being exploited.

A team of Faculty and School liaison librarians, in partnership with academic staff and the Library's Information Resources Division, is committed to providing a quality information facility. Services offered by the library include loans, reservations, intercampus document delivery, interlibrary loans, reciprocal borrowing, electronic research seminars, user education and information retrieval services.

From December 1994 to February 1995, the library implemented the Innopac system (provided by Innovative Interfaces Inc). Innopac is run on PCs and Macintoshes over the UTS network. This system has enabled the library to provide greatly enhanced features in the online catalogue and to offer academic and support staff access to the system from their offices or laboratories.

The library, which has been a search and products member of ABN, became a full service member when the new system was implemented. For the first time, library staff have been able to incorporate downline loading from ABN into the workflow of the document supply and cataloguing staff. After ABN training, the cataloguing department will begin contributing original cataloguing to the network.

UTS Library is particularly eager to contribute records for its own post-graduate theses to the ABN database.


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