National Library of Australia Staff Papers, 1997

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Ensuring Long Term Access to Online Australian Publications: National Library of Australia Initiatives

Margaret Phillips

Abstract


I want to tell you about the work we're doing at the National Library of Australia towards ensuring long term access to online Australian publications. The written version published in the conference proceedings outlines what we'd done up to the end of last October. In this presentation I'll summarise the written paper and deal in more detail with what's happened since.

On the screen now there's an outline of my presentation. After a brief introduction, I'll list the Library's initiatives and then go on to describe them in more detail.

I scarcely need to tell this audience that the role of libraries in the era of electronic publications has been the subject of much debate. At a time when library budgets and staff numbers are declining, the prospect of coming to terms with a new, resource intensive format is an enormous challenge. Nevertheless, the National Library considers that its responsibility 'to maintain and develop ... a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people'[1] embraces electronic publications. We're arguing that they are new business and are requesting additional funds to manage them.

As you all know, there are two types of electronic publications: physical format items such as CD-ROMs and floppy disks, and online or networked publications. While the National Library has also been working towards developing a national collection of physical format titles[2], this paper deals with what we're doing in relation to online publications.


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